"Because It's There" Is No Excuse

Attempting to Climb Mount Everest was once the province of skilled mountaineers.  Visiting the wilderness was once the province of those who loved nature.  A core belief that those two groups had in common was a respect for the  natural world.  

Photograph: AP

Today the climbing routes on Everest are clogged with "climbers" whose primary qualifications for attempting the attempt is that they can afford to pay a climbing company, often of questionable capability, to drag them to the top of the mountain.  This year on Everest the loss of life [Ed.  11 and counting] has become a dramatic symbol of a culture that has decided that there is no human experience and no wild place on the planet that can not be invaded by those who feel entitled to achieve something they haven't truly earned.

The number of people seeking to scale Everest has exploded in recent years, driven by surges in climbers from India and China. Dozens of cut-rate climbing companies have also sprung up in the past 10 years, with some accused of cutting corners or lowering requirements for clients’ fitness and experience levels.  

...climbers waiting for hours on overcrowded peaks – putting pressure on oxygen supplies – was probably responsible for five of the 21 deaths so far this season; the remainder could have been due to poor training, inexperience, hidden health issues and inadequate support from guides. 

“It is mainly due to the carelessness of climbers,” said a sherpa. “The government should ensure that prospective climbers should have prior experience of climbing peaks before trying to conquer the mighty Mount Everest.”

Everest may be the highest example of a culture that has little respect for nature as it tramples over the natural world often celebrating the conquest with a selfie.  Commodification of the natural world without regard to the impact of massive hoards of tourist whose primary goal is the take a selfie at the same spot as ten of thousands of other tourists is more likely to destroy than preserve nature.  When a celebrity posts a selfie doing something foolish the potential environmental damage is vastly multiplied. 

...social media has disrupted the way we interact with the environment. With the right hashtag, anyone can view thousands of potential destinations—and choose which to visit based on aesthetics alone. A single social-media post can expose lesser-known or isolated places to the world. And that means good places can no longer hide. “They used to be local parks,” says Mairi Welman, head of communications for the District of North Vancouver, which manages two popular parks near the city. “But now we’re starting to see international visitors coming—and those parks were never designed to handle those kinds of numbers.” The influx has resulted in a host of problems, from woefully unprepared hikers getting hurt to people “using the environment as a bathroom.” And then there’s the parking: “There have literally been screaming matches and fist fights over parking spots,” she says. “It can be like a shopping mall at Christmas.”

Appreciating nature should not be comparable to a shopping mall at Christmas.  Nor should climbing the world's highest mountain simply be a selfie moment paid for by the lives of others.