180° SOUTH and the environment

I mentioned this before and have finally got round to having a look a the entire film. It's definitely worth a gander, the scenery and journey are excellent and I think it epitomises the reasons why people that enjoy the outdoors are usually very much driven to protect it.

"It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong"

180° SOUTH from Mark Kalch on Vimeo.

Maybe my idea of travelling is more extreme than others, but I look upon this full on immersion in a journey as the way it should be done. I know many people many people that are going or have returned from travelling around South East Asia and Australia, and can't help but feel they didn't get all I think they could have out of it. In my eyes they appear to have taken essentially long holidays that involve taking in the sights abreast of a lot of drinking. There doesn't seem to be a lot of integration with the local populace, instead the majority of time is spent with other western travellers and indulging in activities that are mostly possible back home in some shape or form. Staying within you're comfort zone isn't really an adventure to me, but maybe my views are rather left-field.

"What are we going to call this route?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter"

A lot of the sentiment shared throughout the film resonates with me, especially the conservation side of things. I feel we should all be trying to have a lower impact and live a more environmentally conscious life. Maybe that's why the Ditch Monkey and Hunter-Gatherer blog's were so interesting and inspiring for me, a stop gap until I am in the position to take my life in that direction.

It’s hard not to be attracted to self sufficiency; however I’m not so naïve to believe that it will make such a difference to the way the planet is exploited. Radical ways of looking at how we live are needed but large corporations and governments aren’t likely to let this happen easily as they both have far too much influence and money to lose. In the same way that exploitation of the working classes has been exported to developing countries, whether we want to believe this or not, it would appear the same will eventually happen with unpalatable high carbon and environmentally exploitive industries. Like many things it’s out of sight, out of mind, however as my current employer is trying to empress, it’s one planet living, thus shifting problems somewhere else doesn’t solve the problem.

Maybe we're all doomed.