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Show TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT... BY JIM STILES IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD (AS WE KNOW IT) few eyebrows. A couple weeks ago, the World Wildlife Fund released an exhaustive study on the effect of human impacts on the planet. The news was not encouraging; in fact, it was downright apocalyptic. At the current rate of consumption, or as the WWF put it, at the rate we are "plundering our natural resources,’ this planet will expire in 50 years. The report went so far as to suggest that planetary colonization was the only hope for the human race. Can you imagine the cockroaches waving goodbye as the last starship departs, wiping whatever passes for brows and sighing, "I thought they’d never leave." But all this is just wishful thinking. I don’t believe the planet or many of humans As if its living human occupants will expire in 50 years-them, perhaps, but not all--and I’d expect to find among the survivors. ‘surviving’ has any advantages. Ed Abbey used to proclaim, "Our only hope is catastrophe!” and I constantly hear similar refrains. The notion that a world calamity will "take care of our problems” is a response | hear frequently when | get into a real hand- wringing rant. But i don’t think a big disaster could possibly turn the human race around. Consider the greatest man-made disaster in the history of the world--World War II. More than 50 million people died in that six year global conflict, millions more were maimed or i The dumbing down, the loss of human diversity is almost necessary if it is to endure the correlating loss of everything else around us. A shallow and _ superficial environment is the only answer. human : Which is why, in this issue, we offer a preview of Things to Come. Extreme Sports for the 21st Century. Some pray for catastrophe. What we need is enlightenment. What we very well may get is "body pierce belaying." Now excuse me while I go slash my wrists. EXTREME GOOFINESS OK...now that I’ve cheered you up... I eagerly admit to a bias against reckless, adrenalininduced, narcissistic, self-indulgent, mindless sports. Except sex. In the 21st Century lexicon, these activities would be called extreme sports. | don’t get it. Maybe I was jaded at an early age because my job as a ranger required me to rescue these morons from time to time. (Oh god, Martha...he's telling another “ranger story.”) There wasn’t that much of this idiocy 20 years ago and I don’t know how the working field rangers in 2002 can stand it, unless they’re adrenalin junkies themselves. Admittedly, in the first couple years, I got into the rush of a rescue. I enjoyed. scarred. Trillions of dollars in property damage was inflicted upon the great nations of the world. And what came of it? The biggest building and baby boom in history as well as its greatest military expansion. In just one decade we created weapons of mass destruction that could release as much fire-power in one bomb as all the ordinance exploded in WWII. The technology that came out of the war created a materialistic society that, in 2002, Can you imagine the cockroaches waving goodbye as the last starship departs...and sighing, threatens to reach the far corners of the planet. The global consumer economy moves forward with unparalleled zeal (despite the current stock market reinvigorated under the cover of Our government has paid the given right to unilaterally attack free-fall), now fortified and our war on terror. world notice, it has a Godany nation on earth that it perceives to be a threat to the security of the United States. being proficient and knowledgeable of the techniques needed We don’t even have to prove it; we just have to think it. Conveniently, it also gives our country access to the natural resources of that conquered (or liberated?) nation and provides us the opportunity--no, the DUTY--to "offer" our advanced and civilized American Culture to these primitive and backward peoples. Backward, that is, as we see it. For to extricate some hapless soul from a dangerous situation. There was a certain heroic aspect to it all. And of course we what nation can claim to be civilized if it lacks a McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Enron, Worldcom, and’Coca-Cola. After all, things go better with Coke. Which after several rambling paragraphs brings me back to the original premise of this little lament. The world will not expire in 50 years, nor will its human population. What the As if there were safety in stupidity alone. world will become, I think, is a much blander, less interesting place. A world with greatly diminished biological diversity. And a world where its human culture is just as bereft. As one scientist put it recently, "If a world with four kinds of trees, cats, rats and a few types of finches is sufficient, then biotic impoverishment is for you." And it just might be. The human trait that has always allowed us to survive as a species is its adaptability. If I wanted to be kind, I might-suggest we're resilient; if | wanted to be honest, I’d insist we're stupidly malleable. As the diversity of Nature declines, one species at a time, we'll shrug and say, “Isn’t that a shame?” and move on. Today, does - FLD. Thoreau "| thought they'd never leave. anyone grieve for the passenger pigeon? Or the moa? We rarely grieve for things we know nothing about, and as knowledge of history becomes more irrelevant with each new generation, the loss that our planet sustains will scarcely be noticed. — : ee Technology alone will keep us going far beyond what doomsayers today predict. "Soylent Green" comes to mind. And the price paid for our “victory of science’ will raise very all suffered from a shocking superiority complex when we compared ourselves to these boneheads who jeopardized their own lives and ours in the process. But after a while it became routine and annoying and always dangerous. Ranger Roger Maki and I were once called to the scene of a-rimrocked climber near Landscape Arch. He’d become trapped on a six inch ledge and was screaming and making noises that I’d never heard any human being make. He sounded like a cat being converted into guitar strings. We had to carry all our gear to the top of the steep incline past Wall and then his level). to the top. Arch, traverse the fin above him, establish a belay descend to his level (We'll never really descend to We hooked him into a harness and he was pulled The moment he was safe, the terror left his face, he flashed a twisted grin and he yelled, "Whoa DUDE! What a rush!” ; I turned toward the victim, but Roger grabbed my elbow. “With your luck, Stiles, you'd go over the edge with him." Now the man was raising and pumping his arms Rockystyle and Roger said, "Hey buddy. You almost got yourself killed down there. And us too." “Hey Dude!” he laughed. "The rock is in my blood!" Roger gave him the Blue Swedish Glare. "Another couple minutes and your blood would have been in the rock." He didn’t get it. I hope that today he is permanently rimrocked somewhere. Over the years, it became so boring. One aspect of a rock rescue is that the same protocol must be used, whether the stranded climber is 100 feet above the ground or 12. It just |