Planetsave

I found a great article on the impact that rock climbers have on global warming and vice versa over on the British Mountaineering Council’s website. Here’s a quick excerpt, head over to the BMC’s site for the full read.

Mountaineers are a special class of climate criminal. We clearly have a particular moral duty to protect the icy landscapes we enjoy, and most of us like to think of ourselves as environmentally responsible. But the reality is rather different. When it comes to flying, just like the hordes heading off to the beaches of Magaluf, we remain in stubborn denial about the damage our emissions cause, and carry on regardless.

In a recent three page article for The Independent entitled ‘The Melting Mountains’, Joe Simpson bemoaned the destruction of classic routes in the Alps from melting ice and massive rockfalls, without a single mention of his own airmiles, still less the helicopter fuel used to haul him off the Dru. At a meeting of the Alpine Club last summer, one speaker regaled us with stories from a lifetime of expeditions and slides showing evidence of glacial retreat, without once making the connection. Ed Douglas reports being canvassed about a plan to climb the Seven Summits by a couple of teenagers who apparently had yet to develop a sense of irony. Their campaign - involving at least seven round trip long haul flights - was intended to raise money for an environmental group called Leave No Trace.