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General Climbing Discussion

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Welfare and climbing 27-Nov-2008 At 4:55:18 PM oweng

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On 27/11/2008 Bert wrote:
>It seems that you have attempted to label sustainability a black or white
>issue, and as such deemed that the urbanite and dirtbag are the same because
>that are both 'not sustainable'.

I don’t think that sustainability is black and white, so cant for the life of me see why I would bother attempting to label it as such. Everybody has an impact. Some more than others, and me more than most. I was making the point that unless your growing your own food, your relying on others to do it for you. Sure, if your able to use food that would other wise be wasted, that’s great and probably equivalent to growing the food yourself. Gold star.

I’d be pretty doubtful that anyone dirtbagging at Arapiles is there because they want to reduce their ecological footprint. They are there because they want to climb.

Anthonyk has interprited my opinion well. Our farms are so efficient that a farmer can grow food for many. This creates excess wealth by freeing up the labour these other people formally used to grow their own food to do other things, such as build roads to help move food around, build dams and pipes to manage water, build houses and cities etc. This urban growth has lead to wealth and lesuire time, to allow the pusuit of trivial things like climbing (yay!).

Sure its a system that is on its way to self destructing as we hit resource limits, and deserves critisism for this, but its served us well I think.

Also, what Cruze said (he seems to have said what im in the process of saying, but quicker and more to the point).