GETTING HOT IN HERE

The summer days have been spent playing in the giant playground of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. From the Telluride Bluegrass Festival to visiting Guanella Pass and hiking Mount Bierstadt (a 14,065-foot-high mountain), there’s been no lack of entertainment.

Rivers and Roads

Have you ever been on a 300-person backpacking trip? It is a hoot. 

As a Leave No Trace Traveling Team, my favorite event of the year, by far, is the Fjallraven Classic—a 30-mile, 300-person backpacking trip around a loop just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. At about 10 miles per day, this event is a great way to introduce people to the world of backpacking in a supportive environment and welcome people from other countries to experience what natural beauty Colorado has to offer. 

Fjallraven, a clothing brand out of Sweden, hosts “Classics” or organized backpacking trips around the globe in 7 different countries. Each has a different draw. The U.S. is the highest Classic in elevation. So for those who fly in from sea level, it can be a daunting hike. But the nice thing is that all of the planning and food is provided for and you just have to show up with your backpacking gear.

Throughout the event, our job is to talk about how to minimize our impacts as such a large group. This means we talk about poop and bears a lot. We help people understand how to use a WAG bag (a bag used to pack out human poop in places where burying is not an option) and why it is important to protect our food and smell-able items overnight. We get people comfortable asking questions about poop so nobody gets left in a sticky situation. And then we help people find sustainable campsites and use bear cans to protect their food from animals. 

This event amazes me because the community built by a company is tangible. It is a luxury backpacking trip and it does cost money to attend. But everyone there is so excited to share their experiences with others from all over the world. There were folks from Sweden, China, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Korea, Great Britain, and Taiwan. Not only do we get to know each other simply through the act of backpacking, but we also share a handful of meals. If you have ever been backpacking you know how good real food takes while on trail. It tastes even better with great company. There was shrimp salad, meatball sliders, and beet and feta toast on the first night before departure, freshly cooked lasagna while on the trail, and a big BBQ grill out the afternoon we finished. It is the most well-fed I have ever been while backpacking and I will remember the food and the people fondly.

Hot Topic

WARMING WARNING

It’s hot! 

We have been on the move, trying to reach higher elevations to get out of the heat. Often it doesn’t work very well and we have to find someplace indoors to work. Heat makes me very sleepy. It is the same tired feeling that my body gets when it is fighting a fever. Funny how that happens, whether 101 on the inside or 101 on the outside… it is brutal.

In a combination of watching Alone and Life on Our Planet on Netflix, listening to Game of Thrones, and running away from the heat in a gas-burning car, I have been just bombarded with grappling with climate change. I know…those are weird things to prompt that sort of reflection when it is also hurricane season and fire season. But whatever the reason, I do find myself a bit more numb to the idea of climate change compared to 5 years ago. Whether it is because the concept isn’t exciting anymore, or because I see the division that what to do about climate change sows in our society, it just is a looming part of life now…just like TikTok.

“That’s bleak, why don’t you just deny climate change, so you can live a cheery life like us!” says some climate change denier in the back of the room. To that, I’d say that some days, I do let my own selfish life experience take front and center. But to deny human-powered climate change in its entirety is to also deny our empowerment to take tangible steps to help people and creatures affected by our actions. To be honest, I think that climate change deniers are just like little babies who cannot connect the fact that when they poop in a diaper, they have to sit in it. They either want us to be fine sitting in poo, saying it’s natural, or expect the poo to be gone right away even if they are pooping more and more often. The thing is, the mature thing would be to learn to go to the bathroom. Let’s use what we know, innovate, and build a culture of not having to sit in poo.

If we all recognize that the speed at which we emit greenhouse gasses compromises mother nature’s ability to adapt (clean up the dirty diapers), then we could cooperate to teach everyone the value of minimizing our emissions (a toilet). The final step is teaching people how to take steps to minimize our emissions (how to actually use a toilet). The actionable steps are too numerous to cover in this letter, but many can be found in the Fifth National Climate Assessment.

The worst thing about climate change is that the poorest people, those who contribute the least to climate change, are hit the hardest by its effects. Rich carbon-heavy people with cars and multiple houses can hide inside during heat waves, their shelter is going to be the strongest in storms, and they can afford increases in food prices. Others cannot. People are going to be increasingly displaced as the world changes faster, so let’s be grateful for what we have and help out our fellow humans.

We cannot live very well Alone (see Netflix series). Even in places with bountiful food, well-trained survivalists, alone, often end up in a starving competition, the winner of the show aided by putting on weight before the show starts. In Life on Our Planet, Morgan Freeman narrates over 500 billion years of life across Earth’s history. There were such dramatic changes in life forms that at first glance you think, well of course life will evolve to adapt to the changes in climate. But then you realize that those climate changes happened over 100 million years instead of 100 years. The human experience is such a small blip, it is fragile and worth protecting. We might be arrogant to think that our intuition can protect our species’ survival, but we make it even harder for ourselves with so much infighting. Our diversity is what makes us strong. It is also a valuable ecological trait that increases our resilience to biological challenges. In Game of Thrones, (I’ve only read the first book so pardon my limited knowledge) many families backstab for power, but that fighting is all so unimportant compared to the looming threat of winter. The realm would be much stronger under a cooperative leader because they could actually prepare for winter instead of fighting. But the shortsighted issues take their attention.

But here I am, driving around a car for work. Making the world a little hotter. So it’s also up to me to plant some trees, buy less stuff, vote for representatives that will help out the earth, turn the lights out when I leave a room, and motivate people to eat more veggies.

Here’s to looking at climate change with a child’s optimism so that we don’t lose sight of doing something about it.

Things You Didn’t Notice

SOMETHING’S UP WITH THE FISH

If you have a background in science or engineering, you may have been taught how surface area and volume are interrelated. Digging back into the depths of my memory of AP Biology, I recall that a lower surface area to volume ratio compromises the ability of cells to distribute nutrients and get rid of waste. This same ratio is considered when analyzing heat exchange capabilities. For example, as a cell grows bigger, it becomes more difficult for it to exchange nutrients from its surface. It is more difficult to expel waste and regulate temperature. 

Well, that concept goes further… in fish. There have been concerns that fish are getting smaller as the ocean temperature increases because their metabolism is less efficient. This is particularly interesting in the lens of climate change. This idea that fish are getting smaller has been widely scrutinized because there are so many adaptations that animals can have to adjust to temperature changes. That makes it very difficult to study broadly. At first glance, it seemed like fish were getting smaller because of overfishing the larger-sized fish, which is certainly the case in some places. But in a study where fish were raised in controlled environments, the fish grown in warmer water grew smaller. 

And it is not just fish, salamanders get smaller in warmer conditions. Crustaceans too. The surface-to-volume ratio and temperature can affect both body size and appendage length. But it is not all gloomy—there is also a balance to it. Fish are shrinking but becoming more numerous. 

My first thought was, woah, does that mean that I would be better suited to the heat if I were smaller? Will global warming make people smaller? The short answer is no. There are too many socioeconomic factors that affect body size over temperature. It is suggested that there is a benefit in the fitness of an organism to be smaller at warmer temperatures, but this is often an adaptive response that happens over the course of one’s lifespan. That means that as organisms are exposed to warmer temperatures over time if they have no other way of coping with warmer temperatures, they grow smaller.

Refresh

• Mentality: Reflect with me a little longer… here is our Japan Trip video including some of the places we went and things we ate!

• Household: The complicated nature of green investing.

• Transportation: If anyone wants to lend me one of these, I’ll teach the world how to go on road trips in a commercially available solar-powered vehicle. This vehicle looks so cool and I want one.

• Community: After spending the last few weeks on a backpacking trip hosted by a clothing company and an RV rally hosted by an RV manufacturer, I am amazed at just how deep some companies’ community runs. How can others follow suit? A company community comes in all shapes and forms.

• Health: If you are watching the Olympics like me, you may be equally inspired to take up 5-6 new sports. But one thing almost every athlete does is resistance training or weight lifting. Not only does muscle mass help keep your heart strong, but it prevents injuries and can protect joints. Particularly for women, the practice of exercising beyond body weight or cardio can be a huge asset for longevity down the road. 

Mouthwatering

SUPER POWER BEANS AND PEAS

Whenever I go to the grocery store and I see frozen shelled edamame—I just buy it before knowing what to do with it because it is a hot and rare commodity. Not every grocery store has it. I must be opportunistic. The next step is scouring the internet for a decent recipe.

This one is a gem. Not only edamame but chickpeas as well make for a pretty fueling salad.

Ingredients:

• 6.5 oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed (1/2 of a 15oz can)

• 1 1/2 cups edamame, shelled and cooked

• 1 red bell pepper, seeds removed, diced

• 1 small english cucumber, diced

• 3 green onions, white and green parts chopped

• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

• 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

For the Lemon Tahini Dressing:

• 1/3 cup tahini

• 1 lemon, juiced

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• 4 Tablespoons water (more or less depending on the texture of the dressing you want)

• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

• Salt and pepper to taste

Game Time

The OLYMPIC GAMES are going on right now and the stories are incredible. I have shed a tear once or twice.

Follow the USWNT as they take on Brazil for the gold medal match. See the gymnastics recaps. Watch people run really fast and then get weepy about it. If you are not emotionally invested in all that is the Summer Olympics, then you are missing the best high-pressure reality show meets survival show meets love island we get only once every four years.