SPARE SOME CHANGE

Today, we are all about risks, change, and transformations. Am I talking about pre-adolescence or business?… I guess you are going to have to read on to find out.

Rivers and Roads

A TALE OF TWO FEBRUARYS

Last year at this time, we were in the tropical paradise of Kauai, Hawaii. This year, we are in the desolate frozen rangelands of Wyoming. 

The snowfall is delicately frosting the wide sweeping ridges, and the sky is a bright blue. It is 20º F outside. In the sun, it feels 35º F, and in the shade 5º F. There are more cows than people. Few plants grow. I can easily imagine us roaming across the bottom of an emptied ocean rather than across a state in the western US. This is no coincidence, as this area of the US was underwater for a bit of history. The incredible diversity of geological formations is largely due to dramatic changes between volcanic, land, and water environments over time.

This same time last year, we were in one of the most lush ecosystems in the US on the island of Kauai. It was warm and wet rather than cold and dry. We started the week off with camping at the Anihola and Anini beaches, hiking the Sleeping Giant at sunrise, and celebrating my cousin's birthday with a wonderful dinner at Bar Acuda. We got rained on, met many chickens, and ate some delicious Hawaiian food at Waipouli Deli & Restaurant. We walked into the deli sopping from the rain and were so glad to have a warm meal. We knew we were in a good place because multiple families came in, and all greeted each other and the staff with open arms. This was their spot. After we sat down and ordered, the power went out, and the rattling and buzzing of machines came to a silence. We looked around, but almost no one missed a beat. The families were chatting loudly as usual, and our host came over to us and said she had no idea what caused the power outage but not to worry about getting our food. I watched an older woman head back into the dark kitchen with a little battery-powered lantern, and about 10 minutes later, she came out with some piping hot food. I relished the little feeling of seeing everyday Hawaiian life. 

In Wyoming, we were finishing up a leg to Steamboat Springs, CO, and Jackson Hole, WY. Having been a pretty low snow year, we were lucky to get hit by a snowy front in both Steamboat and Jackson. Powder days bring such childish joy. Giggles come out unconsciously. There is a thrill and suspense every time I plow through a powder pile. Who knows if it will be as soft as it looks or if there is going to be a rock or a tree stump ready to leap out and snag a ski, leaving me flat-faced in the snow, skis tangled behind me?

In Hawaii, the second half of our week was spent hiking along the Napali Coast to Kalalau Beach. 22 miles round trip, this hike was majestic. Since we were there in February, it was much wetter than in other parts of the year, making it easier to get two of the highly sought-after permits. We saw rainbows around almost every corner and came upon goats, chickens, mating frogs, mosquitoes, coconuts, and limes. The water, the lifeblood of this place, was powerfully humbling. The first river crossing took multiple tries and was thigh-high. The crawler’s ledge, a narrow path cut in steep, jagged rock around mile 7, was windy and slick. The waves at Kalalau Beach were so strong they churned up the sand with no time to settle, resulting in quicksand. Even though it looks solid, if you step on it, you end up sinking down to your knees and thinking you are going to get sucked into the ocean forever. While all these things were unique and challenging features of the trail, they did not exceed the difficulty of the MUD. There was a thrill and suspense every time I stepped on the slick mud. Who knew if my feet were going to get a grip or if I was going to slide down the mountain face and off the cliffs into the ocean below?

Last night, we had the coldest sleep to date. Unlike our previous cold camping night, where we were able to plug in our electric blanket at a designated campsite, we instead were dispersed camping and had no facilities, utilities, or commodities outside of what we brought with us. The evening began at 1º and bottomed out at -14º. I brought up the heated blanket and our external battery to warm up our sleeping bags. But 1 hour in, I realized it had already used up half the battery power and could not be counted on through the night. So we put on our Fjallraven winter parkas—jackets so thick they were designed with the intention of making it impossible to feel cold in them—and crawled into our sleeping bags. My body—quite warm. My feet—freezing, even in down booties. My breath moisture froze as it left my mouth and fell back down on me as snow. Any hair sticking out of my parka hood was frozen solid. My mind calculated the worst-case scenario. We had plenty of fuel in the car, so we could turn the car on and warm up inside. If the car didn’t start, we could heat up bottles of water on the stove and stick them in our tent. If we ran out of propane, we had hand warmers and the insulation from our coats and sleeping bags to make it through the night. So things were fine.

Last year, we were aware that the fine red clay of Kauai, when wet, gets very slippery, so we packed spikes to fix on our shoes to aid in grip. I brought old spikes used for walking on icy trails in Ohio. We approached the crawler's ledge and met two hikers walking in the other direction. They had turned back at a mudslide area up ahead and bid us caution. My spikes were caked with mud to the point that they were more slippery than my actual shoes, and I decided to take them off (after losing one and having to retrace my steps for about 30 minutes). We turned a corner and spotted the slope. The only evidence of the trail on this orange 45º slope was a thin exposed root system that people had apparently held onto to prevent from sliding down. The section was devoid of plants and cascaded downward, eventually dropping into a cliffy ocean. Unfortunately for us, it had sprinkled moments before, so there was a fresh layer of slick, wet mud. My mind also calculated the worst-case scenario. My boots would slip, and I would spread my weight out and clutch onto the roots. If those didn’t hold, I also brought a stick to slow my fall if I were sliding. If that didn’t work, I’d end up in the ocean or have hopefully decided to turn around already. We proceeded. I dug in my boots, held on to the roots, and cautiously balanced each step, praying that friction would help me out and hold. It did. After we passed that spot, we were home free as the sun was getting lower in the sky and the golden hour was setting in. We made it to the beach, our home for the night, just as the sun passed below the horizon, giving us quite the show. 

I was thinking of Hawaii while lying freezing in our tent in Wyoming. It gave me some warmth. But uncomfortable nights can happen anywhere. In Hawaii, we forewent hotels for the sake of $6 camping permits. There were a few nights that were hard to get dry and clean before getting into the sleeping bag. We had to sleep in the dirt and sand sometimes. We showered at the public beach showers. But these uncomfortable nights are what allow us to have such magical days. Whether those days are busting through fresh snow on skis or watching the sun glow pink as it sets on a tropical island, it’s the highs and lows, the ebbs and flows, that keep me coming back for more.

Hot Topic

IS GROWTH SUSTAINABLE?

Admittedly, I know much more about our ecological systems than I do the complex inner workings of our economic measurements and international relations. But I do have very real frustrations with the way we measure wealth, growth, and progress.

Sustainable Development Goal #8 is Decent Work and Economic Growth. “Decent work” has two functioning parts in my mind. One is work that allows us to meet our basic needs. The other is work that is fulfilling to us beyond just meeting our basic needs by utilizing our own unique strengths and interests. Maybe it is the American millennial in me speaking, but I believe that both are important. A world where everyone can meet their basic needs and work to their strengths in ways that make them happy seems like a better world than a place where basic needs are met but people are deeply unhappy, or a world where people are catatonically happy but that happiness is short-lived because their health is poor and basic needs are not met.

So what is standing in our way?

One problem is the incentive for exploitation based on how we measure success. If “growth” (measured by Gross Domestic Product, GDP) is the goal, then it is in our interest to use more lumber, burn more fuel, and increase our population so there are more people producing products. We, in turn, do not fully measure and pay for the value or cost of the resources we can get away with exploiting. Sometimes, what we exploit is natural resources, like water and forests; other times, it is people.

Another problem is how we think of growth itself. Most people think of growth as making more money. And we all know how that ball gets rolling—how wealth begets wealth—and how with wealth comes increasing power to exploit others. But if that wealth comes at the cost of someone else’s well-being, we shouldn’t consider it growth.

Sustainability, not growth, must be the goal due to our planetary boundaries in industries that involve material consumption. How we make shelter, goods, food, and energy must be balanced with what the earth can provide for the long term. We can pursue infinite growth in industries that are related to our physical well-being, intellect, and relationships. However, progress might be a better term than growth for this. We can progress our societies by improving education, sporting abilities, health, and relationships with people and things increasingly distant from ourselves without growing our population.

Technology is a sector in which people aspire to have infinite growth. It is what many people looking for sustainable investments tend to focus on. But too often, we think of improving technology as a way to make money quickly or simply gain business prowess and control. Every single success of technology that I can think of has improved our ability to build meaningful relationships with people and things further from ourselves. Every pitfall of technology is that which does the opposite—distance and divide people. Think of communications technology. It is amazing and wonderful to be aware of things that are happening around the globe. But when digital communication is designed to make more money by harvesting attention and feeding into people's subconscious attention biases, people’s ideas become siloed, radicalized (because extreme ideas are attention-grabbing), and divided. 

If you are working in a technology field, try to frame what you do in terms of how it brings people together. Things like weapons development or things that take away from forming human connections—simply shouldn’t be considered growth. 

How do we know if we are moving in the right direction?

As opposed to measuring our success in GDP growth, there is a different form of economic measurement that considers how we are doing at meeting basic needs AND how well we are operating within our planetary boundaries. This is called doughnut economics, and it is a way to measure the balance of our economic systems. The idea is that we do want to see people grow out of poverty by investing in health and education, but we want to do so while limiting excessive living expenditures that are pushing to exceed our planetary boundaries.

One way we can achieve a balanced doughnut is by improving our resource use efficiency and eliminating waste. Other key leverage points are transitioning our energy, applying regenerative agriculture, reducing inequalities between countries in the world and within countries, and achieving gender equity. Working toward these objectives is increasingly valuable once we let go of the obsession with infinite growth. The hope is that they might serve as niches where people can find decent work and personal fulfillment as well.

Things You Didn’t Notice

HOW DO CLOTHES BECOME IMMORTAL?

Many people think that growth is what makes living life interesting and purposeful. We want to be bigger and better than we were yesterday. But that is not exactly the case. Life follows patterns, as does much of the universe, and I think that people get growth confused with change. Change is what keeps us interested, it is what we go through day in and day out. Life ebbs and flows; sometimes we win, and sometimes we lose. But everything has a season. This idea of change is perfectly exemplified in our clothes.

For most of history, people have worn clothes. It is amazing to think about how little has changed in the concept yet how much change has occurred over time. Though there are exceptions, we can almost always think of clothes as an extension of the function of skin—lightweight, thin, and non constraining of our limbs. But the trends, the styles, and the materials have seen incredible ebbs and flows. Some styles come back, and some rest in history.

Unfortunately, at present, the clothing industry is one of the most wasteful materially speaking. But it makes sense because people use clothing to express and reflect changes in ourselves, and we are ever-changing. One way to cut down on waste is by wearing the same clothing for years on end till they reach the end of their usable life. Another option is to ensure that a piece of clothing changes hands till it reaches its end of life, as opposed to getting thrown out after the first user is done with it.

The difficulty with these options is that trends change. So we need craftspeople to use old clothing materials to make new clothes that people want to keep wearing, particularly with synthetic fabrics that never break down. I am incredibly impressed and inspired by the following people who are making cool clothes from old clothes, cutting down on waste, and creating new value.

After Always Apparel

I feel quite a bit of distance from the makers of my clothes. But seeing these people create wonderful and interesting styles from thrift old clothes gives me a little more appreciation for the craftsmanship and malleability of our clothing. If these people can piece-wise sweatshirts together, I could probably stitch up the hole in my shirt armpit and prolong the evolution of the clothes I wear rather than turning them into the landfill.

Refresh

• Household: Go down the rabbit hole with me of all the obstacles there are for immigrants to get decent work.

• Mentality: Your next conversation-accidentally-turned-debate starter: would a universal basic income make people lazy or more creative?

• Health: Who knew the act of getting up from sitting on the floor can improve longevity? Here are other natural movements to be cognizant of and incorporate in our daily lives.

• Community: Who here has an idea for a front yard business? I think I have about 20. I just need a front yard first.

Mouthwatering

FANCY CORN

We love to make buckets of this on the road. It’s easy and delicious.

Ingredients:

• 4 ears of fresh corn, husked or big bag of frozen corn

• Extra-virgin olive oil for brushing

• 1½ tablespoons mayo (or vegan mayo)

• 1 garlic clove, minced

• Zest and juice of 1 lime

• ⅓ cup chopped scallions

• ¼ cup crumbled Cotija or feta cheese

• ¼ cup finely chopped cilantro

• ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika or chili powder

• 1 jalapeño, diced

• ¼ teaspoon sea salt

Game Time

TOO GOOD TO GO

Try out the Too Good To Go App to discover new spots and rescue food from the landfill at the same time.

This app connects people with restaurants that have surpluses of food they need to get rid of and will sell at a major discount. You can gameify your takeout by matching the time and place of these limited drops and then reap the reward of great food at a great price.