Category: The outdoors

Hiking, camping, canoeing – if it’s an outdoor adventure, it should be under this heading

Re-jacketed

I once again have cause to praise the excellence of Mountain Equipment Co-Op as well as W. L. Gore & Associates. Two years ago, I got one of their excellent but now discontinued Aegis rain jackets. Recently, I noticed that a patch on the back near my right shoulder was starting to de-laminate: the Gore-Tex was coming apart from the nylon.

I took the jacket into MEC today to ask if there was any way to stop the patch from spreading. They told me that Gore-Tex has a lifetime guarantee that their jackets will not delaminate and that they would refund me the original purchase price. I used it towards a new MEC Synergy Jacket. It is dramatically lighter than the Aegis and has waterproof zippers instead of flap-covered ones. The only obvious downside is that there are fewer and somewhat less capacious pockets. The new jacket is less cumbersome and takes up less space in a pack. It is also made from Gore-Tex Pro Shell, which is supposedly more waterproof and breathable than the Gore-Tex XCR the Aegis was made from. I hope I get the chance to climb some rainy mountains in the new garment – ideally back in British Columbia.

The frogs in the coal mine

A recent study conducted by the Zoological Society of London concluded that half of Europe’s amphibians could be extinct by 2050. There are two obvious ways to consider the news. Firstly, it is evidence of the enormously destructive effect human beings have on vulnerable ecosystems. Secondly, it raises questions about whether humanity itself will be able to survive the catastrophe is it creating. Amphibians have been around for 400 million years. While there have certainly been times in which a large proportion of them have died off, those times have been been listed among the catastrophic extinction events that have punctuated the history of life on Earth.

In short, the impact of the global economy is becoming comparable to that of major meteor strikes, mass volcanic events, large changes in sea level, and severe changes in atmospheric composition that have occurred in the past. For those who do not believe that humanity inhabits some special protected position in the cosmos, that seems like cause for very significant concern.

Ultra powerful bike lights

Want to make absolutely certain drivers will see your bike in even the worst weather conditions? Dinotte sells LED head and tail lights with up to 600 lumens of brightness. They run for 3.5 to 7.0 hours on lithium-ion rechargeable batteries and cost a hefty $160-$400 a piece.

Still, that is a lot cheaper than the total costs associated with getting hit by a car.

Fungi are surprisingly compelling

On the basis of a recommendation from a friend of mine who works on environmentally-friendly gardening and landscaping in North Vancouver, I am reading Paul Stamets’s Mycelium Running: a book that details ways in which human beings can achieve ecological outcomes through the intelligent use of fungus. They can be used to increase the rate of forest recovery after logging, clean up contaminated sites, and so forth. I will post a review of the whole book when I finish it.

One aspect of the book I found surprising and interesting are the ways in which the similarities of animals and fungi are emphasized. Both ecologically and genetically, the two are apparently more closely linked than any other two kingdoms. Both breathe oxygen (fungi can be suffocated), both sometimes attack and kill plants or animals. Representatives of both kingdoms sustain themselves on dead organic matter, while others live inside other live organisms and extract nutrition from them parasitically.

Some species of animals extrude their digestive organs when eating. Fungi might be considered an extreme elaboration of this. Instead of having a stomach inside the body, filled with digestive enzymes, the mycelium leaches them out into surrounding matter, then draws in the liberated and partially processed nutrients therein.

In any case, fungi are quite fascinating. For one final example, consider the genus Pleurotus. While their culinary properties are their major claim to fame, their ability to metabolize crude oil is also rather remarkable. You can start with a bucket of crude spilled on a beach somewhere, introduce some spores, and eventually wind up with material that is entirely safe for the natural environment in general.

The future of plate tectonics

The PALEOMAP project has created some interesting projections of how the continents will be arranged in the distant future. Fifty million years out, Africa will have pushed into Europe, eliminating the Mediterranean. In 100 million years, all the continents will be drawing together. In 250 million years, only two landmasses will be left: a combination of Australia and Antarctica near the south pole and North and South America massed with Eusasia and Africa around a central sea.

The projections may prove entirely incorrect, but it is nonetheless remarkable to see the world thus transformed. It is a reminder of just how variable the world is, over long time horizons.

Tires in the desert

Old airplanes aren’t the only things that get stored in large numbers out in the huge deserts of the southern United States. So too do millions of used automobile tires.

A company called Envirotech collected them for ten years and stored them in part of the Sonoran Desert National Monument. The idea was to recycle them into fuel. Unfortunately for the company, the state of Arizona decided to shut them down for multiple fire code violations. These include obstructed fire roads and an on-site fire-protection water system that didn’t meet minimum requirements. Unfortunately for everyone else, if ignited, the piles could “burn unhindered for over ten years” according to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

All told, about three billion used tires are stockpiled across the United States. All the more reason to hope that a microorganism eventually emerges that can metabolize vulcanized rubber.

Knives and Britain

Milan Ilnyckyj outside the Beaux Arts Museum, Montreal

I must admit, I find the ongoing debate about knives in the UK somewhat perplexing. The leader of the Conservative Party wants mandatory jail time for anyone caught carrying one. Editors at the BBC argue that the problem may be overblown. To me, it seems like what people are missing is the fundamental difference between knives and weapons. Obviously, a knife can be used as a weapon. So can a hammer, umbrella, or fork. While we rightly appreciate that it is illegitimate use of the latter that is problematic (and addressed through laws against assault, uttering threats, etc), it seems important to remember that use-as-a-weapon is aberrant, rather than to be expected.

At virtually all times, I have either one or two small folding knives on me: one on the SOG Crosscut on my keychain and a CRKT Kiss in my backpack. When I am travelling or going into the woods, I will often have a Swisstool X with me as well. Probably the most common uses of these are cutting food and paper, though each has been used in dozens of ways. Knives are ancient, highly versatile, and useful tools – one of the first technologies to differentiate the human species from less adaptive animals. Assuming that I am carrying either as a weapon strikes me as unfair, as well as a reversal of the presumption of innocence. The onus must be on the authorities to prove malicious intent, rather than upon the individual to prove their intentions benign.

On a side note, all of this is very different for guns, particularly handguns. The only plausible use for a handgun is as a weapon. One never goes on a picnic and regrets the lack of one. Restricting the ownership and carrying of guns is an entirely reasonable restriction, as a manifestation of their nature.

Green shifts and pine beetles

Concrete stairs

The July 5th issue of The Economist has two articles pertaining to Canada and climate change. There is one on the Dion carbon tax and another on the pine beetle infestation in our western forests. Both topics have come up here before, but remain pertinent and worthy of discussion.

The critical ongoing question in the first case is probably how effectively Dion will be able to build support for his plan. In the case of the pine beetles, it is probably the extent of the epidemic, as well as the volume of greenhouse gasses that will be emitted as a result. Despite considerable efforts to prevent it, the beetles have now become established in Alberta, having killed more than half the lodgepole pine in British Columbia. Natural Resources Canada estimates that the infestation so far will produce 990 megatonnes worth of emissions by 2020: equivalent to well over a year of total Canadian output. If they spread into the boreal forest, the ecological and climatic consequences could be massive.