The Joy Trip Project

Typically political action can take shape only when the general populous is rallied and motivated to take a stand. When it comes to building awareness for issues of environmental protection it’s especially difficult because those regions most in need of protecting are usually far away from the public eye. That’s why an organization called the International League of Conservation Photographers goes out into some of the most remote habitats in the world to document the current condition of delicate ecosystems at  risk of destruction.

"I've been working in the Sacred Headwaters region since about 2009, now," said ILCP photographer Paul Colangello. "And really briefly, the Sacred Headwaters is where three salmon bearing rivers all begin in one region of Northern British Columbia. So it's the Stakeen, the Skeena and the Nass. It's also home to one of the largest predator prey ecosystems in North America and it's the traditional territory of the Tahltan first nation."

Paul Colangelo is one of several members of the ILCP working to protect the Sacred Headwaters of British Columbia. This region is among the largest temperate rainforests in North America. But over the past few years it's been flooded with proposed resource extraction projects. The biggest of which is Shell Oil's million acre, coalbed methane tenure right in the heart of the headwaters. Others include an open pit gold and copper mine and a mountain top removal coal mine.

But the push back among the local population has been fierce. Approximately 1,500 members of the indigenous Tahltan nation have raised a lot of public awareness through blockades and sit-ins. They were actually able to stop Shell, the second largest corporation in the world.

"Well somewhat stop them," Colangelo said. "They achieved a four year moratorium. But this will be lifted in december of 2012. And so we've been working in the area. That's when the ILCP got involved too and produced a RAVE."

A RAVE is a Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition. A team of world-class photographers like Colangelo along with videographers and journalists go into endangered regions such as the Sacred Headwaters and work to tell its story.

"We're trying to bring the Sacred Headwaters to people, because it's so remote," Colangelo said. "Most people even living in British Columbia have never even heard about it. So we're pretty much just trying to raise awareness. And we're hoping to get people's support for the protection of this area."

Paul Colagello’s work along with eight other members of the ILCP culminated in a book written by National Geographic explorer Wade Davis called Sacred Headwaters Sacred Journey. I had a chance to talk to Colangello back in 2011 during the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Alberta Canada. There he shared the story behind his amazing photographs and the RAVE launched to protect this remote region at risk.

 

JTP:

Tell me a little bit about what a photographer does to help facilitate the preservation of these wild places.

Colangelo:

Well number one would be bringing places to people were they can't see it. You can read about a spot, but you're more likely to have a, you know a real connection and a reaction and waiting to save it if you actually see it. And then, I mean, after that, I mean, after you get to know and get, you know really deep into these issues and you get to know a region you can spot other potential problems and then make people aware of that even beyond photography. An example of that is Okanagan Mountain just this past December, the B.C. Government permitted just about the entire plateau for mining, exploration mining. And this mountain happens to be the home to the worlds largest lambing herd of stone sheep. And so I mean in 2001 recognizing the value of this herd the British Columbia government actually protected their winter habitat which is the slope of the mountain. And then they turned around and permitted the actual plateau for mining. So it's things like these, and when you hear about it beyond photography you have to get it out there. And you know working the area as a photographer you're just, you become, you know some of the first people to hear about these issues. So there is, there's definitely a role beyond just taking pic, photos of the...

JTP:

Can you give me an idea of what the RAVE process is? When you put together a Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition how do you stage that? How do you make it happen to produce this body of work?

Colangello:

As I understand it my role as a photographer is that, um, you know is mainly in the field. But as I understand it from the planning process, once the IOCP has an issue that they've identified that they would like to get involved with, first of all though, they'll try to identify what the end product should be, what they want to accomplish through the RAVE and work backwards from that. They figure out what they need and then what they need to produce that. So then they start looking a specialties of photographers, so that can aerial water camera traps and then also where the photographers are from. They want people who are local, who know the region, but then also as I understand it people from far away, because you know, if you have a group of say B.C. photographers shooting in in B.C. that's one thing. But if you have a photographer coming in from Mexico, photographers coming in from the States all of the sudden it's a lot more interesting and there's more opportunity for media buzz. And so that I believe plays a role in it as well.

JTP:

So if it weren't for a RAVE how would people find out about this?

Colangelo:

That's the thing...it would be really difficult. It was definitely in the papers. And you know even things like the swim, people hear about it then it definitely generates interest, but again you're missing, you can't see what they're talking about. You just hear that it's a really pretty spot, there's three rivers, there's salmon, there's people. But then there's no connection. And so you know, the ideal thing, if everyone could get there and see it, we wouldn't need the photos and that would just be perfect. The photos would just be for the pamphlets and what not. But people can't get there and so this is only way realistically for people to actually see it. In all of these conservation expeditions I think photography just plays a huge, huge role in connecting people to what the issue is.

JTP:

So in an  installation like this at some point I have to assume that your government, governments around the world will start enacting legislation to either protect or to allocate licenses to extract in these areas. How important are these images in terms of directing public discourse to either support or deny claims of either preservation or extraction.

Colangelo:

There's two things there. When people see the images and hear about the issue the first thing they usually ask is what can we do. And it's...the number one thing is speaking up and letting the government and the companies know how you feel about it, because hear where there are not many voters in the area, there's not many people to tell them that. So that plays a huge role. And it may seem insignificant, but signing a postcard, I don't know the exact number, but one of the environmental organizations collected so many cards that they were able to ship say 30 a day for nine months or something like that. So that has a real impact. Otherwise, they're not going to hear from anybody. And so it might seem frustrating, it might seem insignificant, but it can make a huge change. But then also you're talking about if you can actually reach the decision makers with the image, I meant that's a whole other thing. Like they say the images themselves aren't going to change the world but they might inspire someone who can and so if you can get these up on government buildings or anything like that and it's just there's that potential too. It doesn't happen as often but the potential there and it's really important.

JTP:

So at the end of the day is there anything you want people to know about this project and your work to create these images?

Colangelo:

Yeah, it's not just an environmental issue. It's an issue of respect. There's people here who's already had an incredibly difficult time with the culture. The first nations' history in Canada and they're trying to preserve it. And this is such an important part of their culture. it's their backyard. They describe it as it being their kitchen and so it's not just rivers and animals. but it's like someone coming in and saying, you know taking a piece of your culture that's important, your church, your school, whatever. And so it's human rights too and because there is such a small number of them we need to help just by speaking up against them.

You can learn more about the International League of Conservation Photographer's efforts to project the rainforests for British Columbia online. Visit Sacredheadwaters.com. There you can see a few of Paul Colangelo's incredible photographs or purchase a copy of the book.

Music this week by Chad Farran 

The Joy Trip Project is possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company. And special thanks to the Walton Works who helped to underwrite travel expenses to Banff so I could bring back this and other great stories. Visit thewaltonworks.com

 

 

 

Thanks for listening. But you know I want to hear from you. So please drop me a note with your questions comments and criticisms to [email protected].

In 2003 Aron Ralston was brash young man looking for adventure. But while exploring the slot canyons of the Utah desert he found himself trapped miles from home deep within a underground chasm his right arm crushed and pinned by a massive boulder. There he lay stranded with no hope of rescue for five days. Rolston’s story was portrayed in the 2010 film 127 Hours starting James Franko.

Actor James Franco as Aron Ralston in the film 127 Hours

In order to escape from circumstance that would have meant certain death Ralston was forced to amputate his own arm. But he would go one to inspire millions through his incredible story of survival and perseverance through his bestselling book Between a Rock & a Hard Place. Ralston was the keynote speaker at the bi-annual meeting of the Conservation Alliance during 2012 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market in Salt Lake City Utah.

Immediately following his presentation I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his ordeal and what inspired him to live to tell his story.

JTP: Many people have seen the film and have read the book. The film is called 127 Hours. And the book is called Between a Rock and a Hard Place and it tells your story of a very harrowing experience in the Utah desert. I'll leave it to other people to get an idea as to what it is that, that story meant to them, but perhaps you can give me an idea. In the film, how accurate was James Franko's portrayal of your story? What did they get right? What did they get wrong?

Ralston: Well I worked with the film team for seven years as it was to take it all the way from when I wrote my book to turn it into a script and then selecting a director and working with them to choose James as they did to depict me and my experience. And even working with James then to coach him through the actions. He's admittedly not an outdoorsman and to get him familiar with the desert, to get him an understanding of my experience. Not that he was trying to impersonate me so much, but to take an audience through my entrapment, the psychological aspects of the ordeal that I endured and then the liberation, the release, the triumph of it all too. And I thought it was very accurately portrayed, both from the overarching emotional stories, the themes that they highlighted about love and family and also the very physical and factual aspects of it too, all wrapped up in this extraordinary film adaptation of my experience. I think that people who watch it they know what I went through. You feel it really as you watch the film. So I was extremely pleased with what they did. I was that the point where I'm watching it with my sister a couple of times and as she's seeing it for the first time she's like elbowing me and slapping me on the knee saying , "That's so you! They totally nailed it!" Even with my family they saw how genuine it was and to do that and at the same time really make a film that moves people? That's not an easy thing. You usually have to choose one or the other, but they got it both. They got this amazing film, I thought very powerful and inspiring and then also sometimes resonated with my experience that showed that genuine portrayal. Even with my faults, somethings I'm not necessarily proud of, mistakes and foibles as they are. I couldn't have been happier.

JTP: Your experience was both physically and emotionally traumatic. Can you give me an idea, can your subscribe for me what was the greatest moment of despair for you?

Ralston: I think that the darkest point of the entrapment came after I had eliminated all my options of escape and was really left with still the idea that I could amputate my arm. It's just that I wasn't desperate enough yet and then as I became more desperate on the third day I tried to cut into my arm. I couldn't even cut through the skin. I felt despair and thought I'd bottomed out at that point. But then later on the fourth day I had this kind of epiphany of sorts, that I could take the knife and hold it like a dagger and try to stab myself to get through the skin. And as I was successful in that, I had this moment of elation. But then just as equally, the turn around was then I touched the bone in my arm with the knife blade tip and I knew that I would never be able to cut through the bone that was there. I could probably have sooner carved through the rock itself with this knife, which I had tried and tried and tried and failed at. That was I think the lowest point was to know that, that there was nothing now that I could do. All options had been exhausted. No one was coming for me. No one knows where I am. I can't move the rock. I can't cut my arm off. And it just meant that I was going to die there. Absolutely, assuredly I was going to die there. And it wasn't that I was procrastinating, to figure our how to cut my arm off. It was just that I'd tried and tried and tried and I couldn't. Then a turn around on the fifth day was that I actually came to a place of acceptance of that. And so in a way it kind of got better as the time wore on. The fourth day was probably the darkest moment, but still I was able to turn on my video camera, talk to my family, my parents, my sister, my best friends, all of these loved ones in my life, and I felt comforted. And it buoyed me up. It should me I was getting along, I was surviving, not just on the physical elements, even of the absurd level of drinking my own urine, but it was reminding myself of the great memories of my life. To be able to say thank you, to feel the gratitude and the love that was there in my life. And if that's all that I got to have, I've had it pretty good. That peace, that gratitude, that is what I felt then through what I know finally came what I knew would be the end, the final night, which was the final night not because I had perished but because I had another eureka experience and understood how I could get out even with a knife that's too dull to cut through the bones.

JTP: What I find fascinating is that you went through the complete arch of despair to acceptance and at that point I have to assume that you came to peace with the choices that you made, with the life you had decided to lead. But through the course of your story you also experienced a vision in which you met in your imagination your future son, Leo. Can you tell me, how did that experience shape your ability to survive and live? And could it be that, that vision helped you to decide that you had a future?

Ralston The vision absolute showed my that I was not going to die in the canyon. And it was powerful experience that came at a time when I knew that I was going to die that night. I was convinced of it. I'd even etched my epitaph into the canyon wall. And then date chanced and I didn't even bother to change it because was knew that I was not going to see the dawn. It was just a matter of fact. I was going to cross over and it was only a matter of minutes. And then this experience, this out of body experience, this vision, this premonition of my interaction with what would be my future son, this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy. Even the details of the red collared shirt, the polo shirt playing with his truck on the living room floor and then scooping him up in my arms and him coming to me as though I had just come home from a trip. And that showed me, it rekindled the hope that I had given up. I had even at that point had given up hope that I would ever get out there. It showed me that I was going to see it through in a positive way and he gave me the courage. This little boy gave me the courage to make it through, and then as I figured out how to get free it was the most beautiful experience of my life, to escape that place, to be free, to be liberated and to have all the joy and happiness and delight of my life as a possibility again, to have him in my life today. He's two-and-a-half and he's such a beautiful experience that I get to have the honor and the privilege to have him and to be that little child from when I met him 9 and a half years ago, to have him from that vision 9 and half years ago to today is this experience. I know some day we'll go out there and we'll go see the canyon, take a look at that place where I met him for the first time and have something that we share in a kind of like a metaphysical way it could tell me that there's so much more to this story, even as it is, but this life in general for all of us. Then really just what appears at the surface. There's some very deep energies that we occasionally tape into, kind of lifting the vail of what's underneath all of this. But it takes a lot of sometimes the extreme circumstances of life or death to get to that point of where all the day to day gets striped away and you get to that core that's behind the mist. So yeah that aspect of the experience is probably the most profound and then also the most touching still. I get choked up because I know today that if I had to do it all over again, yeah I would cut my other hand off in order to try to get back to him.

JTP: This might be a slightly more difficult question: You're probably familiar with Christopher McCandless, the character in the Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild. He had an experience that could be compared slightly to yours. Unfortunately he died. And I'm curious to know if you've given any thought to how your story might have been different should you have perished?

Ralston: Oh, undoubtedly different. And yet his story inspired me, even from beyond the grave in it being shared as Krakauer's book was a story that I read and in the years far before my entrapment. It inspired me to get out there. Amongst several of Jon Krakauer's other books included Into Thin Air and then other survival stories, adventure stories, misadventures. Most often the best stories are where something terribly wrong has happened. I think that's just as inspiring to lead me out, to leave my job, I almost idolized Chris McCandless in a way,...

photo by Nick Berard

Recently I was asked to create at story about outdoor recreation for the Wisconsin Public Radio program 'Wisconsin Life'. With such unseasonably warm weather I managed to get my stand up paddle board out onto Madison's lakes earlier  than ever before. So I went out on Lake Wingra with my digital recorder to gather sound and an experience to write a short essay. ~JEM

SUP Wisconsin

​Spring has come early to Wisconsin this year. It’s a warm day in March when I strap my Stand Up paddle board to the roof of my car and make the short drive to Madison’s Lake Wingra.

Winter’s ice has only just retreated and the clear open water ripples beneath bright sunshine. So early in the season the boat docks haven’t yet been put in place and I’m among the first to venture out.

​Eleven feet four inches long, my board eases in to the chilly water. Dressed  in neoprene booties, Lycra tights and a life jacket I hold the board steady with one foot, the other planted firmly on the wooden pier as I adjust the length of my paddle. I push away from shore with a gentle kick propelled just a little by a light breeze from the south.

​I’m a little out of practice after the winter, so it takes a few strokes of the paddle to find my center of balance on the board, to set my feet. Within minutes, though, I find that familiar rhythm as I sweep the blade through the water past the tall brown marsh grass and freeze-dried cattails along the shore. Standing tall above the water I can see swaying lake weeds beneath me and schools of blue gill that dart out before the rushing surge of my board.

​Faster now, the wind at my back, the lake’s current carries me toward the far shore. With a starboard turn I paddle along the beach front … locking breath and pulse to each stroke … building first then settling to a sustainable cadence.

Turning again into the wind I set a course straight in the direction of a distant tree. Matching each sweep of the paddle left side, right side and back again the blade balances the arch of travel to pull evenly through the water ever forward. Canadian Geese honk with encouragement as I go past and a family of ducks scatters, taking flight.

​With this lake all to myself I feel uniquely part of a great whole. Surrounded by water and wildlife, astride my board,  I too can fly like the birds . And as the sun slowly sets, I can see on the horizon many more great adventures on the lakes and rivers of Wisconsin.

 

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia

For most of his life wildlife photographer Florian Schulz has fought to protect the diversity of animals species around the world. Working in the most remote region of the planet he’s tracked and documented the wild birds of Mexico, big game animals of the African continent as well as the migratory patterns of caribou in the Alaskan Arctic. And it’s in this frozen region known for its vast featureless landscapes where Florian has followed and photographed the great Polar Bears of the northern hemisphere.

Florian:

It’s really a land of extremes both in temperatures but also in the survival of animals in these harsh environments. And for me that is so intriguing, how the natural world is able cope and adapt to such extreme places. And I found it anything else but a barren wasteland.

With patient study after long months in the field Florian has come to a profound understanding of nature’s most delicate balance. By observing large animals musk ox, wolves, moose and grizzly bears he hopes to make those who see his photographs realize that all of these species have a direct relationship with each other, the land and in no small way the survival of humanity.

At the bi-annual breakfast meeting of the Conservation Alliance at the 2012 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in Salt Lake City Utah Florian Schulz was the keynote speaker. Shortly after his presentation he shared with me how he first came to forge an intimate relationship with the harsh and forbidding environment of the Alaskan Arctic.

Florian:

I realized once I gave the land some time, once almost I got invited in I was starting to be able to see and document things that I would have never dreamt of seeing. But I have to be honest that you won’t go there and immediately just see everything. I mean it’s definitely important that you do spend the time and you don’t too big expectations because it’s a vast open place and wildlife sometimes is very dispersed.

JTP:

I think that’s actually one of the most compelling things about your work in that not unlike ice it takes a long time to develop. You have to slow it down. I’m interested in finding out how it is that you were able to slow yourself down enough to get a full appreciation for the minute changes that you wouldn’t necessarily see instantly just by being there. How did you find yourself even able to work in the solitude of that area?

Florian:

I think as a photographer you have it a little bit easier because if you are dreaming of exceptional images that kind of really occupies you. So if it’s a question of how do you get the patience? How do you go to a remote location year after year even though you haven’t been successful in finding the caribou for example? It is because you are envisioning these most spectacular images and that gives you so much excitement that you’re willing to go through the millions of mosquitoes, the freezing temperatures where you’re just really suffering. But that fascination with the images kind of let’s you endure all of that. But I don’t care enough about the suffering like that because you get rewarded with the view of an iceberg underneath the water or, you know, a view of thick bill murres diving as if they were penguins going down into the depths of the ocean. So yeah it’s rewarding. That’s why you can endure it.

JTP:

The work that you’re doing helped to establish a program called Freedom to Roam and the primary premise as I understand it is to create wildlife corridors through which animal species can successfully migrate for mating, for the gathering of food. How is it that you came to understand the necessity for the establishment and maintenance of wildlife corridors?

Florian:

If you think about Europe and how chopped up for example the last natural areas there are you very quickly realize that any large predators life wolves, grizzly bears or even things like lynx they get dramatically reduced. They go extinct and so on if these natural areas become small and smaller. When I did a lot of work in Yellowstone I realized that even a park like that, if it’s not really connected to other natural areas around it where for example grizzly bears can go beyond the park’s boarders to find food like white bark pine, or bison for example. In the winter time the snow doesn’t allow them to get to the food that they leave the park. If that doesn’t work any more the animals inside the park suffer. And over time the diversity in the park will go down. Yet at the same time within the Freedom to Roam project that I’ve been working on which is Yellowstone to Yukon, Baja to Beaufort and even in Mexico rainforest to reef you have to think beyond just the simple migration routes. You have to think that natural areas need to be connected because even plants migrate. Even insects migrate. So one has to realize that nature only does well if it’s embedded, if it’s a web of life, if it’s connected. And I almost call some of these corridors or connection routes almost as if they’re the roots. For example to a national park that gives the national park the vitality. And if it doesn’t have that embedded interconnectedness with the surrounding natural areas even the animals in a protected national park the diversity of animals will go down.

JTP:

That’s actually something you can see, you can observe. Through the course of your work I think what you’ve done is raise the awareness for even the necessity for such a thing. What do you think is most import for people who have the ability to help establish these corridors? What do they need to know to maintain the stability of these animal populations?

Florian:

I think that what everybody needs to know is that if we want to maintain beautiful large fauna around like big mammals whether it’s bison, elk, moose and grizzly bears wolves, any of these spectacular mega-fauna we need to think in the new way which is connectedness, interconnectedness, wildlife corridors. So I think the next most important step is that we establish a term. That’s why I’ve been promoting the term National Corridor. Because what I figure is for example with Yellowstone in 1872, the first national park was created. And it was the first time a term, national park. Now the idea has spread around the world and we have national parks everywhere. If we could do this for wildlife corridors and call them national corridors or national wildlife corridors and define it, how a corridor needs to look. And it could have certain land use happening there, but the most important thing is that the habitat gets protected. If we could establish national corridors as a term, define it then that idea could spread around the world. I think these are the two really important things.

JTP:

You travel with your wife Emil through some pretty dangerous areas and you had the opportunity to interact with quite a few different animal species. What was that relationship like in terms of working with your wife to both take the pictures and also study the animals in these areas.

Florian:

Because often I’m seriously out for months at a time it would be terrible if Emil my wife and I wouldn’t often go out together because I wouldn’t see her for several months. To be out there together as a team is really wonderful because you may see something beautiful out. You may discover a bird. You may have any observation of a behavior or an animal and you can share it with your partner. And just by sharing it, by wording it, the whole experience becomes more special, more beautiful. And you will be able to recall it later on too and recall this very beautiful experience you both shared together. Now of course sometimes people say, ‘how is it possible? You are sometimes together 24 hours a day for several months at a time. How come you are not hating each other or like screaming at each other all the time?’ But I think the passion for just being outdoors as well as for the wildlife connects us so well that we are so excited about observing the animals that the other issues that normally might come up are just not very big.

JTP:

Is there anything in particular that you’ve learned or any life lessons that you’ve come away with personally from your work both as a photographer and as a conservationist?

Florian:

I think that if you’re in conservation and if you look at the status of the planet right now often it can be really, really depressing. And at the same time we know that we humans are only a very unimportant thing in regards to life on earth if we think long term. That I now sometimes dare to relax a little bit and say you know what? We can’t manage or change everything. If we keep ruining this planet this way who we will hurt in the end is us as human beings. But I’ve now translated it into a more philosophical and ethical fight let’s say. Because I want to fight for keeping the diversity of life on this planet, but more because I find that we as humans should really understand that that is one of the greatest values and the greatest beauty of this planet. So even though if we keep destroying this earth the earth will recuperate if we think long-term in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. But right now I feel a responsibility, especially thinking of my child, that I want to do whatever I can to fight to maintain this beautiful diversity on this planet.

Florian Schulz produces a wide variety wildlife photography multi media. Check out his last video called Visions of the Arctic. You can learn more about his work online at Visions of the wild.com

Visions of the Arctic from Florian Schulz on Vimeo.

 

Music this week by new contributing artist Kelly Carpenter

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia. Check their latest conservation and new media initiatives on their blog the cleanestline.com. Additional support is also provided by the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market. Discover new technologies, products and services for your next great adventure all under one big tent....

For companies in the Outdoor Industry day-to-day operations that protect and preserve the environment naturally make good sense. So-called green business practices are meant to be sustainable, using a minimum amount energy and mostly renewable resources to create the products and services that drive our economy.

And for Andrew Winston it’s become abundantly clear that despite any political and social ideology that espouses the virtues of capitalism above all else green technology in commercial manufacturing and production is the best way to for businesses of every variety to assure their long-term profitability and prosperity. Having begun his career as a traditional business consultant Winston said he started taking a closer look into how business and the environment might work together.

Winston:

So I went back to school for an environmental management degree and decided that I wanted to marry business and the environment and figure out how to combine my business background and what was just an interest and passion about resource use, what the foundations of business really are, which is stuff and material and how we’re using too much of it. So it came from a place of practicality and profitability almost, even more than traditional quote tree hugging. That was just about business can't survive like this. And that means our society can’t.

 

The author of two books Green to Gold and Green Recovery Andrew Winston was the keynote speaker at the biannual breakfast meeting of the Outdoor Industry Association at the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in Salt Lake City Utah. There he shared with an audience of true believers his view on the importance of sustainability in business and why in the long run really there is no alternative.

 

JTP:

One of the things I find fascinating about your conversation is that you talk about issues, especially issues that you describe as “TINA Issues” And that stands for “There Is No alternative”. What are a few examples of these TINA issues? And what do they mean when it comes to reducing sustainability costs?

 

Winston:

Tina I’m really using in the broadest since. In dealing with climate change, dealing with biodiversity loss, dealing with waste,  there is no alternative. We don’t have a choice any more for a lot of reasons and the forces driving that include just increased resource cost and reduced resource availability as the number of people on the planet who are getting richer grows. There’s just not enough stuff. That’s sort of the obvious one. But there’s also transparency, the technology driven demand for knowing what’s in everything. And so this just opens up companies and they have to start talking about what they’re doing. And that means they actually have to start changing what they’re doing. You can’t be transparent about a process that they you don’t want to be a transparent about. So it means that you start changing products, what’s in it? Who made it? Where was it made? Were they paid a living wage? These things start being open to the world. So there is no choice. You can’t compete in a world where your customers, especially big business customers won’t put your products on the shelf if they don’t have the data, if they don’t know how it was made.

 

JTP:

And you refer to certain technologies that allow consumers to very quickly and easily determine how much of an impact these particular products have. But you also said that we’re a point right now where green will always be small because people aren’t prepared to pay for something that is just green. If that’s the case, at what point do we shift our thinking to such a way that we will go to a sustainable product as opposed to something that’s just green.

 

Winston:

Well, let me clarify that. What I said was the number people who pay more just for green with remain small. And that’s partly out of just ability to. Not everybody can afford to buy organic food or a more expensive car that has the hybrid or electric engine. So there has to be a more complete value story told by products and that might mean that we develop products that don’t have trade-offs, that don’t cost more. That’s what you see companies starting to do. What is becoming a vast majority of people is those that do want it all, those who are conflicted about it, that care about where their products came from and who made them and want for the same price and quality the greener more sustainable option. And so that is growing to nearly everybody. So that is another one of those TINA things. You can’t not play in this arena if you’re a company putting out a product or a service, because everybody is going to be looking for those dimensions. And it’s a tiebreaker in so many ways. And so I think the difference between green and sustainable is a semantic one in a lot of ways. You know I think sustainable encompasses probably a little more social issues, labor, than what people usually mean by green. By people use them pretty much interchangeably a lot of the time.

 

JTP:

And I think that some people in the business community shy away from green because it sounds like its expensive. It sounds like it’s irrelevant to their bottom-line. But you make the point that green is actually good business. Exactly how do we as business people determine that green makes good sense from a production standpoint and also from a retail sales standpoint?

 

Winston:

At its core, the most simplistic view green is about doing more with less. As one CEO said to me, without getting into climate change or taking a stand on it he said, “Isn’t better to produce less carbon than more?” It just costs less. Anything that isn’t used in a product, any thing that’s pollution is waste. That’s expense. This is really basic stuff in a lot of ways. Getting lean to save money and save it quickly, in things like…We’re discovering the inefficiencies in our system, in our buildings in our distribution are vast and we’re finding massive savings and very quick paybacks. And that’s just straight business value. That’s even including all the softer intangible value that does matter to the value of business, employee loyalty, customer loyalty, walking the talk, doing the right thing, these things that attract, especially the next generation, of workers and consumers and enable you to tell stories about where your products come from. So it’s good business because it’s getting incredibly expensive to not do this. I think that’s become very clear to companies. And again, going back to just resource prices, just the inputs. As I mentioned in my talk, Coca-Cola had spent $800 million more last year on corn for their products because the cost of everything is basically going up, fundamentally going up. So if you don’t figure out how to do things with far less stuff you’re just going to get priced out. It’s going to be too expensive for you to operate.

 

JTP:

You describe the importance of companies becoming lean, smart, creative and engaged. And through the course of all that you’re also recommending exercising just good business practices. It sounds to me like you’re pretty optimistic with some degree of recovery. Is that accurate in my assumption?

 

Winston:

Optimism is a tough one. I made that my New Year’s resolution this, was to be optimistic. I think you need to be optimistic in the longer run. I think the short run is harder. I mean we’re heading in the wrong direction on most metrics. But you don’t hear a large company in the world any more completely dismissing sustainability because again, they’re seeing their input prices rise. They’re hearing the questions from their customers, from their employees. There is no alternative, right? There’s no choice. The number of companies that I think see how deep the change needs to be or how fast things are going to change I think that number is still very small. So I’m optimistic in the long run yes, that we’re going to get this and we’re going to get it, right? And the world’s moving to a green technology. I mean the electrical grid will be mostly renewable based at some point. It’s a matter of how fast. You know? The economics  on that will win out and it will be cheaper. Fundamentally it’s already getting cheaper in many areas to use solar or to use wind or do these kinds of things. So that’s going to be the cheaper option. It’s just a matter of is it fast enough to stave off some of the worst problems we may face.

 

JTP:

You started your conversation with the issues of politicizing the green economy and green issues. This is a question that just occurs to me but I’m curious to know if you can speak to this with regard to the production of fossil fuels and having fossil fuels be the core if not the basis of our entire economy. Is it possible to make a shift to a more green-based sustainable system and forgo our petroleum-based system in a quick and easy manner?

 

Winston:

Well like I said, we will get there. The economics are already starting to win out because again I’m fairly simplistic about economic on things like this. Renewable energy has zero variable cost. Meaning, once you’ve got it on your house, on your building, get the wind farm up, it doesn’t cost anything to get fuel. That’s not true of fossil fuels. You’ve got to dig it out, you have to mine it, you got to refine it. Over time, zero cost will win. There’s upfront costs. There’s technology. We have to bring down the cost as we get to scale. But that’s happening very, very quickly. The cost of solar is down two-thirds or so in the last four or five years. I mean it is coming down very quickly. The quick and easy part is where the political stuff comes in. The industries that are still fossil fuel-based, the industries that are producing those, they have a lot of power and they’re sitting on a lot of assets. There’s also two different questions here. There’s the electric grid and there’s mobile sources, you know cars. And those are two very different conversations....

When it comes to adventure writing the sharpest literary minds draw on the subject matter they know best. Author Angie Abdou brings to her latest book themes from an ancient English text first made popular in the middle ages.

"I was a medievalist in a past life, which is a weird thing to be," Angie said at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. "But before I took up fiction writing I taught medieval studies."

You may remember from courses in English lit the classic travel stories known collectively as the Canterbury Tales. Written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century it’s a dark ages joy trip that follows the path of Christian pilgrims on their way from London to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral in Kent.

"And I think for people who haven’t read Chaucer they think it’s a classic text and that it must be serious and religious," Angie said. "But Chaucer is a raunchy, bawdy, wild, wild text. And I always like the idea of how it might manifest, or turn into a contemporary novel, because he’s writing social satire of the whole breath of medieval society. And he uses the devise of a pilgrimage to bring together diverse groups that wouldn’t otherwise spend time together. So he has the fighters and prayers and workers and women and men and upper and lower, people who would normally never interact, but they’re together for the space of this pilgrimage. And so he’s able to satire the whole group. And so I thought where I live, what’s a pilgrimage? And it’s the back country ski-touring trek."

Set in the fictional town of Coalton, somewhere in the Canadian Rockies Abdou tells in her book the many stories of mountain people. Drawn to a remote ski lodge by the last big snow dump of the year, these stereotypical nature lovers gather to offer up a bit of social satire on those who lead an active lifestyle.

"So you have the redneck snowmobiles and the pothead ski-bums and the snowshoeing hippies and they’re all…this developer guy who wants to cess out the territory and all the different groups from my town are headed back to the backcountry," Angie said. "So I get to get them together and I put them in the same hut in the back country and see what happens!"

The tales are every bit as raunchy, bawdy and wild as anything Chaucer ever wrote. And in the classic style of the medieval poet Angie Abdou shares a comical story our own lives in adventure she calls The Canterbury Trail.

Music this week by Jake Shimabukuro

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of our sponsor Patagonia. Discover their conservation and new media initiatives on their blog the Cleanestline.com. And special thanks to the Walton Works whose support underwrote travel expenses to Banff so I could bring back this and other great stories. Visit the Walton Works.com

Thanks for listening., But you know I want to hear from you. So please drop me a note with your questions, comments and criticisms to [email protected].

If you've ever wondered how you might become an explorer for National Geographic believe it or not it can be as simple as attending a seminar.

At the 2011 Banff Mountain Film Festival ‘Cold’ took the grand prize. Climber, photographer and filmmaker Cory Richards also took a few minutes to tell me about his life now making movies on the highest mountains in the world.

Writer and former director of the Banff Mountain Film Festival Bernadette McDonald has new book that offers a unique perspective on high altitude climbing in the Himalaya. As the author of several titles on the subject she’s well regarded in the international mountaineering community. And back in 2003 she came up with an idea for this latest project at an adventure film festival in Poland.

“And as most ideas do, this one began at a party,” McDonald said.

 

It was the after party of this festival and McDonald was in the clubhouse of the Katowice Mountain Club. She knew a number of these climbers from her years working at the festival. But in this particular situation she was sort of swamped with them, she said. There were dozens of climbers in this clubhouse and there was a lot of energy in the room.

 

“But it wasn’t just about the festival. It was about a community of the hardest core climbers I had ever seen in my life,” McDonald said. “And the stories that I heard that night, the passion and the depth of their history in the mountains absolutely astonished me. But the other thing that struck me was that it felt like it was the end of an era because a lot of the best of those climbers had already died in the mountains. It felt a bit like an Irish wake. That’s the way it struck me and I thought there was a story here. Because the situation in which they grew up, the conditions, the hardships that they endured were so different than anything that I had ever experienced and more different than most people I knew had experienced. And I somehow felt that those two things were linked.”

 

From the mid1970s through the 1980s Polish climbers dominated the Himalayan mountaineering scene. This generation of adventurers rose up from the horrific occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II only to be subjugated afterward by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. For thousands of young people at that time the mountains were their only escape and many of them ventured far away from Poland into the high of places of Central Asia where they distinguished themselves among the best alpinists in the world. In her book Freedom Climbers Bernadette McDonald tells their story.

Music this week by guitarist Alex Chudnovsky and singer songwriter Cheryl B. Englehart

 

The Joy Trip Project Adventure Media Review is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia and The Walton Works

On NPR’s All Things Considered veteran public radio reporter Alex Chadwick tells an intimate story of environmental activist Tim DeChristopher. Before he was sentenced to two years in federal prison for an act of civil disobedience DeChristopher and Chadwick spent several days together on a whitewater rafting trip.

Chadwick: Every time you write a piece you have to kind of figure out what the piece is about what the story’s about. I actually finished this piece before I really understood what it’s about. It’s about two guys in trouble who go done a river.

DeChristopher had been convicted of disrupting a Bureau of Land Management auction of oil and gas drilling leases on property adjacent to two national parks in the state of Utah.

Chadwick: So he was waiting to be sentenced and I was going through struggles of my own that had to do with the loss of my wife and I my just feeling lost and kind of uncertain about really everything. And the two of us go down this river together and just have an experience and adventure.

Chadwick had recently lost his wife National Public Radio producer Carolyn Chadwick. And on the invitation of river guide and activist John Weisheit he and DeChristopher made a long journey down the Colorado River through the rapids of Cataract Canyon. In the time that hey spent together two men shared their stories in a piece for radio called the Descent. On this trip DeChristopher ponders the sacrifices we he made, everything he’s given up to protect the environment.

DeChristopher:

And I started to accept that in a lot of ways I have nothing to loose by fighting back because I’ve already grieved the loss of everything that can be taken away from me.

Chadwick:

Everything. Carolyn loved being outside. She loved the rivers, the west the way the night ski here makes star galleries. We were coming some day. We were coming to the river and she wouldn’t be scared. She was afraid of her end sometimes. But she almost never showed it. She didn’t want to talk about it. I’m on this journey because of her. John Weisheit knows what I lost and he thinks the river is transformative, healing maybe. I’m carrying a recorder and making notes and talking with time out of habit, or maybe to learn that I still can.

Clearly Chadwick hasn’t lost his touch. And in the Descent he paints a picture of DeChristopher that provides an alternative view of the calm serious activist so willing to lay down his freedom.

 

Chadwick:

I saw on the river a different side of him a lightness a sense of fun and pleasure and laughter that’s absent from his life in Salt Lake City as an activist. He had a good time on the river. He had a really good time as did I.

--

You can listen to Chadwick's piece the descent on the KCRW public radio program Unficitional, with a revised version also available at the NPR show All Things Considered.

Music by Max Carmichael

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia