Peasants
To spend time outside, particularly in the company of good friends, elevates one’s status to that of royalty, but also brings with it some important responsibilities.
On wealth and wild lands
Words by Doug Freed, pictures by Michael Sweeney
Opinion - yes, they still make those.“F**k the peasants.”
This toast has been delivered by a friend on several occasions during ski hut trips and river trips after insouciant days of friendship and outdoor bliss.
There’s a lot in that toast. Irony, for starters. We aren’t royalty by any measure, but of course we aren’t peasants, either. I’ll admit the toast was a lot more humorous to me before I spent six years teaching on a Native American reservation where most of my students were mired in multi-generational poverty. Still, I can recognize that the humor or wisdom ensconced in that three-word toast more accurately reflects the elevating nature of nature. To spend time outside, particularly in the company of good friends, elevates one’s status to that of royalty, but also brings with it some important responsibilities.
I like to ask this question at the end of day outside. “What do you suppose Bill Gates is doing right now?” I never wait for an answer to my rhetorical question before adding, “no chance he’s having more fun that I am.” I may be eating a bag of dehydrated, processed food, tired from a day of backpacking, and maybe even a little wet or cold, but I’m in a place with beauty that takes my breath away and I’m sharing it with witty and interesting people. I seriously doubt Bill Gates could improve on that.
The July 25 issue of The New Yorker included a typically well-written and masterfully researched piece of journalism on the worldwide boom in superyachts, megayachts, and, of course, gigayachts. Nobody buys one of these luxurious environmental disasters as an investment. They are terrible investments with price tags often ten times higher than the most lavish luxury home. Costing in the realm of hundreds of millions of dollars, a typical yacht carries no more than 12 passengers, based on a rule established after the sinking of the Titanic by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. Only 12 passengers, but a gigayacht might have a staff of 50, which is allowed. Said one broker quoted in the article, “It’s a level of service you cannot really contemplate until you’ve been fortunate to experience it.”
Later, the story includes a second-hand version of an explanation from a “famous friend who keeps one of the world’s largest yachts.”
“The boat is the last vestige of what real wealth can do…You have a chef, and I have a chef. You have a driver, and I have a driver. You can fly privately, and I can fly privately. So, the one place where I can make clear to the world that I am in a different fucking category than you is the boat.”
That quote succinctly encapsulates a form of moral decadence that is difficult for me to swallow. Defenders of the uber-wealthy might argue I’m jealous, when in fact I feel a sense of moral superiority. I know I’m not rich, but I also know what’s important in life, and concentrating a vast amount of the world’s wealth in your own hands, then squandering it on a resource-consuming monstrosity ain’t it. When I wonder aloud what one of the gigayacht owners are doing while I’m standing near one of Colorado’s high mountain lakes with friends or my wife and dog, I truly am feeling superior, which probably is it’s own form of moral decadence. Nonetheless, I feel a sense of royalty at those moments and more and more I’m coming to realize that this sense of royalty comes with real responsibilities.
Those of us who have the time and financial ability to spend lots of time in the outdoors owe a debt. While it’s obvious the numbers of this tribe are exploding, we still are the lucky few, and we have a real responsibility to save what is left of our wild lands.
First we must recognize the paradox of saving public lands. For years I was conflicted as I wrote about, and therefore exploited the outdoors for financial gain. It was Gudy Gaskill, the builder of the Colorado Trail, who explained to me that if people don’t know about it, it will be impossible to save. Once people learn about a place and begin to populate or overpopulate it, the next step is to realize it may become necessary to develop an area in order to keep it wild. Think of any national park. We’re all going to have to learn to share.
That’s the macro picture. At a personal level, it goes without saying to leave no trace. That doesn’t mean just when you are outside. It’s a lifestyle. Leave the car at home when you can. Invest in solar. Be mindful of how little things add up. If you have the time and energy to actively advocate for wild lands, get involved and do it. The oil industry, mining industry and developers of the world employ an army of folks to advocate for the destruction of wild lands, the other side can use all the help it can get. And vote. Vote for the candidates you feel will be the best stewards of our public lands.
They aren’t making any more wild lands. The time is now to use your royal status to do what can be done to save what we have.
