I have recently finished Yvon Chouinard's business and philosophy memoir, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. Chouinard represents all that is right with corporate America; he is a true role model for CEO's around the world...his 1% for the Planet is doing some great stuff for grassroots environmental causes around the country...he is a pioneer in every sense of the word.
I have also visited some of these "wild places." I have stood in awe of the silence they afforded, such a luxury in today's hyperwired world; the silence which rippled through my bones, permeated my skeleton, calmed my mind, therapy on the cheap. These wild places are disappearing; when they are gone, they are lost forever; and when they are gone, a large part of us, latent or obvious, knowing or oblivious, will be gone as well. There is no renegging on development; new growth does not parallel old growth. Keep our wild places wild.
The original definition of consumer is” “One who destroys, or expends by use; devours, spends wastefully.” It would take seven earths for the rest of the world to consume at the same rate that we Americans do. Ninety percent of what we buy in a mall ends up in the dump within sixty to ninety days. It’s not wonder we are no longer called citizens but consumers. A consumer is a good name for us, and our politicians and corporate leaders are reflections of who we have become. With the average American reading at only an eighth- grade level and nearly 50 percent of Americans not believing in education, we have the government that we deserve.
The place in the lower 48 states that is the farthest away from a road or habitation is at the headwaters of the Snake River in Wyoming, and its still only 25 miles. So if you define wilderness as a place that is more than a day’s walk from civilization, there is no true wilderness left in North America, except in parts of Alaska and Canada.
-Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
