Environmentalism – Page 4

WildnessPunk Cheap Fun

Alright, I know, I’ve gotten a little heavy with my last few WildernessPunk articles. The Last War, I mean, ouch. So instead of dragging some new atrocity into the light, I’m taking a more positive proactive view of our modern cultures and the pastimes many of us enjoy. Most likely we all don’t occupy ourselves with the same activities. Some people do a wide variety of things while others possess a narrower focus.

I would also mention some activities bleed together and many involve actions which could cause an increased pollution trail; such as playing softball, but then BBQ after the game, or grabbing a hotdog at a concert. Also, things like ‘taking a vacation’ are too vague and possess too much variety to address as a topic. I’m not going to dive into these side pocket issues but instead shine my spotlight on…

Common Leisure Activities and their Environmental Impacts:

If I didn’t mention your leisure activity please forgive, but with the data I’m about to outline below, I’m sure you could figure it out if you were so inclined.

As Blackrain79 says, “Let’s jump right in.”

Music Concerts

Like many things on this list, this activity usually involves some level of transportation to accomplish. Let’s say 10 miles with a medium car creates 7 pounds of carbon. Of course, the bands will need some juice to play these days and the concert hall has lights and plumbing, but if everyone is turning off their lights and lowering their environmental controls before they go to a concert, this could be a win for the environment. Enough people must go and be there for long enough for the energy they aren’t using at home to counter act the individual transportation cost and the carbon print of running the show.

Let’s assume you bring a date, drive a round trip of ten miles, and stay there for 4 hours. 3.5 pounds for driving – Your normal 2 pounds an hour x 4 (8) = in the positive 4.5 pounds let’s minus .5 pounds for some power running in your absence, and also to keep my head from spinning, so you are currently up 4 pounds of good karma. Assuming they have a small kitchen they are creating about 800 pounds of pollution while you are there.

Conclusion:

If you drive 10 miles, going to a concert is environmentally friendly as long as more than 200 people attend the concert. If you don’t drive this would be about cut in half so only 100 people would have to be there. If there is no restaurant on the premises, you could probably tack another 50% off the number of people needed.

Reading

Like everything else this could have a wide spread. If you buy a few used books at once and then share them, you are probably knocking it out of the park, while ordering the new 50 Shades of Whey in a huge box from Amazon makes you an environmental criminal. Also, are you burning a light while you read or plugging in a device to do so?

The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden determined it takes reading 11880 pages on an ebook to counteract the environmental cost of making it compared to buying normal books. But keep in mind this is just for its construction, not its use.

The average reading device creates 7.5 pounds an hour.

The average book creates 7 pounds of pollution to build. (I’m going on the high end here, but some agencies put it as low as 1.3 pounds and several companies have moved to using mostly recycled products)

If it takes you 10 minutes to read 6 pages this means 36 pages an hour, so if the average book contains 360 pages, reading a book on a cell phone or a device creates about 75 pounds of pollution. So reading a page book is more than 10 times better for the environment than reading an ebook on your phone and this is only after you read 33 360 page books to counterbalance the environmental construction cost to make an ereader. (We’ll get to cell phones later and you won’t be happy)

For the last decade I’ve been hearing ebooks were better for the environment. I guess that myth was a few thousand percent wrong. Putting it another way books beat reading on your device or cell after the first hour of reading.

Shipping a book to your house. I had a hard time finding this amount online, so I’ll just drop this fact here. In 2020 Amazon created over 113 billion pounds of pollution transporting goods to people’s houses. 113,740,000,000 pounds.

Printed books could help damage biodiversity, however once the price is paid, we can get 10 hours of enjoyment. Compare this to 10 hours of watching television (.2 pounds an hour) and if you’re watching television by yourself you get 2 pounds of pollution. Yet nothing is easy. More than one person could be watching the television at the same time. But you could also resell the book or hand it down to someone. The same book could be read dozens of times and of course you could be buying it used.

Conclusion:

Forget about your ebook reader or doing anything extra on your cell. Try your absolute best to never order anything which needs to be shipped to you. However, if you buy 50% of your books used and try to have some of your books read more than once, your reading hobby is probably slightly more efficient than watching television.

Television

I saw several different stats presented online. Some were as low as .009 an hour and other rose much higher but I’m going to go with a television creating .2 pounds of carbon an hour. Of course, there was the basic construction of the television, but for most families this is watered down quickly by the sheer numbers of hours the TV is used. Also, in theory, the trail per hour could be divided by the number of people watching.

Conclusion:

When I was a child, watching the television all day was considered one the worst things you could let your kids do. This could still be the case in some respects but as far as having an impact on the environment television, compared to many activities is a big win for the environment.

Surfing the Web/Social Media

This obviously covers all computer use so it doesn’t matter if you are surfing the web or writing an article like this. Also, many people use social media and play games on their cells and not computers, but don’t worry, we’ll get to them later.

Using a computer creates about .4 pounds of pollution an hour or about double that of a television or one 18^th as much as a cell phone. This number compared to an hour of driving (42 pounds) is barely noticeable. (Note that if you are streaming on your laptop or playing online video games this amount roughly doubles)

Conclusion:

While not a harmless as reading a recycled novel, or even watching television, computer use is pretty low on the environmental impact scale.

Role Playing Game

Alright, on to my favorite. Again, we need a half dozen books to get started, but keep in mind I used a book last weekend which I purchased in 1979 and have used every year since. At 7 pounds a pop, the 6 new books I bought for Dungeons and Dragons 5e had less of an impact than an hour of cell phone use and I’ll be using them for decades. I buy figures which are now made of plastic and paint them, so materials are being created and transported to my town for me to buy. Then again, I’m using as much plastic as the container of orange juice I hope might get recycled and these figures will last long enough for my grandkids to use.

There are common things like, yes we’ll have lights on and maybe heat controls going, but if I was home they’d be going anyway and, like a concert, if 5 people are using less at their homes because they are at my house, I’m going to allow this to cancel out my use of power for the event itself, if anything I’m saving on general electricity use by gathering people together.

Conclusion:

After some initial cost, which is quickly watered down over the decades and five households using the power of one, it is quite possible Role-Playing Games might be one of the few activities on this list which helps the environment, although in the end this will be balanced by how far the players drive to your event and if any of them carpool etc. (FYI I have carpooled to gaming sessions a lot lately, but from 2017-2021 I exclusively rode my bike to games held at one of my Game Master’s homes.)

3 players 30 miles of driving = 21 pounds of pollution. Maybe minus 1 for more people sharing the climate control and you do have a heavy price tag of 20 pounds per session which isn’t good. However, if you can assume adults would have probably driven the same amount on a Saturday anyway and are heading to my place instead, I think we can still consider RPG as an activity which can potentially lower the carbon cost for a small group.

Hiking

Hiking itself does little to hurt the world, but many nature lovers forget their enjoyment of nature can be a selfish act. With so many of us living in cities how far do you have to drive to get to a decent hike? I’ve heard many people bragging about how far they traveled to prove how much they groove on nature, but if you drive 80 miles on a Sunday to hike a remote trail, are you a nature lover or a nature destroyer? Would you be kinder to our world if you didn’t put your pleasures first?

Conclusion:

With driving creating .7 pounds of carbon per mile this can be a sticky issue. Perhaps multi-tasking like shopping on the way home or collecting wood for your fireplace during the hike can curb this waste some. If you really like to hike, it might be proper to pay for your hike by doing things such as not eating meat for a week after your hike or only watering your garden with gray water for seven days.

Camping

Similar to hiking, much of the real cost here is driving to the site. While camping we might eat more, consume more meat than usual, and pound a few extra brews, but it isn’t like we wouldn’t be eating at home. We could also be saving on our cooking carbon cost by using coals from a fire which we would have burned anyway. We’ve already determined driving creates .7 pounds of pollution per mile. However, if I’m lowering climate controls, using televisions, computers, water, and electricity while I’m camping (55 pounds a day, let’s suppose you bring this down to just 15 while you aren’t at home), this all but cancels out the carbon footprint of my drive if I only travel 115 miles per 3 days of camping.

Conclusion:

While not perfect, camping can be a lower impact activity. If a person is hunting or collecting firewood during the trip this could be lower still.

Hitting a Tavern

At the risk of sounding repetitive it is all about the driving here. If you turn off your lights and lower your climate controls, you are actually helping the environment as long as you walk or ride your bike to the place. The tavern will be using lights and climate controls, but they would have them on if you weren’t there anyway. (For similar data see Music Concerts)

Also note buying beer on tap is much better than buying bottles. Also drinking at a local brewery is much better than drinking beers shipped across the country. At home if you only buy cans and recycle them you are lowering the environmental cost by 20%.

Conclusion:

The closer the better, and if you decide not to drink and drive this is actually a plus for environment. Sure, the beer has a carbon footprint while being created and transported, but if you were going to have a few beers at home anyway…

Gardening

This seems like an environmentalist’s slam dunk. You are getting exercise, recycling seeds, and food waste, and creating food with a much smaller carbon footprint. Still seeds are produced, processed, and shipped. Are you using fertilizer? Did you transport mulch over distances?

Conclusion:

We might not be getting off without a hitch, but if you compost and use seeds found in your food, recycle your grey water, and reuse seeds from your own garden, this might be one of the few hobbies, if done right, which could lower your footprint instead of increasing it.

Restaurants

So obviously much of the carbon footprint will be similar to the same meal at home. If you eat a cheeseburger your pollution trail is huge whether you eat at home or out. Like other hobbies mentioned above, in theory, if everyone lowered their climate controls before they all went to the same place it could take some of the edge of the pollution price, but did you drive there for just one meal? Obviously if I make say 60 meals per trip to the grocery store, my gas price is divided by 60. If I take the same 4 people out to eat that would take care of 4 meals and, let’s be generous, and say I get 2 more from leftovers. So just in terms of gas use, eating out wastes 10 times as much gas as making your own meals. Same thing, more or less, if you have food delivered to your door.

The average restaurant creates 1,300,000 pounds of greenhouse gases and pollution a year. This equals 3616 a day. Say the place is open 12 hours a day and your dinner lasts 2 hours. This would mean they are creating roughly 300 pounds of pollution while you are there. (Some of this includes the whole back story of the food’s production and transport so it not entirely occurring there within those two hours) Assuming a typical American has an active 12-hour day, this would mean if you were home, on average you would be creating roughly 2 pounds of greenhouse gases an hour (This would mean 4 pounds for your 2 hour stay). Although to be honest every time we prepare and consume food our output spikes considerably but let’s just be nice and said you turned down your air conditioning, cut all your lights, walked to the establishment, and this made your use even out to average. So if over 75 people are eating in the restaurant at once you could in theory be consuming less. If 150 were present you’d be cutting you footprint in half, but if only 25 people are there you are part of an increase in your own imprint per hour by 3 fold. (12 for 2 hours instead of 4)

Conclusion:

If you can walk to a place and turn everything off before you leave, eating out might be a wash, or even an upswing, but if you add 3.5 pounds per person to drive two people ten miles there would have to be over 200 people eating there for you to break even. If only a 100 people were eating there you are creating a footprint about twice your average.

Video Games

As stated above running a television for an hour creates much less use than a cell phone (See Above). Therefore, if you are playing the games on your television your energy use is low. However, if you’re streaming it doubles the use. Either way you are still using about one 60^th the power playing them on your cell phone requires.

There is also the cost of constructing the game controls and individual games, although they might give you more hours of pleasure than some products we purchase so that lowers their overall pollution cost. However, lights and climate controls are also involved with most indoor activities.

Conclusion:

Playing video games is just a few levels worse for the environment than watching television unless you are playing them on your cell in which case you might as well fire up your diesel truck for an hour and cook lamb on the engine.

Sports

This depends a lot on the sport. If you are walking to the corner to play a round of hoops with a ten-year-old ball, you are barely creating a ripple. However, if your hockey goalie needs pads to be shipped here from China, it is going to be a big environmental ouch. If I must drive my kid 30 extra miles a week to make it to soccer games, this isn’t going to help matters either. And obviously, all golf courses should be destroyed, or at a bare minimum only be watered with recycled sewage waste.

Conclusion:

A bigger swing in possibilities with this one, so hard to nail it down precisely, but obviously if you are using items for long lengths of time and not driving to make it happen, your trail is minimal, but you can also jack up your footprint if you toss out your ideals to insure you and yours can do whatever they wish regardless of price.

Cell Use

This might surprise some but running your cell phone for an hour creates 7.5 pounds of population, roughly equal to driving your car a mile. As stated above this is roughly 18 times the use of a laptop.

Conclusion:

Save your cell for texting. Try use it as little as possible and unless it is an emergency or you hate nature, never stream data or play video games with it.

Giant Concerts/Events

Much of the environmental costs of these things is the trash remaining behind and the trampled land. Have you ever seen the forest after a rainbow gathering? It will probably take it 10 years to recover. Of course, many events take place in areas where all life has already been removed. Usually, these events involve a lot of driving, sometimes hundreds of miles, so that’s a big loss. Food and other supplies are transported out to these events for your needs. The carbon footprints for these events are colossal but are also divided by the number of participants. Carpooling and other tricks could help lower this cost further, but if you’re driving a few hundred miles it’s hard to think of this as anything other than a big environmental fail.

Eating the transported food can be considered a huge additional loss, but if you’re lowering your energy use at home while you are gone, we’ll just give you half credit the campers get. However, keep in mind that if you bring your own supplies you are closer to camping stats other than the colossal mess let behind.

Conclusion:

Like camping we can just bottom line it with the driving involved. Since the concert goer is only getting half the credit of camping due to consuming transported goods, which include the bands themselves, one household can only drive about 60 miles before starting to accumulate a carbon debt. If you are driving 600 miles, which is probably less than most people are doing, you are creating 400 pounds of pollution. Of course, carpooling multiple households which are reducing their homes climate controls and energy use could cut this in half or by a third.

Many people enjoy large events, but I hope they don’t ever call themselves environmentalists.

Going to the Movies

Like other hobbies mentioned above if you lower your output at home and a large number of people share the luxury of the theater, this is probably not the worst thing you can be doing as long as you aren’t driving too far. When I was a kid, we had to drive 30 miles to a movie so that would be a huge dig. With it only being four miles from my home currently, a monthly trip to the movies isn’t too bad.

Conclusion:

One of the stronger choices on this list as long as you don’t overdo it.

Poker/Cards/Board Games

These requires a certain number of resources to construct, and sometimes ship from China, but as long as they are used for years or even decades, a night sitting around a table rolling monopoly dice does little harm. Card games would be even better for the environment.

Conclusion:

As long as the games are chosen wisely and used often this is probably a big win because modern families could certainly be doing other activities instead which would create much larger footprints.

Coffee Shops

Like other things mentioned, as long as you lower yours and share a place’s climate control with others, you start with a potential upswing. At the risk of sounding repetitive, how far you drive plays a huge factor in whether you might be saving a few Watts versus creating 15 pounds of filth. However, with each cup of coffee creating, on average, half a pound of pollution the more you drink once there, the larger your footprint would be.

Conclusion:

If you can walk there, you might have a reasonable chance to not be an environmental villain if you only have a cup, but if you drive 10 miles and drink 2 cups you just added 8.5 pounds of pollution to the environment.

Creating Art

This is another one which includes a wide spread of activities. If you are a kid drawing in an old notebook with a nicked pen, I wouldn’t worry too much. Certain paints and supplies have heavy environmental tolls, and these products should be researched before purchase. Also, if you ordering items built in China, this is a giant kick. Many artists dumpster dive their supplies and recycle objects around their home to help with their creating. Such things certainly lower your work’s impact.

Conclusion:

Much like sports, with proper choices this can be a great activity and often makes the world a more enjoyable place. However, one should remember to curb selfish choices if you wish to help this planet.

The Real Conclusion:

This ended up being a long list, but I hope you found it useful to discover all this information in one place and this has also made you reevaluate some of the other activities you enjoy and gave you the knowledge to decide what’s best moving forward.

In the end I’m not telling you what choice to make, I’m just reminding you that every choice you make is an environmental choice.

Author’s note:

Some hobbies are just so painfully obvious, regarding hurting the environment I didn’t bother to mention them. If you are into destroying the forest and deserts by four wheeling and pumping chemicals into the water with jet skis, you are on your own and probably didn’t dare to read this article anyway.

Grab a little of my fiction here

WildernessPunk: The Last War

Long before I owned a computer or there was even a hint of there being an internet, I published a small underground Zine called C.H.A.O.S Collected Humans Against Outdated Systems. The year was 1992 and I was working with my friend Sasha who would go on to become a college professor who currently teaches at the Keene State. Sasha and I didn’t always agree on everything but when it came to politics and protecting the environment, we were on pretty much the same page.

40 years ago, we each made some predictions about the future. Maybe someone should start a religion about us, because unfortunately most of our predictions have come true or are certainly heading that way.

One of Dr. Davis’ articles which has stuck with me for 40 years was An Alternative, which I have mentioned before. This is the idea humans need to preserve as much of our natural environment as possible with the assumption the human machine will one day grind to a halt. Then, with at least some of our biosphere in one piece, it will be easier for it to jump back to where it was 10,000 years ago.

My prediction was equally dark and involved the creation of new anti-terrorist laws (hmm did this happen in 2001, I think I nailed that one). Once created, these laws would be expanded to include monkey wrenchers and environmentalists which take a more extreme stance toward protecting the environment (This has happened as well). These laws will set up a system where the people in power can call anyone a terrorist and lock them up without due process.

This is all being done in preparation for The Last War.

The Last War: The Last War will be the final battle for the Earth which will take place between people who place comfort and capital over life and the continued ability for the planet’s ecosphere to survive as we know it and the people who support all life and the ability for it to continue to exist in its current forms.

If you don’t think this battle is coming, I’m sorry to say you will be proven wrong because it has already begun.

The quality of life in the USA and other areas is already declining and has been for a while. Villains such as tRump are being elected because people don’t have the same opportunities and capital their parents and grandparents enjoyed. Let me ask you to ponder this, if people are already steaming mad because they can’t buy a home or have a job which pays half as much as their father and their money stretches half as far, how are they going to feel when they can’t afford to drive their car? Are the folks who are willing to vote for a racist rapist when they still have a job, going to be against digging for oil in the middle of the Grand Canyon if it will help them afford a gallon of gas? I think you know the answer to that one.

What will The Last War be?

In my opinion, The Last War was started by the rich who will do anything to maintain their wealth, and the corruptible masses will support them. If you think they won’t you must have been in a coma since 2015. Let me toss out the headlines from an election in the future.

The Left: We have a hard fight ahead of us and to do right by our country we are going to have to tighten our belts and make sacrifices for the general good.
The Right: The Left are trying to tax gasoline until the price is so high people can’t afford to drive to work or take their children to school and now they want to force us all to drive electric cars. I don’t know about you, but I always thought America was the land of the free and we deserve a choice. Vote for me and I’ll bring back the prosperity of the past and…

Most people take the easy answer over the idea of having less, or when they are asked to do things in a harder manner. Also, in 20 years, more people will have less than their parents and grandparents and they could feel like they have been screwed over and deserve what others had and will be spitting mad about it. Which way do you think they’ll vote?

We may have other hot button issues in 2022. Things like gay marriage and abortion may be lost. Schools will probably start giving every kid a handgun and a concealed firearm permit when they graduate high school, but I’m going to make a new prediction.

They say it’s all about the economy stupid. However, most of the economy comes from the Earth in one manner or another. Minerals, food, oil, natural gas and almost every product we consume comes from our planet. What’s going to happen when there is less to mine, eat, and use to make jet skis? The CEOs aren’t going to want to stop their cash flows and their supporters want cheeseburgers and cheap gas. So what’s going to happen if we let it? The corporations are going to go after the last 10% of the natural earth we have left. Some people are going to try to stop them, and we will enter The Last War.

Perhaps you’ll have heard it here first. I’ll give it another 20 years before we are in the foxholes either metaphorically, or certainly for some it will be literally.

Good luck gentle reader. We’re going to need it.

On a totally different note, you can grab some of my Cyberpunk fiction here.

WildernessPunk Positivity/Negativity

Hello and welcome to this week’s WildernessPunk. I’m going to endeavor to get a new one of these out every weekend this summer. Aren’t you excited? Is doing this a positive accomplishment, or do you dread what sort of depressing negativity I might scrape off the crusted, overused bong our planet is becoming?

I’m not writing today to go into the positives and negatives affecting you and your world. Instead, I seek to discuss the opposing methods which could be used to improve our planet’s current declining condition.

If you are reading this, I assume you care about the health of our world and wish for things to improve, yet what’s the best path for us to pursue to make this happen? I’ve read many articles and books (I’m reading one currently) where the author runs off a laundry list of all the horrible things humans have done to our earth and the reasons why things are just going to get worse in the future.

Is painting the grim picture the best thing we can do to affect a positive change within ourselves and our culture? Sort of a drug rehab philosophy; You must hit rock bottom before you realize you have no further to go and only then can the true healing begin. I’ve worked in drug rehabilitation units, and I can say by personal experience I think this concept is bullshit. The idea that things must get worse before they can get better is false.

Let me give you an addiction analogy. Joe drinks too much. He just lost his job and things are going downhill for him. By AA logic it will somehow help him to lose his housing too and only when he becomes homeless will he be ready for change.

I disagree. Following this AA scenario through, Joe will go to recovery for 28 days and then walk out sober and homeless. He will have to get a job, hold it for three months (at least) while crashing in his car/friend’s sofa/park bench to have a chance to rent a new place. Hmmm, do you think this will be easy? Will Joe feel like a loser and become depressed? Maybe he’ll need a way to relax or just get bored sleeping in his car. Just a sip and he could forget for one night though…

But what if Joe decided to get his act together, or his friends and family helped him, before he reached rock bottom.

Joe doesn’t lose all his things and waste his money starting all over.
Joe will have other methods to entertain himself instead of drinking such as a television, computer, music, books etc.
Joe will have a much easier time finding a new job and keeping it if he has clean clothes and can take a shower each day.
Joe will feel more relaxed and have a better sense of self worth than if he was sleeping outside and this sense of self worth will help give him the strength to know his life just might be worth the effort he’s putting into it.

This is less true when it comes to our environment. Do we need to hit rock bottom before we struggle to improve? Perhaps people will be more interested in making a change by then, but will cutting down all the rain forests before we wake up help us in any way? I’m going to say no. Our goal should be to keep as much alive as possible before we enact change, so we’ll have more left worth saving. If all we have left are cities, corporate farms, and animal factories, personally I’d be inclined to say why bother.

So do we get there with scare tactics (negativity) or with the hope that our motivations and innovations will win the day eventually (positivity).

Let’s break it down.

Negativity: +

Proving the severity of the situation could force people to act.
Scientists can show us what we shouldn’t be doing to our planet.

Negativity: –

When a problem seems insurmountable some might wonder if there is any reason to try.
Depression can lead to stagnation and apathy instead of action.

Positivity: +

Believing we can create a better world leads people to discover how we can make this better world occur.
Having the confidence that we can make a difference helps motivate us to do so and create new innovations which can help save our globe.

Positivity: –

If people think scientists will discover some new tech which will save us all in the end, why worry about our behaviors now?
People could get false virtue flags while they are driving 50 miles a day, eating more meat, and killing all the native plants in their yard but they have earned it because they recycle 15% of their waste.

In the end it will probably be a mix of both camps which will save us. I, however, would prefer to stand with the positivity camp. The more we change, adapt, and innovate the better our chances of survival are. I hate to stand on the shoulders of the myth technology will save us, but still, other than a human ending plague, I think technology and new innovations are this globe’s only chance.

Here are some new ideas on the horizon and in some places some of these have already started to happen.

Biodegradable machines, such as cars can be made from plant fibers.
Meat can be grown/cloned in huge vats and then distributed to grocery stores. (Side note: I did write a novel about this in my Skinjumper series, I guess I should get the William Gibson award for 2013)
We could design a bacterium which could eat all the extra carbon in the oceans.
Governments could use tax money to help fund science instead of making billionaires richer and supporting the military industrial war machine.

So let’s get positive people. Remember, worst case scenario, we die off and in a 100 million years from now our house cats will have evolved into bipedal hominids and can give civilization another go. Wait, cats? Maybe we should try mice instead.

You can grab a little of my fiction here

WildernessPunk- Is Overpopulation a Racist Concept?

Hello, welcome back if this isn’t your first time, and let me quickly state, I’m not usually like most writers. During the pandemic lock down, some took time to finish novels and brought their writing to a new level. Pah, why be so predictable. Me, I wrote less and spent more time with my kids, but since the pandemic is over(ish) I guess it is time to pick up my pen and laptop and dive into the meat of these seriously messed up times we are living in. Where to start right? But instead of reviewing subjects which have been reviewed a thousand times before, I will endeavor to focus on one concept at a time and here goes.

Recently, I was having a conversation with a gentleman, and I causally brought up the issue of overpopulation. He told me there is no overpopulation and bringing it up was racist. Let’s break this down to his two points 1. There is no overpopulation of humans. 2, To mention there is overpopulation is a racist thing to do.

Overpopulation

What would too many humans on the planet look like?

Resources are being used more quickly than they can be replenished.
Animals are being overharvested for food and going extinct due to the destruction of their environment.
Humans are occupying more than their fair share of the planet we share with millions of animals and a multitude of plant life.
The quality of human life is decreasing.

There are obviously more issues which could be discussed but this isn’t a term paper.

Resources:

Humans began to irreversibly change our environment long before the current era. Before the raise of Rome, much of what we now consider the Middle East was overgrazed by human’s nomadic herd animals and turned grasslands, which once sported a wide variety of animals, into near lifeless deserts which have only grown over the past four thousand years. While traveling through Tunisia in North Africa, I was told by a local guide that the country had killed off almost all the non-domesticated animals which once lived there three thousand years in the past.

Between 2002 and 2012 the Earth lost 880,000 square miles of forest (High Resolution Maps of the 21^st Century Forest Cover Change. Science 15 November 2013) Our planet’s wilderness areas have dropped from covering 100% percent of the Earth to merely 22% percent. Also, only 11% of our photosynthesis takes place in these wild areas. (Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty, “Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world.” 2009)

Lastly the amount of land required to exclusively feed all of humanity, which remember was once zero, had grown from nothing to – in our lifetimes.

In my opinion, does humanities growing use of resources indicate our species has an overpopulation problem?

Yes

Overharvesting

It is clear the oceans are being overharvested. The number of fishing vessels increased from less than a million to 4,000,000 since 1970 yet even with this increase the yield of fish has dropped two thirds. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome 2012) One might argue if we plant crops how can we be overharvesting them? However, human crops are now covering over 40% of the Earth’s surface (James Owen, Farming Claims Almost Half Earth’s Land,” Published December 8, 2005). How many resources are being using for just one species and the animals we’ve domesticated for our uses? 200 years ago humans and our animals were 1 percent of the biomass of mammals on this planet, but currently we are over 90% (Christian Schwagerl “The Anthropocene,” 2014). Personally, I think if we must clear cut forests and destroy hundreds of animals and their homes forever, this counts as overharvesting. If you don’t think ruining the planet for other life forms so you can have a cheeseburger is not a system of overharvesting, I think we should have a long talk.

Are Humans overharvesting the Earth?

Yes

Human Occupation

10,000 years ago 100% of the Earth remained in its natural environment, today only 22% of the Earth’s land has retained its natural environment. We are approaching having over 50% of this planet’s lands covered in human farms. I think this sums it up, moving on.

Is the increase in the lands humans occupy a sign over Overpopulation?

Yes

Quality of Human Life

This is a tougher one because look, we have a computer in our pocket now and door dash and… five roommates. Yes, in many ways the quality of human life has improved. There is less poverty than ever before and over all human’s life expectancy is increasing, (except in the USA).

However, is living in a city better than the country? This is hard to gauge, but as rent and real estate costs roars through the roof, for many, the dream of having their own place is just that… a dream. For others, they can only afford to live in tiny apartments with extra roommates and family. They are the lucky ones compared to the growing numbers of homeless and with rentals the way they are, coming up with 3000$ to move into a new place while you are living in a car or park might be one level below impossible. Some people, myself included, have been ‘blacklisted’ (if this term has its roots in some racist BS please forgive me) by the corporations which own most of the rentals currently and will refuse to rent to people who might not have settled some old debt with a landlord who evicted them years ago. These people, myself included, remain unable to rent a place no matter how much cash they have in their wallet.

I guess it comes down what improves the quality of a person’s life. Are younger folks spending time on their phones because it is better than hiking, or because the hiking trail was paved over, and they can’t afford a car to drive to a different one? Would a couple like to observe animals in the wild, but they can now only see them on YouTube, so they stay home and relax on the sofa. Another couple dreamed of moving into the country, but they are required to stay in the city because their whole family lives with them.

In the end, quality of life is more ambiguous. Who had it better, a settler who had forty acres to spread over but dies at 51, or the dude who works at JiffyLube but enjoys his cable package up into his 80s?

Out of the 4 measures I used to determine whether overpopulation was real, 3 were a strong yes and the last might be considered a tie at best. So given this, I’m going to conclude overpopulation is a real issue and it certainly wouldn’t be out of hand to state we are in an overpopulation crisis. However, we still have another claim to investigate.

Is Claiming there is an Overpopulation Problem Racist?

I see where this concept is probably coming from. “Oh no, the brown people are overpopulating their countries, using up all their resources, and now trying to come here and take ours.” Yep, that would be racist. Or if we take more of a fascist view, “Those other type of people are having too many babies.”

Part of me wonders if this is some shield, used by the left, to help them avoid the root causes of almost all our troubles we currently face on this planet. “Wow, overpopulation, that’s a problem almost impossible to solve, but if I just think racists are concerned with it, I can just ignore it, because to admit it is an issue would make me a racist.”

Many on the Right tend to ignore any problem which would decrease their cash flow and profit remains more important than nature, so we shouldn’t expect much help from them on this issue. They may complain about it and perhaps it can dip into racist rhetoric, but is the Left going to do any better steering their policies away from confronting the negative effects of overpopulation and shying away from this reality by categorizing overpopulation discussions as a boogie man which will associate themselves with a racist paradigm?

Is being concerned about our oceans being overfished racist? Is demanding lumbering companies attempt to replant the forests they cut down racist? Is trying to eat a healthy diet and create less waste racist? Is trying our best to think of ways plants, animals, and humans can continue to live on this planet safely racist?

Neither the Left or the Right has any excuse not to do everything in their power to make this planet better for their grandchildren and preserve every form of life we can. And I wish to end on a positive note for people who have made it this far. I’m not trying to be a gloomer/doomer, I want things to improve and if you want to help here are the 3 top things you can do without too much effort to help our planet.

Attempt to limit your food waste as much as possible. Discarded food is the leading cause of unnecessary pollution in the USA.
Create a compost, grow a garden as big as possible, and recycle water as much as you can.
Consume less.

Thanks again for making it this far and welcome back to WildernessPunk. You’ll be seeing more of me.

Grab a little of my fiction here

The Headless Hessian or the 13th Best Superstition Mountains Documentary

Hi folks, I know I haven’t posted on here for a while. Here is just another example of what one can do in the wilderness which doesn’t involve using extra gas or killing animals. Enjoy and have fun…

Alright, how do I put this. I think Les Moore started it. We’d always had trouble with funding. I mean we can’t even afford a donate button and we’ll never make enough money to fund a Start Me Up program. So, since we live all over Arizona the obviously answer was to met in the center of the state, enter the most hostile lands in the lower 48, and find the Legendary Lost Dutchmen mine. No more hitting up Winslow, Stu, and even Zano for funding. This ship would sail itself.

Or so we thought.

Instead Zano had his own ideas. He took is into the heart of the Superstition’s paranormal vortex. A vortex not all of us would escape from. Some just lost their sanity. Others paid a heavier price.

So look on, if you dare, and gaze into the minds of men as we struggle for gold only to have it slip through our fingers almost as fast as our sanity.

Thanks for your support and you can visit some of us at the Discord wing of the Winkleman Pych Ward.

More of our fun can be found here.

WildernessPunk Quarantine

Friday the 13^th

It evolved slowly, much as a virus does, this split goal of mine. Could I prep for the incoming C-Virus in manner which of course would help keep me and mine safe, but also perform a test of sorts. While I protect my kids, lover, family, and friends from at least being contaminated by me, I would also try to quarantine myself and my boys to the best of our abilities. I heard the signs of sickness appear within 6-8 days. So 8 to go just to be safe.

Backgrounds and Baselines

I couldn’t start before Friday the 13^th because the kids were still in school.
I’m not a doomsday prepper, but I keep backup 2 weeks of food and water on hand.
My Lady and I did 3 trips to the store before we began.
I’m pulling the quarantine trigger at 2:25 when I pick my oldest son up as school.

3 bar cans

Saturday the 14^th

Fortifying our choice, three social engagements we were involved with fell like dominos in graveyard. Digging in, the boys and I plant chili peppers, broccoli and tomatoes. They won’t be providing food any time soon, but just in chase this lasts longer, I’ll have more things to add to my rows of lettuce growing in the front.

Sunday the 15^th

Some plans can’t be broken, and my sweet lady heads off to the little artist town of Bisbee, with her best friend. This leaves me alone with two boys, I’m sure this will be easy. Oh did they just take all the blankets, pillows, and sheets off the bed to make a mound of blankets in the middle of the room to jump into?

3 Bar Quarintine fun

Monday the 16^th

Yep that was a lot of laundry to wash. Going through our food a little but no issues yet. Hell, I still even have snacks for the boys, but if I run out, will they turn on me?

Saint Patrick’s Day

Can you say stir crazy? Not me, but the boys. I decide a germ free desert hike should help things and I have a full tank of gas. My lady is due back today. She’s a nurse, so I know she takes these things seriously.

Desert Kids

Kinda weird to have such a non-social holiday, but I’m happy to see my lady back safe and happy.

Wednesday the 18^th

The CDC states the average incubation for the C-Virus is 5.5 days and one can be considered in the clear if they fail to develop systems within 12 days of potential exposure. So with me and the boys having roughly the same level of exposure now, odds are, if none of us show signs by tomorrow, we’ll be clear…just in time for me to go to the grocery store before we take off.

Thursday the 19^th

The local Safeway turns out to be a strange and haunted place at 7am. Masked individuals mix with wild eyed shoppers. All of us amazed to see an absence of most of the things we’re accustomed to in this country. No prepared meat, the vegetables were nearly gone. Pasta and cans gone. Although I did get the last four cans of chili the store had to offer. Normal cheese, nope, but fancy cheese yep. I guess we’ll have a little luxury while camping.

3 bar east

5 hours later, I’m pulling up to the site, but after my new ride’s first off-road test, I have to pull the plug 200 yards short of my goal. The road itself has become a wash and a series of boulders leave me thinking perhaps having my little family allowed more privacy is better than bottoming out and cracking my oil pan on a rock. I have better ways to spend my afternoon.

I meet a new friend after lugging my gear uphill and my boys are happy to burn off the energy of six days of isolation.

Friday the 20^th

It has been a week since the schools have closed and I have done my best to keep the boys safe. Sure hope the plague doesn’t show up here. Ha ha, just kidding, ah… no I’m not.

A little about this area, the wonder we call 3-Bar. The usual sounds of the waterfall crashing into the wading pool is, this time, a torrent of raging foam as the snow run off mixes with the results of the recent rains.

3 bar waterfall

Another phenomenon I’ve rarely experienced has also occurred. All around us springs of clear water have opened out of the ground. Within just a few feet of our camp, I count five. Every hillside has pools and moving water like the entire mountainside has become huge sponges leaking water. Not the type of thing you see too often in the desert.

Saturday the 21^st

It appears reasonable to assume the two older hermits I am sharing this campout with have avoided the C-Virus as well, so this trip has taken social distancing to the a new extreme. “Don’t let anyone within 6 miles of you.”

Kids fire

Self-isolation is an unusual thing for some, but just a normal day for others. It’s odd to see the stranger as an ‘enemy,’ but this is what they could become if they are the one to spread a virus to you which could damage your lungs or risk your parent’s lives.

In the end, the hoarding and lack of food could become more of a concern than the virus itself, at least for some of us. The virus has in some ways done us a favor by exposing the frail deck of cards our lives sit at the top of. Few of us can live off the land or have the means to support our needs for food. We all depend on a huge web of supply to insure we have goods on the selves. It is the virus threatening us this time. But the next time could be gasoline or the power grind. All it takes is one dirty bomb to kill a city for generations.

Things like my garden help, but are not a solution. Hoarding can help, but we’re still playing within the rules of this house of cards. Cans don’t multiply if left alone in the dark. So what is the solution? There are too many of us to all buy 40 acres and become farmers. Things like this virus could lower those numbers, but no one wants to see their loved ones perish before their time.

3 bar mountian mount

However back to the now, we have to get over this C-Virus hurdle first. Part of me wonders how effective I’m being for my family. Sure I’ve keep my boys clear enough to be about 92% certain none of us have the virus, FOR NOW. How much use is this in the long term? Our lying president says it is due to last until perhaps August and since he downplays everything which makes him look bad… So am I going to all this trouble for my boys, saying, “Hey we quarantined ourselves long enough to be sure we don’t have it, just to get it later from the ice cream man?” I’m being careful now, but will I get sloppy in May and just have us all get it anyway?

We’ve been told to ‘flatten the curve’ of infection. So I guess we’re doing our part, but again will this matter if the lack of food becomes the real problem? Perhaps I’ll have to head up here again and try to live off the land. It might work as long as I can still get gas. Hopefully the cell towers will work too so I can get these guys out here again as well. I’m probably catastrophizing, but I guess we’ll see. And remember if I’m not, you heard it here first. Be safe out there and kick this Virus in the ass!!

3 bar river

Thanks for Listening

3 bar damn it

You can check out my own grim vision of a future where we lose control here!

bone tunnel

WildernessPunk: Self Control or The Next Time I See Them I’m Gonna…

There are times in everyone’s life when one is tempted to allow oneself to become overloaded with frustrations. There are many people who don’t cling to positive values, but instead embrace negative paradigms such as racism, narcissism, hate, and greed and I’m not just talking about our president. In 2017 I wrote a WildernessPunk article which reviews this situation entitled 1 in 3 which outlines how reasonable people can expect their logic and goodwill to be thwarted by, on average, every third person they encounter. ( http://bit.ly/2PQolKq ) But this article is not focused on others. Together we’re going to look inward and review how sane people attempt to progress within an insane world.

1 in 3

First off, if you believe everything you experience is normal and reasonable, you are dead wrong. Our current lifestyle is the result of billions of random occurrences which have floated together to create our current understanding of reality so we should be careful before we choose to get on some big high horse fighting to prove what we think is right. Just a simple example to set the stage: Cars. We all think of them as A+ normal even though we have only enjoyed being able to work more than two miles from where we live, get ambulance drives, and allow the elderly to have a chance to meet their needs independently for about .000025% of our existence. I’m not trying to go off on a tangent, I only seek to remind people the things we take for granted are here only through random chaos and our current normal will be almost unimaginable by your children’s grandchildren. I bring this up to point out most arguments we engage in couldn’t have happened a hundred years ago and probably won’t be applicable a hundred years from now, so it probably isn’t too important, and despite what people try to tell you, their opinion will most likely be proved wrong.

Back to the idea of self-control. I think we’ve all gotten so frustrated we feel like we might lose our cool and let anger take over the discourse. Most of us have lost this control, some more than others. While a smaller percentage let their own anger and self-righteousness rule their lives. Only they are right and everyone else is wrong.

The above is obvious, let’s look deeper. What about all those times you have felt the anger, perhaps quite justified, rise up, but you still kept yourself under control and behaved civilly. You might have verbally gutted someone like a fish or let your actions do so, but you did it all without a snarl or raising your voice. Where does this ability come from and why do we, or at least some of us, possess it?

Looking back to more basic times we could see the advantage of a hunter and gatherer becoming quick to anger. It would protect them and theirs. Still, if you are part of a tribe which needed to be strong to insure everyone remained fed and another tribe doesn’t steal your daughters, becoming quick to anger with your own tribal members could have dire consequences.

Lillies 8.19.jpg

We could theorize having self-control is an advanced social and evolutionary trait. It helps humans live side by side and keeps things from being an explosion of violent chaos on every street corner. In the USA violent crime has lessened in direct relationship to our improving technology and more people receiving a higher education. There could be a correlation to this or maybe there’s simply less human interaction because a greater percentage of people just malinger at home allowing Netflix and video games to steal their health and lives one sedentary evening at a time.

On a personal level, I do feel more advanced when I let logic, dignity, and facts fight my battles instead of violence, screaming, and curses. I view people who jump to anger and violence as more primitive. They don’t have the intelligence to rise above the base animal state of fight, flight, or freeze. In other words, they use the reptile part of their brain to solve conflicts. Yeah, let’s not be like them.

King Kong

Others could argue that turning our backs on our aggression is what allows us to become sheep for the state, but this does appear to be true currently for the under educated rural workers who are easily brainwashed into being foot soldiers by the ultra-rich, while the cities tend to focus on more equitable goals and strive to live in greater fairness and harmony.

Could it be higher population centers foster the need for greater control? If you lived in New York City and had to fight everyone who pissed you off, you’d never make it to work. While in smaller ponds, people are more likely to share more values, so an outside idea will be looked at with hostility and they would try to wipe it off the map before it could contaminate their homogeneity.

Some of these questions might remain unanswered and are up to you to decide for yourself. In the real world we have choices to make. Are you going to risk a huge fine or maybe jail time yelling at some Police Officer and cursing about how unfair the system is? Or will you suck it up for ten minutes and have the best possible long term outcome? Who really wins—the cop who thinks he’s dominated you with his power or you who proved smart enough to manipulate him and the outcome? This is the old Loki/Thor debate.

loki-red

Having self-control is obviously the better end game because it gives you options. Hell, you can always choose to throw a punch if you like. Sometimes it is also appropriate to meet violence with violence when we have no choice. Letting some meat head kick your ass isn’t helping your day get better. However being the one starting with anger usually means you’re the loser who is in the wrong and can’t come up with anything reasonable to say.

Yes anger is energy and a tool we all possess, but we need to control it and not let it control us. A modern individual should have more options than fight, flight, or freeze and as we move into a more crowded world we need to continue to evolve our ability to use self-control or soon we might not have a world to call our own.

Thanks for Listening

You can check out my own grim vision of a future where we lose control here!

banosword

WildernessPunk: End game

Sunday August 11, 2:50pm

As I sit here, with whirling daggers twirling through my stomach, I wait for the arrival of a Police Officer to try to assist me in getting my children. After 3 years and 124 Days, I’m finally been awarded custody of my children despite being falsely accused of a crime I didn’t commit and having them taken from me for almost two years and only getting limited visitation later.

W Pirates

I’ve felt a building apprehension since the Judge came to the understanding the boys will be better off with me. It is a hard choice to take the children from their community, school, and mother, but rough situations require rough choices and the Judge made the right one. I have no option in the matter. If I want my boys to have a good and normal chance at life, they need to be with me. Letting them remain where they are, and not caring, would be an act of neglect on my part bordering on evil.

Will I get my children today at 3pm as court ordered? Will there be a scene? Will I be stuck in Flagstaff like the last time I was up here doing this? Will she even answer the door? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I’m going to go back to wringing my hands and trying to read my book.

w. Lizard

Three Hours Later…

Well hmm, that was much easier than I thought it would be. Still, I’m more than willing to trade adventurous trips to the wilderness to do the delicate dance of riding the legal system in order to have things safe and simple for my boys.

Yet, despite my triumph, I will remain in Flagtown for a while longer so I can do a different dance, the paperwork shuffle. Groan. Oh boy can’t wait.

Um…er 14 hours 26 minutes and 8 seconds later

What might be the only thing more annoying than being forced to call the police in order to enforce your rights? Gee, I don’t know, going to a bunch government and other agencies in one day. At least I managed to complete 100% of my assorted buecratic and oh so manic tasks.

W Tombstone

August 13^th

My eldest gets a much needed haircut and his first, which for an 8 year old is pretty sad. I’m wasn’t able to legally get him one before and perhaps not now, but I don’t give a damn. Somethings decent people just have to do.

August 14^th

My eldest son starts school in Tucson.

August 22^nd

I get the boys locked in for preschool and/or daycare whenever the need arises.

w art

August 25^th

While I get the kids, she gets cuffs on her hands and goes to jail. Can we say Karma?

So yes, good people. Sorry to be so ecocentric this time around, but since having falsehoods torpedo my life and create the situation where WildernessPunk was born I’ve been reporting on this journey/quest. Sometimes tearing everything away is what gives one a fresher look at the world and in this case, being homeless, broke, and lonely for my children did stir a passion, a passion to rebuild, but in a different way than before. Do things right, not only for me and my radiant lady, but so I can have a strong foundation for my boys.

And now, things has come full curcle in multiple ways and most importantly, I’ll be guiding and protecting my boys as best I can while they grow. It just took 40 months, but like most good things in life, you need to battle for what you want and feel is right.

Thanks for listening and I’ll get back to the usual ranting next time.

W Mud

You can check out some of my fiction here, where Detective Dak is placed in charge of the anti-clone task force. His main problem… He’s dating one.

W Shark

WildernessPunk: Three Years

As the third year anniversary of WildernessPunk draws near, I’ve already communicated my thoughts on how both the country and myself have changed over the last three years. So instead of reiterating myself, I’m going to look back in a different manner.

17 - 1.jpg

This will be my 70^th WildernessPunk post. This comes to roughly a new post every two weeks or so. It would have been a better ratio if I haven’t hit that dry spell the second half of 2018. Why did that happen anyway? Oh yeah, I think I was too happy or something.

Along the way, I invented numerous new terms and definitions. Some of them were even used in more than one article. So to aid me in having them all in one place and perhaps have them easier to reference for archaeologists wondering how our generation destroyed the planet despite having all the knowledge to avoid doing so… I give you the WildernessPunk terms, the First Three Years.

Oh yeah, and they are in roughly chronological order, with the various WP defs in front. Enjoy, laugh, contemplate, or throw something at me the next time we meet, as you see fit.

Wilderness Punk. This is the concept one could embrace nature, enter it, live off the land or at least with it, but somehow maintain a cyber presence, a writing presence, and perhaps thrive while doing so.

WildernessPunk II: The idea one can survive without most of the mundane expectations of the day. It focuses on helping the environment by using less processes and items which destroys the land and instead living closer to it. Getting more involved with nature, while using less of what kills it.

WildernessPunk III is not something just meant to be mine, but rather an exploration of the topic of how nature meshes or could integrate into the lives of people so involved in a world controlled by technology.

WildernessPunk IV is the concept of moving past accepted norms in the pursuit of engineering a life which minimizes our environmental impact on our planet.

True Environment is a place existing the way it would whether humans lived on our planet or not. It is an area where humans have not altered the environment away from its natural state.

Animal state: Includes, sex drive, violence, selfishness, but also some of the better things in life like nurturing your offspring, mating, enjoying a good meal.

Cultural World View. CWV is, in as few words as possible, the way a person puts together their world. They create a framework of what is normal, right and wrong, fun and boring. It is a belief system. Opinions can be shared, many of us agree on certain issues, but like the whirling ball of chaos we all are, rare will we find a person who agrees on all our beliefs. Hell, if I get over 50% I know I’ve found a friend.

Humanocentric: Whether for good or for ill, our lives circle around the importance of our own species.

Earth Balance: The balance between the positive impact and the negative damage one commits against the True Environment.

825 Job: The normal office grind employment.

Negative Environmental Impact: The amount you tip your Earth Balance into the negative.

ShitIdoit: When evil combines with dumb.

Self-actualize. We can step back and analyze our life and experiences. With luck and knowledge, we make new and stronger choices.

half-shack

This is why getting stricter with what food we allow to go to waste is the Number One Thing we can all do in this country to combat Climate Change.

Smart Travel: Whether it is on foot, rolling with the bicycle, or to a lesser degree, public transportation, there are many ways we can leave the car parked and perform tasks, both fun and obligatory, without turning the key in our automobiles.

The Strive: Whether personal or natural, the search to find the techniques and methods which will allow us to complete our goals.

Oh you made it this far, wow. Here’s a band new one.

Americaned: A person taught to accept the USA’s reality and the manner it teaches a person how they are expected to live.

And here is a short list of dysfunctional Environmentalists just for fun.

End Game Recyclers: These are the folks who separate their trash, bring it to the curb, and then hop in their car to go buy a new set of lawn furniture.

Privileged Purchasers: These people feel they are ahead of the pack because their new custom made home has an energy efficient dishwasher and since they have solar power, the average person could never hope to be as cool to the environment as they are.

Cherry Picker: These are the people who pick an item or two, usually something easier for them or what they want to do anyway, then elevate themselves above anyone who falls short in this category. Sure, every positive thing you do helps, but helping the environment does not stop because you bike commute or have become a vegetarian.

Power Shoppers: Folks who might do some of the above, but then consume and consume. They buy new things while the old items get tossed into the landfill. They recycle their plastic, but purchase so many groceries they produce five time more trash than they can recycle.

wildernesspunk-1

Thanks for you time and let me know what you think, if you can.

You can grab some of my fiction here, and I can promise you these people are on the Hero’s path.

beer Shades

WildernessPunk: June

June 3^rd, My Son’s Birthday

Those eight or so of you who have followed WildernessPunk since it’s inception almost three years ago will remember it started as more of a journal of my adventures mixing wilderness and technology. This involved making enough capital with the latter to live within the former. Although my intentions were close to noble, I hadn’t exactly volunteered for this assignment. It had been forced upon me when evil actions caused me to lose my job, my residence, and my ability to see my young sons.

After recently tackling the truth behind environmentalism, which proved to be an unpleasant subject, I thought I’d return to a more relaxed exploration of nature, because hell, it’s June. Yet, there are other reasons I’ve fallen into this introspection.

zzz

The first several episodes of WildernessPunk were all written within the wilds of Walnut Canyon, which is located ten miles east of Flagstaff. While writing these words, I find myself, almost three years later, back within the embracing lands of Walnut Canyon once more. Also, with a bit of a strange, but not unexpected twist, I am spending the night due to further inappropriate acts by the previously mentioned evil. But it’s a beautiful day and a large cloud just plunged me into shade, so like a good WildernessPunker, I’m going to turn my turds into ale.

It does feel odd to be back where this all started. How have I changed? How has this country changed? Three years ago, I would have had a hard time imagining my life would be so much better. Yet, I also would never had imagined the disaster our government has become. On the upside, Trump has proved every nihilistic punk rock song correct.

And damn, I hate to say it, but it is a lot easier to camp with a car than a mountain bike.

Looking out over this rich forest, it seems hard to believe we have humans actively fighting for the destruction of our globe. But we have to remember there have always been humans willing to put greed before all else. They just have greater abilities to annihilate now.

10,000 years ago, Blak might have been able to convince a few members of his tribe to go attack another village while they’re sleeping, but he could do little damage to the environment itself. A 1,000 years ago, a king might be able to slaughter thousands and destroy crops, but besides overgrazing, he could do little to hurt the planet before time ended him.

During our current times, there has been an increase in the ease and damage a person can inflict on our world. A man can sit in an air conditioned office and order a 100,000 acres destroyed with the click of a mouse. Whoa, hey Boneman, I thought this was supposed to be the light hearted June romp?

June 3rd

zzzz Right right, happy happy, summer summer, June June. I feel I’ve reached a moment of reflection. Here I am halfway between when my avalanche of crap started and the beginning of WildernessPunk three years ago. Strange to think where I was three summers ago. I had only a few backpacks worth of stuff, was sober and on probation. Ha, and now I’m the one who’s sent cops over to the nasty one’s house twice today.

Yet here I sit, in Dark Skies (My favorite bar this side of the Rockies). I was supposed to have had my children yesterday and should already be relaxing by the pool in Tucson. Instead I’m supposed to suffer these mild 70 degree days, camp out, and see my old buddies. Are there sixteen new beers of tap? I guess she showed me.

June 4th

A day, six cops, and one Judge injunction later and I’m still here in Flagstaff. Is this the end game of my three year struggle? Will the evil one flip the whole situation with my boys by denying me the time I’m due with them this summer? A cliffhanger feeling mixes with supreme annoyances. Will unforgiving narcissism win out over justice, goodness, and hell unexpected bells, I even have the forces of law on my side.

I’ve hatched plans and organized a few plots. Self-centered villains with no regard for anyone but themselves, might have their strengths, but we’ll see where the last Ace falls.

June 5^th

Flagstaff Police Department and I found no leads and after a three days search. On the third day of trying, grandma let the boys in blues into her home. But the inner door to the attic was locked. Ms. Gaslight hadn’t answered the door when the cops knocked on it for five minutes. Once the Officer left, I found the fortitude to talk to my former mother-in-law for an hour (Yuck) and the evil one appeared behind us in a dark hallway. It felt like something out of a horror movie to just have someone show up within a police searched house. I called the cops and got my kids. We’re currently safe in Tucson and I’m going to court next Tuesday.

Thanks for letting me indulge in my own voice for a while, because in the end, isn’t our own voice all we really have? I feel this recent development brings the beginning of WildernessPunk full circle and solves what lay in the center of my life being torpedoed three years ago. A new chapter, or in this case, a new book, is about to begin. The first page beckons…

Life always remains a battle, we fight against the ills, so we have a chance to enjoy our rewards. More often than not, life’s bounty is best enjoyed with others. Family, friends, animals, and nature. As many before me, I have persevered, obtained my goals, and learned more than a little along the way.

May the joy find you and let your battles be true

zzzzzz

You can check out some of my fiction here, where Detective Dak is placed in charge of the anti-clone task force. His main problem… He’s dating one.