Ultralight Backpacking Ethically (UBE)

-"I'd love to see someone put together a a sub-20lb. fully functional kit without using any plastics/synthetics.
Is it even possible? Sub 15? Sub 10?"

I've been working on just such a MYOG project for a while now.
EDIT :Started a new thread in MYOG as I have a feeling this one is gonna get ugly.

Here is an argument about global warming that makes a very strong case for taking action, no matter what you might believe.

I can never understand why talking about taking care of the place that we all live in somehow becomes an argument about being conservative or liberal (personally I don’t believe that there are any purely liberal or conservative people… either of those are unrealistic fantasies). Perhaps it is more useful to think of the planet as our house. You have a house on the street in your neighborhood and you don’t know who’s living there, do you think it makes a difference whether the inhabitants are conservative or liberal? But take a look at how the house is being cared for and the attitude, diligence, awareness, and knowledge of maintenance immediately jump out in the condition you see the house in. Don’t take care of the house and it will fall apart. Do care for it and it will last many years and provide good shelter for its dwellers.

How is caring for the Earth any different? It’s got utterly nothing to do with politics or beliefs. We physically live here. We depend on it for every single minute detail of our survival. We must breathe its air. We must drink its water. We must eat what life it provides. We cannot live anywhere else (and even if we did have another place to go, the same conditions would apply there, including whatever transport would take us there). Its health affects every single aspect of each of our lives, no matter what denomination we are. So why not stop quibbling about whether we should care for it, or whether we believe in global warming or species extinction or oceans getting polluted, and simply get to business, using our minds for better housekeeping (including new attitudes and values) rather than wasting time on rhetorical debates?

I would think that anyone who gets out into the wild and spends time there would inherently see this as the way the world works. Unless your eyes are not open and your gear is the only thing you are concerned about when you are out there.

Its hubris to think that the planet is going to think of you as somehow special and spare you if things do go wrong (in the same way that a dilapidated house won’t think twice about falling on you and killing you). And its laziness and folly to not care that things might go wrong (just as you can get by for so long by not caring for the house before it finally comes crashing down).

Why do the arguments in the States always come down to left or right? It seems childish to me.

Bill up there has even made hammocks from the stuff I believe.

Mark, I had a chill when I read this. I hope it's nothing… is Bill all right? I know he's been battling cancer for a long time. I hope he's all right.

No buzz-killing happening here. I don't like acronyms, either…including my own. Thought I would give them one more chance; alas, some ideas are doomed to failure.
Anyway…I was giving some thought to lightweight fabrics…especially strong, water-resistant natural fibers…I know there are some out there…Silk can get pretty heavy…I read a few years ago that some researchers were trying to match the tensile trength of spider silk in a synthetic…strand per strand it's stronger than steel. Maybe a hybrid fabric? I don't think that synthetic fabrics need to go to the chopping block, necessarily. It's the oil-based components and manufacturing techniques. Think we could get the best of both worlds on that?

P.S.–I have hopes that this thread will not get ugly.

I too have hopes for keeping this thread from getting ugly. I have been hanging out on this site, both because I am trying to reduce the weight of my backpack, but because there seem to be a lot of good critical thinkers here.

My interest is in solutions. Even when there are trade-offs. My own personal environmental dilemmas stem from my tendancy to hold on to useful items becuase they still work, even when there are other downsides. This year year I got rid of two SUVs. One was the kind that you park in your garage, the other was a 20 year old external frame pack that was well over 6 Lbs.

What do you do with this stuff? The SUV I was able to donate to charity. It's fate was to be sold at auction, either as a functional vehicle or to the scrap yard where it will be recycled as best as possible. I am not sure what to do with the pack. It is displayed in my picture to the left. It is currently a part of my home's halloween display as a repository for "bloody bones". But next month, I will want to get it out of my garage. The same goes for my 5 Lb synthetic sleeping bag that is as old as the pack.

Going light in a green way will not be easy. I will probably send some of this old gear to the second hand store. (anybody want a 5 Lb synthetic sleeping bag? I will sell it cheap!) I will also agonize over each piece of "functional" gear I replace for both personal financial reasons as well as my impact to the environment.

On a nother note, my compliments to Brian on his project. Maybe some good solutions will come from that. I am interested in silk as a base layer. I am too warm a person for wool most of the time. Even synthetics seem to be too heavy for me. It is amazing how much the solutions are right there in nature. My concern about silk is that it will not dry as rapidly as other materials. I have just started to experiment with it.

Keep asking questions everyone. Keep suggesting solutions. Anyone got a better idea for my ancient gear?

Hi Miguel,

I am still alive. I continue to have a few medical delays when it comes to being able to go hiking however.

=================
The good news:

I am in my third week of a six week of physical therapy treatment program to correct a right shoulder – rotator cup – problem. That seems to be coming along OK.

Cancer in my Balder is still happening at a rate of two or so times a year. I am schedule for a once a week for six weeks type of chemotherapy treatment starting mid November that my Doctors hope will slow that down. I will continue to get a Bladder exam every three months so when cancer does comes back it is never more than three months old. Outpatient surgery (21 times now since 1997) when necessary and back home usually the same day is keeping that in check.

My one Kidney seems to up to the task and that is always a nice thought.

Even though I can not eat real food my 100% liquid diet has allowed me to maintain my weight at about 158 pounds for the last 4 + years. I do take a group of different Vitamins every day. Ensure even comes in a DRY form so when I can hike again I can used that for my trail food.

If you asked me how I am feeling, I would tell you better than I have for a long time. It is almost scary.

I never stopped walking at least 2 miles everyday even when I didn't want to. I have increased my distance up to 4 to 6 miles a day and 8 miles ever so often. Last Thursday I walked 5 miles in pouring rain wearing all my older GoreTex rain gear (TNF jacket and pants both with lots of venting options), OR gaiters, TNF – GoreTex lined – Hiking Shoes and I stayed dry. I really mean dry. The weight of the all the above was 5.7 pounds. Those that know me may be surprised that I would even have all that heavy gear. It is from the "old" days.

My old gear will become a base line for me to see what I can replace it all with that is a lot lighter. The only requirement for the new gear is that it HAS to be as good at keeping me DRY as the heavier things do. I am getting to old to try a long hike such as the AT and run into a lot of rain and end up wet out and forced off the trail. I don't mind walking in the rain if I am warm and more or less dry.

So what do I have in mind. If things work out I might get up to Georgia sometime just after the new year for some hiking on the AT. That is about all I want to say at this point.

I have stared to work on different ways to winterize my TNF Hiking shoes to keep my feet warm and dry for a winter hike.

Other items of gear necessary are in the early stages of design with a few pattern prototypes under construction.

I will try to be as light as the weather conditions will let me.

==============

The bad news:

Their is no bad news only "to heavy" gear.

This has been a long answer to a short question.

Up there only referred to the relative position of this thread in relation to the MYOG thread ….. sorry for the scare.

Bill … it's always a pleasure to "hear" your words.

Mark

Sorry if I came across a little strong in my post. I wasn't trying to rile up anyone. And it's hard to put into a few words a lifetime of concern for the deterioration of the natural world. It's just that so much seems so stupid and so indifferent and so selfish that it's hard not to get heated about something that I dearly love. Too much is being lost.

Thank goodness, Bill. When Mark wrote "Bill up there" I thought the worst. Great to know you are doing better than before. Hope you can finally get on your long walk soon.

Sorry to hijack the thread.

"Anyone got a better idea for my ancient gear?"

Offer them to the next homeless person you see wandering without bag and/or pack. It could make a real difference to their marginal quality of life. That's what I did with an old heavy weight Gore Tex jacket I had hanging in the basement. It's by no means the optimal solution to the plight of the homeless, but it can make a small temporary difference. It might even help someone make it through a sub freezing night. Just a thought.

I was going to make the "give them to a homeless person" suggestion as well. Even if you can't find one right away, leave them in garbage bags under the nearest bridge; someone will get them. They will also use the garbage bags.

I was reminded of something else as well, thinking about fabrics, which is one of my other motivations for being on this site. Backpacking light is especially difficult for me during fall/winter, because I am a ridiculously cold person. I want to be as light as possible but still have to keep warm. As an example, I recently did the Northern Loop Trail on Mt. Rainier and wasn't totally prepared for the snow that came. I was cold in a -30 degree synthetic bag (with 4 layers of clothing, 4-season pad, and tent w/ fly) even though the temps never got much below 40 at night. So my goals are to be light, warm, and as environmentally friendly/ethical as I can. Thoughts?

Anyone here who knows the proportions of backpacking gear's environmental impact caused by materials (it is built of) vs. logistics (to get it to you)? Of course there are no exact figures, but maybe an educated guess on magnitude. At least in some well defined cases.

I'm no expert here at all, but somehow believe:
The raw material is about nothing compared to the whole chain of factories, transports and shops between oil field and your garage. What matters is how often do you buy gear and how long is it's logistic chain. Ethical gear is durable and repairable gear, be it made of synthetic or natural fibers, recycled or not. Synthetic fibers are often tougher and thus usually more environmentally friendly. (With the exception of down being way better than fiber insulation)

As said, I'm no expert, and will believe more educated people who tell this was wrong.

Then another subject is whether the biggest pollutant in the life of a backpack is the person who drives it to the trailhead, even once.

Disclaimer: the calculations below are grossly inaccurate. I'll be happy if they're within a factor of 2.

Conclusion: the energy costs of your BP gear is much much less than the energy costs of driving a car to the trail head.

UL gear will use lighter material (less mass), so less environmental impact than heavier versions of the same material. Shipping UL gear will use less energy than heavier gear.

As a very rough guesstimate:
Synthetic materials made from petroleum feedstock will use roughly 1 lb of feedstock for each pound of finished material. With inefficiencies and fuel used to produce it, say 2 or 3 times as much mass of petroleum as finished material. So a 1 lb piece of gear uses at most 3 lb of petroleum (probably closer to 1 lb than to 3 lb).

Transportation of the gear also uses energy, but much less than transportation of you (the hiker) and gear to the trail head. Consider that the shipped gear may weigh 2 lb and your car weighs 3000+ lb. If you travel 100 miles to hike (200 miles total) and get 33 mpg, that's 6 gallons of gas = about 36 lb. If you use the item for 50 hikes, that's 1800 lb of gasoline. So, taking 10 lb of UL gear might use 30 lb of petroleum in its manufacturing and shipping. Transporting you to the trail head might use 60 times the fossil fuel compared to manufacturing the gear you use.

The food you eat on all these trips also has an energy cost that is likely more than the energy cost of the gear.

Probably smaller than using an electric car to get to a trail head unless you cook on a wood fire then your carbon footprint goes way up. Its all relative.

Someone once said that the only sincere act of an extreme environmentalist is to commit suicide. This relates to my hereby proposed Butler's Law of Environmental Degradation, as follows:

People = Pollution

Even the most environmentally pristine of us generates a tremendous amount of pollution, just by being alive. The amount of pollution generated in order to feed, clothe, shelter, and transport each of us is enormous. In this context, agonizing over the impact (for example) between a synthetic and down sleeping bag might make one feel better, but it has virtually zero practical environmental impact on a planet with over 6 billion (and growing) polluting people. It's not even a drop in the bucket.

This will make some people uncomfortable or even angry, but I believe that the most important long-term environmental decision the average person can make is how many children to have. I'd argue that the decision to have an additional child will, for the average person, have a larger long-term impact on the environment than all the other environmental decisions that person makes put together.

There's an analogy with compound interest. The number of kids each person has on average is like an interest rate, and the average age at which people have children is like the frequency of compounding. If everyone has 4 kids starting at the age of 20, the population (and pollution) explodes. But if everyone has 2 kids starting at the age of 30, the population stabilizes, or even declines. Waiting significantly longer to have kids reduces the number of generations of a given family who are alive at any particular time, which reduces population and therefore pollution. That's just the inarguable way the math works.

A more subtle point is that, in contrast with many environmental decisions, a decision to have fewer children causes a permanent environmental improvement lasting after one's death, because you've created fewer polluting descendants for all time.

The thing is, I love kids! It makes me uncomfortable as well to say all this. But it's reality.

So by all means, make a good effort to reduce your environmental impact via the usual methods. But don't kid yourself that you're having a large effect in the overall scheme of things. To have a much bigger impact, have fewer kids, have them later in life, or both.

If you're inclined to get political about this, focus on trying to change government policies which encourage population growth. These policies exist all over the world in one form or another. The most obvious example in the US is the income tax exemption per child, but there are many other examples as well. At the very least, these policies should be reduced or eliminated to help reduce population and pollution growth.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. :-)

"I believe that the most important long-term environmental decision the average person can make is how many children to have."

I've been following the Quiverful movement, aka The Duggar Family. Does this mean I shouldn't convert to their religion?

"To have a much bigger impact, have fewer kids, have them later in life, or both."

Darin,

Good on ya! I've been thinking this since pretty much this thread started, but didn't want to rile people by saying so. But now that you've had the courage to bring it up, I'll tag along. While, like others, I try to tread lightly on this earth, I believe that my decision not to have children was the most environmentally friendly decision I've ever made. Not trying to castigate others for having kids, like you I love kids. But I agree that having/not having children is the biggest environmental impact anyone can make. FWIW.

"Someone once said that the only sincere act of an extreme environmentalist is to commit suicide."

These misanthropic arguments are pretty tiring. Perhaps it should read "the greatest and most sincere act of of the misanthrope is…."?

These arguments rule out some of the very best things of human nature: that we have the capacity, if we choose, to create enormous POSITIVE change all around us. Our children have this ability too. They also rule out the simple fact that we are here and it will not change.

So please let's not go down the "human extinction being the best thing for the Earth" road…it's probably the single most unproductive way to approach environmental conservation.

On population/children:
If you can't persuade people to stop driving giant cars, do you think they'll give up child rearing? If telling people how to shop is infringing upon "freedom", what about controlling reproduction? It's a non-starter. Better to spend time working on things we CAN change.

We're here, and there are billions of us and that likely won't change soon- so we need to work POSITIVELY within the constrains of that fact.

Tom: not sure who's tongue is more firmly in cheek, mine or yours.

Douglas: glad you liked it.

Craig: You misunderstand me. I'm no antipopulation zealot. Nobody thinks the "let's save the planet by rendering humans extinct" crowd is more ridiculous than I do. Nowhere did I recommend that people stop having children. In fact, if you knew what I do for a living, you'd laugh uproariously at my original post!

I'm merely pointing out that spending lots of time on a website worrying about one's backpacking equipment is an extremely ineffective way of improving the environment. There are bigger fish to fry. Unless, of course, you've already done everything else possible and have reached the point of diminishing returns. Which applies to very few people.

"We're here, and there are billions of us and that likely won't change soon- so we need to work POSITIVELY within the constrains of that fact."

Darin wasn't arguing for suicide at all, he simply used someone else's statement as a jumping off spot for the point he did want to make.

As far as the above statement, I simply disagree that working to make people understand ALL that it means to have children is unproductive or not positive. If we always confine ourselves to work only within the constraints of current reality, then we'll never change anything.

Many have written on the impacts of the human population from the population viewpoint itself. I am most familiar with the writings of Ehrlich, but of course he (and she) were not the first. Yes, of course, that spending time on a website worrying about one's gear impact is, perhaps, entirely useless, not to mention just one more use of electricity. Good thing, then, that worry was not the motivation for this thread. Positive action starts with awareness. Who better, really, to become more aware ourselves and then the spread that awareness than those of us who love the natural environment?
You also might want to look into the terms "carrying capacity" and "replacement rate" in relationship to the population question, especially the variations between cultures and countries as well as the impact of education of women on population problems.
For the record, whoever it was, no, you should not join that religion. :)

I love it when two seemingly unrelated things in my life connect. I am working on some family ancestry research right now. I have an ancester from the 1800s that had 9 children… by his first wife. When she died he remarried and had at least 3 more!

I have two children. If I pick an ancester halfway between, it is 5 children. We humans, at least in developed countries seem to already get it.

My biggest "bang for the buck" pick would have to be alternative energy sources. Solar and wind energy (and others!) should make a huge difference… if we just get serious and consistant about developing them.

>>> If everyone has 4 kids starting at the age of 20, the population (and pollution) explodes. But if everyone has 2 kids starting at the age of 30, the population stabilizes, or even declines. Waiting significantly longer to have kids reduces the number of generations of a given family who are alive at any particular time, which reduces population and therefore pollution. That's just the inarguable way the math works.<<<

I have one child, and started at age 38. I guess I can now carry on with my gear obsession guilt free…!

“My biggest “bang for the buck” pick would have to be alternative energy sources. Solar and wind energy (and others!) should make a huge difference… if we just get serious and consistant about developing them.”

I’m glad I don’t live somewhere where there are windmills surrounding my horizon.

Hopefully, technology will develop to the point that we can clean up the planet a little, for instance mining landfills for recycling and energy…I actually have a friend that engineers landfill gas handling systems, whether for burning it off or generating power. I would like to see more big grinders that just pulverize and shred everything, like old mobile homes. Watch Who knows where the future could take us, if governments would do something besides make wars.

>>> If everyone has 4 kids starting at the age of 20, the population (and pollution) explodes. But if everyone has 2 kids starting at the age of 30, the population stabilizes, or even declines.

Isaac Asimov wrote, "Almost all of the problems of the world can be summarized in three words: Too many people."

Stargazer