Every day we are faced with a myriad of decisions: paper or plastic, beer or whiskey, left or right hand, cracker or toast; life certainly is complicated. Even in snowboarding, an activity pursued as a means to escape daily life, we are constantly making decisions: frontside or backside, groomers or glades, powder or ice (some decisions are much easier than others). How often, however, are you faced with a decision that will impact your future ability to ride? You might just be surprised at just how often we are faced with just such a choice and by some accounts make the wrong decision. When it comes to making choices about the environment, as snowboarders we should probably tend to those that won't make the planet warmer. We like snow, so global warming should be a severe pain in our collective asses. Although when faced with certain choices, that decision isn't quite so easy. The answer might not be obvious, so how do you come to a decision?
Recently a colleague sent me an article explaining how, by reducing our consumption of meat by 10%, we could reduce our CO2 footprint by up to 25%. The premise being that factory farming practices are responsible for the creation of massive amounts greenhouse trapping gasses via the release of methane from bovine bungholes. Who knew our ability to shred could be so affected by flatulence (fart jokes: they're not just for the juvenile anymore). This idea of reducing one's carbon footprint by eating less meat is by no means a new idea, vegetarians have been arguing this fact for years. There is a gaping hole in this argument, however, which is often overlooked, namely the point of origin of our food.
I have much respect for people who choose to be vegetarians. In fact, for a period in my life, I myself was vegetarian although it caused me to become under weight and sickly (I'm too lazy to want to spend two hours a day cooking good vegetarian meals that will keep me from losing weight). If being vegetarian works for you, that's great, there are many advantages to a non-meat diet. A smaller carbon footprint, however, is not necessarily one of them. The reality is, that pretty much anywhere where you snowboard there's winter. This means that for a good part of the year, the basic elements of a vegetarian diet are not available locally and must be imported. This usually involves trucks which are heavy emitters of greenhouse gases thus negating the reduction in cow farts.
For more significant reductions in your personal carbon footprint than cutting meet out of your diet, you should look to buying locally grown food whenever possible. I'm pretty sure this would have a much greater impact on the environment in general as well as bolster the local economy. Besides the real culprit is not diet but mass consumerism and the lengths industry goes to in order to support it. By eliminating factory farming, Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market would do what it should and give beef it's proper natural price (which ought to be much higher than it is now). Increases in the cost of beef would be a significant step toward reducing our daily intake of it (in developed countries, people typically eat about 224 grams of beef per day whereas in Africa most people consume only about 31 grams per day), not to mention a decrease in cow farts thus ensuring a continued state of winter.
I realise that this is straying somewhat from the topic of snowboarding, however, this relates back to the old adage of thinking globally and acting locally. This can be interpereted as meaning that the global impact of your daily decisions should be taken into account. For example:
- Left or right hand? Try the stranger, it feels like someone else is doing it.
- Cracker or toast? Here's an idea, avoid the circle jerk in the first place.
- Frontside or backside? Surprise me.
- Powder or ice? Jeeze is there really a decision to make here?
What's important is that these are things that should be kept in mind when faced with choices, namely the more global impact of even the smallest decision. I'd like to be able to keep snowboarding for many years to come, so I'd hate to feel even partly responsible for the disapearance of winter thus negating my ability to...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
