We do pollute!

I went on a four-day hike in King's Canyon, California. Although we encountered few people on the way, the authorities warned us the water may contain harmful bacteria caused by people and animals defecating too close to the rivers.

I also went on a four day trip canoing in the boundary waters of Canada/Minnesota. There were even fewer people there. The area was pristine except for the rare shred of candy wrapper. And when we portaged (carried our canoe from one body of water to the next), we could see the footpaths were worn down to the dirt by our predecessors. It was clear that just by walking there, we were altering the environment. A tennis shoe pattern here, a broken blade of grass there. Multiply it by the billions of people on Earth and you have the unavoidable realization that we are going to alter the environment merely by existing. None of it is natural because we humans are the definition of what is not natural.

Returning home, my need for products and services that consumed energy and resources increased from those brief trips. Fact is, you can beat yourself up trying not to break blades of grass or leaving shoe imprints or bacteria in your wake, but you can't avoid it. I like to conserve resources (and I know how to do it) but I don't like to be militant about it. There is no way to reach the ideal, so I am not going to be an environmentalist. But I do wish young people would stop throwing fast food wrappers, cups and beer cans out of their cars. I live on a highway and I have to pick them up every week in the summer.