Wild Cronicles - Ben Horton
National Geographic has finally finished their Wild Chronicles episode about my Brother Ben. It recaps our stay there on the island and some of the patrols we did around the island filming and documenting with the rangers and coast guard. My brother has lectured all over the U.S. about this trip and even at the T.E.D. Conference last year in Africa. Watch Video Bens Website
The Starbucker Identity Crisis
Walking through LAX airport is always an interesting experience. The airport security checkpoints are positively some of the worst in the world, but once you pass them, a whole new world awaits you that makes the harassment worthwhile. The “cultural overflow” in L.A. permeates the waiting areas - silicon implants and “alternative “ lifestyles coexisting amongst suited business travelers and in fashion hippie backpackers. Each character seems to fit into a well defined stereotype of society. It may not be necessarily politically correct to view LAX patrons this way, but it seems to be working.
In front of me an apparently lesbian couple sit who appear to be hard rockers by virtue of their appearances, tattoos, dark ripped clothing, jewelry with crosses, skulls, spikes and the accompanying piercings seem far left of mainstream. But then they surprise me for a moment. A couple of starbucks cups and a blackberry appear and suddenly these two just don’t seem to be in their respective stereotypical places. They seem quite out of place. The society challenging rebel yell of their appearances was clashing in a major way with the apparently mainstream “accessories” they sported. I know it is my own stereotype that is apparently wrong, yet it gets me thinking about a subject I have been dwelling on for some time.
As I walked down the hallway to get to my gate, I passed two starbucks in the last 100 meters before my gate. Two. It wasn’t one Starbucks and then another coffee company competitor. There were two Starbucks. It seems odd to me that we need two of these stores so close to each other. I can understand the reasoning behind one in each terminal. Or maybe one on either end of the terminal. But these were practically next to each other. The question arising from this observation was quite obvious. Do we need two? In cities from Washington D.C. to Hong Kong I have experienced that a starbucks can literally be found on almost every block. Down town in most cities you can see a sign for one from almost any vantage point. I used to severely go out of my way to avoid supporting such a “mega corporation” and search out the little guys shops, trying to support the local business. But after learning that Starbucks does indeed try and remain environmentally conscious, I feel better about purchasing from them. But that brings up another Question.
Are we really just slaves to advertising? I have to admit, walking by the first Starbucks I did not feel the need to buy a $4 designer coffee. After all I had just spent $12 on a salad and water. But, as I passed the second, the subconscious, lingering thought patterns evoking the coffee impulse buy, that I suppressed while passing the first Starbucks, came out in force. I actually had to think, “I really don’t need a coffee”. Indeed, it is not a well disguised fact that advertising often has as much or more to do with the purchase of a product, than does the quality of the product. This is what bothers me.
By and large we have become a society which is pushed and pulled by advertising. The product doesn’t really matter. It just needs to be average. The advertising on the other hand needs to be exceptional. It needs to include catch phrases like green, MPG, hybrid, digital, and high definition. These are phrases that are currently being stuck on everything. Not to mention maverick and change. The MPG and hybrid ones are driving me crazy. I looked up the Chevy Tahoe hybrid the other day to see what advantages it had for the environment. 21 and 22 MPG for highway and city travel. Thats the new more fuel efficient Tahoe. It really is a bad joke! Yet just because it carries the word hybrid along with it, the consumer can feel good about trading in their old SUV for an SUV hybrid, without really gaining anything other than a new vehicle. I see some serious issues here.
Our economy has crashed recently because of greed. The finger of blame has been pointed in many directions, but no one seems to look at the four fingers pointing at ourselves. Why do we need designer coffee on every corner? Why don’t Ford, Audi, and Volkswagen (to mention a few) bring the 50 plus MPG cars they sell overseas into America? They say we like power more than fuel efficiency. We like appearance over taste. It is sad, but true. In the mean time our wasteful and excessive spending has brought our economy to a halt. Thats ironic because it is actually what sustained it for a long time. It was part of the image of “the American Dream”, but it itself was not sustainable. Rather, it just isn’t reasonable. At this point it would be easy to talk about America as the great wasteful consumer of the world. But that is to deep and depressing for this article. Instead I think of my characters in LAX.
I see how hard it is to not fit inside a pre-packaged identity box. The stereo types of rocker, businessmen, hippie, or jock all describe the superficial details. But the core details are determined by our regional advertising campaigns. Want food? Eat this. Want to drive? You need this. Like music? Buy it here and listen like this. Actually, you need to like music and listen like this to this. Sure, we can change the colours of our clothes, hair, cars and ipods, but we aren’t really that different than the person sitting next to us even though appearances sometimes say we are. Advertising campaigns often target an individual by offering the feeling of an independent identity. How many H2 Hummer owners do you know who actually take them off the pavement, much less offroading? They probably would be just as well off with a Volkswagen TDI Golf which gets almost 70 MPG. You can even Get a Golf TDI Hybrid if you need the word hybrid to make you feel good, and bump the MPG up over 70. But you would have to buy it overseas, and we don’t sell them here because it would not sustain the oil industry. Thus we would not have to buy so much foreign oil, or possibly be in Iraq. Again, I am treading on a subject which resembles thin ice. I kind of like it though, so I will continue.
Lets go back to the two Starbuck terminal in LAX. A short while ago I decided to re-enter the patronage of Starbucks after a little education about their environmental policies. My decision was based on a system of fair trade and low waste policy worldwide in its simple form. I felt good about it. I didn’t mind becoming a Starbucker again. I felt like I wasn’t being green washed by advertising, but instead was making a conscious decision....... Something about the shear amount of these stores seems disproportionate to me though. I don’t mind waiting in line a few minutes for a coffee. I don’t need my own personal store simply to avoid that wait. After all, the time I save will probably just cause me to rack up a bill somewhere else. Is the low waste policy genuine, or does it simply reflect the global economies need to switch to a more green advertising scheme?
Full circle identity profiling. Thats what I have done in LAX. Or at least what I want to call what I have done. These many people who I attempted to stereo type, and who confused me, really are true individuals. We now live in a system that determines the majority of our decisions through subtle advertising. Yet, we still have to put all the pieces together individually. There are a million ways to do so. A skull necklace, tattoos and a blackberry. Ambercrombie and Fitch sweater, Dreadlocks and a well used backpack. The combination is surprising sometimes. I imagine that it goes against the advertising companies stereotypes too. Thats a beautiful thing.
In front of me an apparently lesbian couple sit who appear to be hard rockers by virtue of their appearances, tattoos, dark ripped clothing, jewelry with crosses, skulls, spikes and the accompanying piercings seem far left of mainstream. But then they surprise me for a moment. A couple of starbucks cups and a blackberry appear and suddenly these two just don’t seem to be in their respective stereotypical places. They seem quite out of place. The society challenging rebel yell of their appearances was clashing in a major way with the apparently mainstream “accessories” they sported. I know it is my own stereotype that is apparently wrong, yet it gets me thinking about a subject I have been dwelling on for some time.
As I walked down the hallway to get to my gate, I passed two starbucks in the last 100 meters before my gate. Two. It wasn’t one Starbucks and then another coffee company competitor. There were two Starbucks. It seems odd to me that we need two of these stores so close to each other. I can understand the reasoning behind one in each terminal. Or maybe one on either end of the terminal. But these were practically next to each other. The question arising from this observation was quite obvious. Do we need two? In cities from Washington D.C. to Hong Kong I have experienced that a starbucks can literally be found on almost every block. Down town in most cities you can see a sign for one from almost any vantage point. I used to severely go out of my way to avoid supporting such a “mega corporation” and search out the little guys shops, trying to support the local business. But after learning that Starbucks does indeed try and remain environmentally conscious, I feel better about purchasing from them. But that brings up another Question.
Are we really just slaves to advertising? I have to admit, walking by the first Starbucks I did not feel the need to buy a $4 designer coffee. After all I had just spent $12 on a salad and water. But, as I passed the second, the subconscious, lingering thought patterns evoking the coffee impulse buy, that I suppressed while passing the first Starbucks, came out in force. I actually had to think, “I really don’t need a coffee”. Indeed, it is not a well disguised fact that advertising often has as much or more to do with the purchase of a product, than does the quality of the product. This is what bothers me.
By and large we have become a society which is pushed and pulled by advertising. The product doesn’t really matter. It just needs to be average. The advertising on the other hand needs to be exceptional. It needs to include catch phrases like green, MPG, hybrid, digital, and high definition. These are phrases that are currently being stuck on everything. Not to mention maverick and change. The MPG and hybrid ones are driving me crazy. I looked up the Chevy Tahoe hybrid the other day to see what advantages it had for the environment. 21 and 22 MPG for highway and city travel. Thats the new more fuel efficient Tahoe. It really is a bad joke! Yet just because it carries the word hybrid along with it, the consumer can feel good about trading in their old SUV for an SUV hybrid, without really gaining anything other than a new vehicle. I see some serious issues here.
Our economy has crashed recently because of greed. The finger of blame has been pointed in many directions, but no one seems to look at the four fingers pointing at ourselves. Why do we need designer coffee on every corner? Why don’t Ford, Audi, and Volkswagen (to mention a few) bring the 50 plus MPG cars they sell overseas into America? They say we like power more than fuel efficiency. We like appearance over taste. It is sad, but true. In the mean time our wasteful and excessive spending has brought our economy to a halt. Thats ironic because it is actually what sustained it for a long time. It was part of the image of “the American Dream”, but it itself was not sustainable. Rather, it just isn’t reasonable. At this point it would be easy to talk about America as the great wasteful consumer of the world. But that is to deep and depressing for this article. Instead I think of my characters in LAX.
I see how hard it is to not fit inside a pre-packaged identity box. The stereo types of rocker, businessmen, hippie, or jock all describe the superficial details. But the core details are determined by our regional advertising campaigns. Want food? Eat this. Want to drive? You need this. Like music? Buy it here and listen like this. Actually, you need to like music and listen like this to this. Sure, we can change the colours of our clothes, hair, cars and ipods, but we aren’t really that different than the person sitting next to us even though appearances sometimes say we are. Advertising campaigns often target an individual by offering the feeling of an independent identity. How many H2 Hummer owners do you know who actually take them off the pavement, much less offroading? They probably would be just as well off with a Volkswagen TDI Golf which gets almost 70 MPG. You can even Get a Golf TDI Hybrid if you need the word hybrid to make you feel good, and bump the MPG up over 70. But you would have to buy it overseas, and we don’t sell them here because it would not sustain the oil industry. Thus we would not have to buy so much foreign oil, or possibly be in Iraq. Again, I am treading on a subject which resembles thin ice. I kind of like it though, so I will continue.
Lets go back to the two Starbuck terminal in LAX. A short while ago I decided to re-enter the patronage of Starbucks after a little education about their environmental policies. My decision was based on a system of fair trade and low waste policy worldwide in its simple form. I felt good about it. I didn’t mind becoming a Starbucker again. I felt like I wasn’t being green washed by advertising, but instead was making a conscious decision....... Something about the shear amount of these stores seems disproportionate to me though. I don’t mind waiting in line a few minutes for a coffee. I don’t need my own personal store simply to avoid that wait. After all, the time I save will probably just cause me to rack up a bill somewhere else. Is the low waste policy genuine, or does it simply reflect the global economies need to switch to a more green advertising scheme?
Full circle identity profiling. Thats what I have done in LAX. Or at least what I want to call what I have done. These many people who I attempted to stereo type, and who confused me, really are true individuals. We now live in a system that determines the majority of our decisions through subtle advertising. Yet, we still have to put all the pieces together individually. There are a million ways to do so. A skull necklace, tattoos and a blackberry. Ambercrombie and Fitch sweater, Dreadlocks and a well used backpack. The combination is surprising sometimes. I imagine that it goes against the advertising companies stereotypes too. Thats a beautiful thing.
Bermuda
Roughly 600 miles out to sea in the middle of the Atlantic ocean lies the island of Bermuda. The 19 square miles of dry 'rock' that protrude out of the ocean are well known for pink beaches and tidy businessmen. Yet the waters surrounding the island provide some of thew most beautiful subterranean landscapes I have ever seen. Huge coral heads, giant rock fish, tiny damsel fish, and crystal clear waters just begin to describe the experience of diving in Bermuda. After spending my childhood there diving and fishing, a recent trip back to the island was not disappointing at all. In fact I came away proud at what Bermudians have done to protect and ensure future protection of the marine resources surrounding the island.
So many places in the world are well behind the curve of marine conservation efforts. Bermuda is well ahead of it. Extremely strict commercial fishing policies and regulations since the early 90's, and ongoing conservation efforts reflect the respect the islands residents have towards the ocean. While visiting I met two people who stand out amongst the crowd though. Both are well known and come up regularly in conversation around the island. One is Andrew Stevenson.
Andrew has been studying and documenting whales on the Challanger Bank, a shoal about 20 miles from the island. What makes his work so interesting and different from other whale research is the location. While visiting Bermuda, Humpback whales are in the middle of their journey across the Atlantic. Their behavior socially is relatively unstudied, and their purpose for stopping over for extended periods shows little sign of having the usual reasoning such as food supply. Andrew has accumulated a rich bank of footage from his experiences and displays it freely for educational purposes through his website. WHALES BERMUDA
The second person well worth mentioning is Chris Flook. Chris works at the Bermuda Aquarium. To understand his job one must realize the importance that Bermuda has played in marine research throughout the 'ages'. Men like William Beebe the legendary ocean explorer used Bermuda as a staging point for years, and helped establish a long history of marine study and exploration. It seems that Chris is continuing that. For the moment though he is concentrating on a smaller specimen than Andrews Humpbacks, the lion fish.
Lion fish are not native to Bermuda, or the Atlantic for that matter. They are an invasive species recently introduced it seems by non other than the petshop industry in the Americas. Voracious hunters with inextinguishable appetites for small reef fish, they have wrecked havoc throughout the Caribbean already. Some estimates place the depopulation of some reef fish populations as high as 79%. That is devastational, and Chris is determined to not let it happen in Bermuda. He is helping to establish culling programs for the lion fish in an effort to protect the reef fish around Bermuda. The near future should provide evidence whether his efforts are successful, or not.
So much of the news we hear about our marine environments is negative. Often the experiences I come away from a place with are highlighted by these. Seeing how Bermuda has taken care of itself, is a nice change. It is an example of how conservation efforts can be successful. It seems to have managed to maintain a balance between the commercial, recreational, and tourism intrests, without selling out the environment.
So many places in the world are well behind the curve of marine conservation efforts. Bermuda is well ahead of it. Extremely strict commercial fishing policies and regulations since the early 90's, and ongoing conservation efforts reflect the respect the islands residents have towards the ocean. While visiting I met two people who stand out amongst the crowd though. Both are well known and come up regularly in conversation around the island. One is Andrew Stevenson.
Andrew has been studying and documenting whales on the Challanger Bank, a shoal about 20 miles from the island. What makes his work so interesting and different from other whale research is the location. While visiting Bermuda, Humpback whales are in the middle of their journey across the Atlantic. Their behavior socially is relatively unstudied, and their purpose for stopping over for extended periods shows little sign of having the usual reasoning such as food supply. Andrew has accumulated a rich bank of footage from his experiences and displays it freely for educational purposes through his website. WHALES BERMUDA
The second person well worth mentioning is Chris Flook. Chris works at the Bermuda Aquarium. To understand his job one must realize the importance that Bermuda has played in marine research throughout the 'ages'. Men like William Beebe the legendary ocean explorer used Bermuda as a staging point for years, and helped establish a long history of marine study and exploration. It seems that Chris is continuing that. For the moment though he is concentrating on a smaller specimen than Andrews Humpbacks, the lion fish.
Lion fish are not native to Bermuda, or the Atlantic for that matter. They are an invasive species recently introduced it seems by non other than the petshop industry in the Americas. Voracious hunters with inextinguishable appetites for small reef fish, they have wrecked havoc throughout the Caribbean already. Some estimates place the depopulation of some reef fish populations as high as 79%. That is devastational, and Chris is determined to not let it happen in Bermuda. He is helping to establish culling programs for the lion fish in an effort to protect the reef fish around Bermuda. The near future should provide evidence whether his efforts are successful, or not.
So much of the news we hear about our marine environments is negative. Often the experiences I come away from a place with are highlighted by these. Seeing how Bermuda has taken care of itself, is a nice change. It is an example of how conservation efforts can be successful. It seems to have managed to maintain a balance between the commercial, recreational, and tourism intrests, without selling out the environment.
How Much Mercury Would You Like Today?
So what do light bulbs and tuna have in common? Mercury. I really did not want to believe when I was informed that most "top of the food chain" seafoods are loaded with critical amounts of mercury in their system. So much so that grocery stores all over post signs warning pregnant women and children of the effects of eating too much seafood. Thats a big deal! It took personal research to prove to myself that it wasn't a myth at all. The higher on the food chain the fish is, the higher the concentration generally is. The FDA has published quite a few reports on the subject, and so have many independant researchers. One I found very enlightening is on Oceanas website.
Mercury is a well known neurotoxin and causes some serious physical damage to the human body. Yet, we can't seem to get away from it. Most recently after being enlightened with reports of how much mercury we find in fish, I learned that the eco-friendly, green, sustainable, whatcha-ma-call-um, CLF lightbulbs, also contain mercury gas in significant levels. Immediately the question raised is "why are we marketing them as eco-friendly and green then?". I figured this was just another case of Greenwashing. There is an interesting twist to this story though. The average CLF is supposed to last 5 years, after which it can possibly be recycled, and it will use about 75% less energy than a normal light bulb. Most likely it will break during it's disposal, and release its mercury gasses into the atmosphere doing damage and reversing the good done by purchasing the bulb in the first place. Yet, even if this happens, the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere will probably (if all goes according to plan) be less than what a typical coal powered electrical plant would produce while powering a standard lightbulb for the same period of time. To me it is a case of the lesser of the two evils still, but the evil is slowly being reduced.
Mercury is a well known neurotoxin and causes some serious physical damage to the human body. Yet, we can't seem to get away from it. Most recently after being enlightened with reports of how much mercury we find in fish, I learned that the eco-friendly, green, sustainable, whatcha-ma-call-um, CLF lightbulbs, also contain mercury gas in significant levels. Immediately the question raised is "why are we marketing them as eco-friendly and green then?". I figured this was just another case of Greenwashing. There is an interesting twist to this story though. The average CLF is supposed to last 5 years, after which it can possibly be recycled, and it will use about 75% less energy than a normal light bulb. Most likely it will break during it's disposal, and release its mercury gasses into the atmosphere doing damage and reversing the good done by purchasing the bulb in the first place. Yet, even if this happens, the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere will probably (if all goes according to plan) be less than what a typical coal powered electrical plant would produce while powering a standard lightbulb for the same period of time. To me it is a case of the lesser of the two evils still, but the evil is slowly being reduced.
14,000 ft Above Sea Level
Much of the time my efforts to document, film and photograph are restricted to the undersea environment. Recently due to unforeseen circumstances I have found myself well above sea level. And this past weekend put me up in the 14,000 ft above sea level range in Colorado. It was an extremely valuable experience, providing a few days of solitary freedom in the Rocky Mountains and a chance to explore some new territory in some of the more dramatic scenery the U.S.A has to offer.
The weather turned bad before I even set out, and turned worse as I started up the approach to Mount Wilson and its adjacent peak El Diente. About ten minutes into the hike I put on my parka to protect myself from the rain, and it stayed on throughout the day, only coming off to add extra layers as I got higher on the mountain. Rain, mist, fog, sleet, and finally snow were all encountered. As the trail dissipated, reappeared, and then finally ended in a cliff face at 13,000 ft, route finding became critical. Cairns were a Godsend. A map and compass became more than the usual excess baggage, and vital to a safe ascent. Wet rocks, a steepening couloir, and the sound of distant and not so distant rockslides brought some apprehension to the ascent. Every so often a break would appear in the clouds and the views would take away your breath, displaying the rewards of the task at hand, as well as its enormity.
Shortly before reaching the 14,000 ft mark the weather took another turn. For the worse that is. The wind started to whip instead of simply blow, and hiking became scrambling, then climbing. Then suddenly as is so often the case the top was in site. An attainable goal only a few hundred feet away, across a knife edge ridge that was wet, windy, and at that moment one of the most lonely places in the world. It was so close, close enough to almost claim the peak anyway, but not quite. The conditions had suddenly escalated to a point where the pain, time and effort spent to get this close, did not outweigh the benefits of coming back another day. It was a decision made and not questioned, never second guessed. The descent proved as challenging as the ascent. More often than not all fours were on the ground all at once, never less than two. A slip and fall would definitely be the fastest way down to the snowfield two thousand feet below. To avoid that outcome care was taken at each movement to ensure good contact with the rocks and boulders. Only one thing could change that safe, slow methodical descent down the mountain. Flying rocks. Rocks bouncing down the mountain at random intervals in random places speed up a descent with amazing efficiency. Never have I descended a mountain with such care and speed at the same time. It is like picking a safe route up an avalanche slope, except the opposite. You hide, run, jump and seek shelter. All the way to the bottom. Then you look back, and think, that wasn't so bad.........
The trip up Mount Wilson was truly memorable. Something that was unsurprising though was what else I found on the mountain. On the way up discarded water bottles. On the way down socks and pieces of energy bar wrappers. The most interesting was a object at the very top of the mountain that I noticed while the weather was at it's worst - a Victoria's Secret clothing tag. One can only imagine what the look on my face was as I contemplated such a simple object so out of place. In all, it was much like exploring deep areas below sea level. Plastic bottles, trash in general, and the occasional discarded piece of underwear.
Sea Food on the Prairie
Tulsa Oklahoma is a long long way from any ocean. It is actually more noted for its rolling prairies where buffalo used to roam, than it is for seafood. But as one drives thru town, it is nearly impossible to ignore the myriads of strip malls, chain restaurants, and flashing signs advertising food from every corner of the planet. Seafood is probably second in this town only to Chinese food, neither being expected to be so proficiently abundant here in the middle of America. But what type of seafood is found here? The answer to that question is not always as easily answered as one would expect.
In one restaurant we enquired if the waitress new what type of fish "whitefish" was. The menu offered a deep fried fillet of the Whitefish. After consulting with the kitchen and wait staff the answer was that no one knew. A quick call and a google search later, and whitefish turns out to be more of a term than a fish. By catch of other specifically targeted species, (usually undesirable fish) and shark are renamed somewhere between the ocean and the kitchen in order to give them a more desirable "character appearance". The waitress was shocked to say the least. It is amazing how many people have no idea what they are eating.
This morning a discussion with a professional in the medical profession displayed this. The woman involved taught science classes for 20 years, yet seemed to have no feelings against eating fish that live to be 150 years old. When enlightened about "orange roughy" and the issues facing these ancient fish, she simply commented on their taste.... It really is a sad state of affairs that our fisheries are in. Advertising can change a commercially ugly looking and sounding fish into dollars. Slimefish turns into Orange Roughy. Patagonian Toothfish turns into Chilean Sea Bass. Shark, Cod, Hake, Pollock and others become white fish. Knowing what you are eating is a vitally important part of being environmentally conscious. It doesn't mean don't eat fish. But these fish can't take much more of the sustained fishing pressure they are facing. Just know what your fish is, and where your fish comes from.
Aquanautas
Life changes fast. We know it will, we plan for it to, but when it does, we never seem to be quite ready for it. Three weeks ago I was getting myself prepared to go to Cocos Island and explore a seamount never before seen with human eyes, trying to get the logistics worked out involving, scientists, submarines, cameramen, and my little brother (who’s Emerging Young Explorer status with National Geographic does not make him so little anymore). Fast forward to two days ago and I found myself behind a camera in the ghetto of Johannesburg, South Africa called Soweto, in a small smoke filled tin shack drinking home made beer around a wood “fire barrel” with twenty far from sober men. No, the submarine is not here in Africa with us. What has happened is that Rogue Studios has joined with Groupo Magento of Brazil to film a show called Aquanautas (Aquanauts). In the show the three characters (Tony, Ana Paula and myself) travel the world diving, sampling along the way all that we can of the local culture, food and natural environment. Hoping to show more than just how to travel and dive, the show has already focused several times on the environmental issues facing our worlds seas, and seems to be a great opportunity to simply teach people about the sites being visited. For now, the Cocos Island trip has been cancelled due to logistics. So to pick up the slack I have embarked on a new adventure that will lay before me the waters and coastlines of South Africa, Tahiti, Fiji, Tonga, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Mexico, Galapagos Islands, Brazil, Egypt, Dijibuti, and who knows where else........ We will keep you updated. In the mean time here are a couple pictures of freediving Cocos last week.
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