En-vi-ron-ment

En-vi-ron-ment – noun; the set of circumstances and conditions in which something exists or lives. That’s become a pretty loaded word these days. Say the word stapler to a friend who just got out of an empty F350 Super Duty truck and they might think you’ve had one too many morning Americanos. Say the word environment at that moment and you’ll likely get something more serious than just a quizzical look. We all know what ‘The Environment’ is, we’ve had the lessons drilled into our heads: always recycle, don’t throw that Tim Hortons cup out your car window, try to drive less and so not be in your car to throw said cup in the first place, etc, etc. But what does all that mean? Why, with all the media hype and talk of CO2 levels, do we seem to be getting nowhere?
Because no one talks about it. ‘What,’ you say, ‘how can that be? We hear about it all the time.’ True, we’re bombarded with David Suzuki this and Kyoto that, but all those TV specials and news reports about the “latest environmental study”, it all becomes just more background noise to our lives. When I say people don’t talk about climate change, I mean they don’t discuss it, especially in a town that owes a lot of its wealth to the strip-mines and upgraders along the banks of the Athabasca River. It’s such a polarizing issue that people often only bring it up around their friends, people they know will agree with them. A lot of it has to do with our fear of being wrong. For some reason, we seem to have this built in phobia of being mistaken. This doesn’t just affect the climate change issue either…it’s a paradigm of our society. You’re either for the war, or you’re against it. You’re pro-choice or anti-abortion. You care about the environment, or you don’t. You’re a Flames fan or an Oilers nut, but there’s no room to simply enjoy hockey. We slot ourselves into categories like ‘athlete’ or ‘business person’ or ‘environmentalist’, and then we cling to those categories because we think they define who we are, and we get defensive when those identities are questioned. Questioning what we believe feels like questioning who we are, so instead we define ourselves in binary, when the whole world is multi-faceted, including the problem of climate change. The solution to this problem doesn’t lie in confrontation, in a struggle of the “tree-hugger” against the “Big Oil execs”. The solution lies in collaboration, meaningful debate and honest exploration of the issues. Unfortunately, Greenpeace activists getting arrested earn higher ratings than a friendly town hall forum.
Now, I’m not saying that all the media attention paid to “the climate change issue” is bad. It’s awesome, and we need more of it. We just need the right kind of attention. Things are starting to change, slowly. We recycle more, we try to use less water, and we even get a discount on coffee for bringing our own travel mugs. And those things do add up to a solid and measurable difference. But at this point, with this much CO2 in the atmosphere (389 parts per million), lifestyle changes alone are not enough. We need our leaders to understand that things cannot keep going the way they’ve been going. The Tar Sands is the world’s largest industrial project, an open sore larger than England and the leading industrial polluter in Canada, but how do you stop it when you still need to put gas in your car? Alberta relies almost entirely on coal to provide power and heat, but our homes still have to be warm. The solutions are out there, and they’re surprisingly simple. The free flow of ideas will help us make sense of the climate mess we’re in, but most of us are too afraid to tackle the issue. We pat ourselves on the back for going to the bottle depot, and we leave it at that.
One (I’m proud to say fellow) athlete who sure isn’t afraid to debate the issues is three-time Olympian Sara Renner. Her and her husband four-time Olympian Thomas Grandi have been leading the chorus for a solution to climate change in Canmore for years now. In a phone conversation I had with Sara while she was at a National Team training camp in Mammoth Lakes, California earlier this month (and I at a slightly less adventurous training camp in Lake Louise), she made it clear that climate change is a serious issue for her and Thomas. Their biggest reason? Their daughter Aria.
“I started noticing a change in the post-Olympic (Salt Lake City, Utah, 2002) season. There were more and more race cancellations at sites that had never had snow problems before.” She went on to talk about the increasing number of storms blowing into the Bow Valley from the east, something that never used to happen when she was growing up here.
“I’m worried that [cross country] skiing could be the canary in the coal mine.” The thought that her daughter might grow up without the possibility of competing in the sport her mother loves is a troubling thing for Sara. It troubles me too.
“I have a huge responsibility to her.”
As I said, Sara likes to talk about the issue, but she doesn’t just leave it at that. This past weekend’s group hike to Quarry Lake, just above Canmore, where a crowed gathered to unveil a giant banner with the number 350 printed boldly across it? That was largely Sara and Thomas’ doing, through their group, the Canmore Climate Crusaders. 350 parts per million is what scientists agree is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere…as I said earlier; we’re already at 389 and climbing fast. The event was part of a much larger day of climate action. People at over 5,200 events in 181 countries across the planet marched, made signs, painted faces, streets and buildings, even bungee-jumped, all in an effort to show world leaders that we need a meaningful and binding resolution on climate change at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December. (There is a great photo spread from the event if you flip back a few pages, courtesy of Pam Doyle.)
This was not just a one-off event either. There are lots of chances for you to get involved in the demand for action on climate change, right here in the Bow Valley. In fact, here’s a perfect example:
On the evening of October 29th, at Communitea Café, the Canmore Community Cruisers are having their AGM and Bike Shorts film festival dedicated to celebrating life on two wheels. The group, which I’ve had the incredible opportunity to work with over the summer, is a local charity that takes old bicycles and rehabs them into commuter bikes. You might have seen their ‘Green Fleet’ around town at the Alpine Club hostel, or outside Communitea. They’re bikes that anyone can use for free, you just have to sign up as a member of the group. Entry is by donation, simply pay what you can. I’ll be there, and I challenge anyone reading this to meet me there. I’ll be the skinny guy in the Mad Max costume. Do you think further Tar Sands development is ruining Canada’s reputation as a global leader? Do you think the whole climate change thing is a hoax? Do you have no idea either way? Perfect. Come out and talk to me or to any of the other awesome people who are sure to be there, we want to hear what you think…in fact, we need to.
Remember, on the mountain, as in life, always ride that high line…otherwise it might not be around for much longer.

Artistic Merit

That street musician that you passed on the sidewalk in Calgary last week, were they any good? Would you have even noticed if they were? What if that person was a world-renowned musician, who plays for sold out crowds, and you passed up a chance to experience them one on one, intimately, like friends at a kitchen party? In January 2007, in a Washington DC metro station, over 1000 people passed up just such a chance.
Joshua Bell, one of the world’s foremost violin masters played incognito for 45 minutes in a Washington DC metro station during morning rush hour. Of the over 1000 people who hurried passed during his performance, hardly anyone so much as glanced up from their head-down, all-business stride; barely a dozen bothered to stopped and actually listen. The longest that anyone listened was for a little over three minutes. Later, that man told the Washington Post (which had arranged the social experiment) that he had only stopped because he was five minutes early for work.
This poses some interesting questions about society’s priorities. I have to wonder, if we as a culture can’t spare even a few moments to stop and enjoy one of the greatest musical artists of our time, playing some of the most inspiring music every written on one of the most beautiful instruments ever crafted, what else are we missing? More than that though, I think this is a question about how we define art. Another analogy would be to take a Tom Thompson painting, remove it from its frame and hang it in a local coffee shop with a $150 price tag. One or two might look up at think “hmm, that looks kinda like a Tom Thompson” before going back to their café americano and the latest Dan Brown novel. Does that diminish the worth of Thompson’s work? Do you think he would care?
Was Joshua Bell’s performance, removed from its frame of a concert hall and a tuxedo, still art? If a masterful artist makes beautiful music, but fails to touch any of his audience emotionally, was the music still beautiful? Conversely, if something superficially inartistic manages to stir something in an audience, what is the significance of that? Jarome Iginla certainly has the power to touch people emotionally. I’ve seen full-grown men brought almost to tears by the Flames so narrowly missing the play-off finals. Is that art? Certainly you could argue there’s something artistic about the face splitting grin of an exhausted hockey player hoisting the Stanley Cup, but is that more or less artistic than all the inglorious hours spent in a gym that it took to get there?
You might be tempted to argue that sport is too focused on competition, on a clear winner and an obvious loser, to be considered an art. After all, art is not a competition; it is simply art for art’s sake. As an athlete, I can tell you that, while sport would not exist without competition, that isn’t necessarily the intended goal. The goal is not what lies at the end of the journey; the goal is the journey itself. Ask any of us why we do what we do, why we sacrifice decades of our lives just to be able to go from point A to point B faster than someone else. The answer you will always get is ‘Because we love it’, plain and simple. Is that any different than the art student who spends hours trolling coffee shops and book stores, pleading for somewhere to display their work? What’s the lowest common denominator between hours spent mixing paint, filling out training logs or hand folding a thousand home made CD liner notes? It’s been said that it takes 10 000 hours to perfect a skill, whether it’s playing the steel guitar, capturing the essence of a river in a camera lens, or figuring out exactly how to take a tight right hand corner at high speed while being jostled by 3 other skiers all trying to reach that red line in the snow before you do.
To me, art is defined by the passion behind it. By that measure, what we do on the roads and trails around Canmore is more artistic than most of what you’ll hear on a Top 40 radio station.
10 000 hours is a long time (a little over 416 days consecutively) and you don’t get there because you know it will pay well when you do, or because you want a medal of a different colour. You will only get there if you truly love what you’re doing. And here’s the kicker. If you love what you’re doing, it won’t matter whether people take notice. You can watch the video of Joshua Bell’s performance for yourself on the web. If you do, you will notice something right away. Of the over 1000 people who passed in front of the camera, Joshua Bell is the only one smiling.

Remember: on the mountain, as in life always ride that (soon to be snow-covered!) high line.