Everyone loves to as a symbol of gross overconsumption. But when I look around trailheads or parking lots in mountain towns, I see exactly the opposite problem: drivers buying the image of capability, rather than the real thing. People are paying too much for too little car and causing quite a lot of harm to the environment in the process. I’m talking, of course, about that paragon of automotive mediocrity: the crossover.

Crossovers dominate the American auto market, making up . Pickup trucks? Only 19 percent. Real SUVs? 10 percent.

This is a relatively new trend. As recently as 2013, .

Now’s probably a good time to define what a crossover is. They’re just normal cars, jacked up with slightly taller suspension, and more upright seating. They commonly feature hatchback or wagon-type rear ends. And, of course, most offer an all-wheel drive option.

It’s tempting to assign some functional merit to that loose formula. The efficiency and low purchase price of an economy car combined with the the commanding, raised view of a truck? Interior space rivaling that of a minivan? Off-road and winter weather traction? The clearance to climb obstacles? Sign me up for monthly payments!

In reality, something much more depressing explains the popularity of crossovers: .

The story goes like this. Way back in the 1960s regulators established a carveout for “off-road vehicles” that exempted them from most safety and emissions legislation. The thinking was that farmers, lumberjacks, and their ilk didn’t need vehicles burdened by emissions and safety equipment, since they were mostly using their trucks and 4x4s way out in the countryside, away from the smog and fender benders of the big city.

Those regulations established a formula for defining an “off-road vehicle.” To meet that description, a vehicle needs either four-wheel drive (AWD had yet to be invented, and in this formula is accepted) or a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) of at least 6,000 pounds. Additionally, it needs at least four out of five additional features. Those include at least a 28-degree approach angle, a 14-degree breakover angle, and 20-degree departure angle; plus either 7.8 inches of total ground clearance or 7.1 inches of axle clearance.

As the government started to regulate things like crash safety and Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, “off-road vehicles” remained either exempt, or subject to less stringent rules.

While the safety thing largely worked itself out due to consumer demand in the 2000s—it turns out basing rollover roof strength on vehicle weight —“off-road vehicles” are still counted differently when it comes to CAFE standards.

CAFE standards have been a bit of a political football in recent years, but currently stand at , and 261 grams for light trucks. The “off-road vehicle” definition shifts most crossovers into that latter category, which is allowed to pollute 36 percent more. More efficient, cleaner vehicles are more expensive to make than less efficient, dirtier ones. Making more “off-road vehicles” than passenger cars can save automakers a whole lot of moolah. Enough that there’s millions of dollars leftover after they make a vehicle for marketing designed to convince consumers they want something that can loosely be defined as an “off-road vehicle,” instead of a regular car.

And that’s why, odds are you or someone in your family is driving an “off-road vehicle,” without actually driving an off-road vehicle. And combined, all those features that allow a crossover to emit more carbon actually make them much worse vehicles than the plain-old alternative. Let’s look at some of the marketing claims about these things, and compare them to the facts.

Ground Clearance

The claim: This helps off-road!

The reality: While some clearance along the vehicle’s centerline is necessary, it’s only a minor part of the numbers that allow a vehicle to clear large obstacles. If you go back to the regulatory description of an “off-road vehicle” you can see that ground clearance on a vehicle with a live axle (as is used on most actual 4x4s) is lower than that of a vehicle with fully independent suspension. This is why crossover makers put so much emphasis behind quoting ground clearance numbers.

The problem: Increasing the height of a vehicle’s center of gravity also increases the forces that cause it to lean over while cornering. This spoils on-road handling characteristics, and the additional aerodynamic drag caused by the height also reduces fuel economy and performance.

All-Wheel Drive

The claim: It provides traction!

The reality: Absent other technologies, AWD actually directs power to the wheel with the least traction. Automakers use various clutches and electronic gizmos to try and counteract this, but still, no AWD system can match the traction provided by true four-wheel drive, which locks the speeds of the front and rear axles together.

The problem: AWD adds drag and mechanical complication. This reduces fuel economy and decreases reliability. Most drivers also confuse the supposed traction provided by AWD with the actual traction provided by appropriate tires, and put themselves and other road users at risk as a result.

Interior Space

The claim: Crossovers provide large load areas and fold-flat seats!

The reality: So do hatchbacks, wagons and minivans.

The problem: You’re paying more to drive a less capable vehicle.

High Seating

The claim: You have a commanding view through traffic!

The reality: Have you seen how tall modern trucks are?

The problem: This provides the appearance of additional safety without the presence of additional safety. Physics remain physics—larger vehicles will transfer more energy to smaller ones when the two collide—and a crossover’s energy-absorbing structure remains lower in height than that of large pickups and SUVs.

Off-Road Capability

The claim: Our special overland edition, gee-wiz, XXRR-S, National Forest-badged, rock-rated crossover is the real deal! And Z-mode makes it even better, even thought we can’t tell you how it works!

The reality: No crossover has anything approaching the angles, traction, or articulation to match the capability of even the most basic four-wheel drive vehicle.

The problem: Telling people their vehicle can go off-road without providing them with critical off-road safety features like rated recovery points, puncture-resistant tires, a real jack, and more .

Too tall for good road manners, but not tall enough to actually go off-road. Crossovers have traction systems that don’t really do much except cause problems. Nearly the exact same interior space as better handling, more efficient normal cars, wagons and minivans, but no more safety than those normal cars. Exactly the same off-road and winter capability as any economy car. Crossovers do nothing better, and most things worse, compared to sedans, wagons, hatchbacks, and minivans. About all you can say for them is that they burn more fuel and cause more pollution.

Add to all that the fact that crossovers typically cost thousands of dollars more than equivalent cars, and you can see why anytime anyone anywhere buys a crossover, they’re not only providing automakers with a strong financial incentive to continue polluting, but they’re also spending more of their hard earned money to buy a worse vehicle. This costs you money both in your monthly payment, and at the pump, while putting you in a vehicle that’s less fun to drive, and less practical.

What about EVs? While cradle-to-grave carbon emissions are fully for an electric vehicle, compared to an equivalent one powered by gasoline, producing and powering one still comes at a significant environmental cost. And making a larger, less efficient EV is more polluting than making a smaller, more efficient one. Compromising a vehicle’s function just so it conforms to a certain, questionable trend remains a poor decision, no matter the power source.

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Quite literally: idling gets you nowhere. Idling creates car pollution—it’s a mindless bad habit that we don’t even think about, but one that has real implications on our health, our wallets, our vehicles, and our climate crisis. Yet unlike so many bad habits, this one is so easy to break. All we have to do is turn the key.

Ron Zima, founder and CEO of GoGreen Communications, Inc.,Ìęis a man on a mission to raise awareness about what he calls our idling epidemic. The self-proclaimed “Idle-Free Guy,” he teaches fleet operators and municipalities around the U.S. and Canada how to save money and emissions by curbing idling habits. “Forty percent of the average person’s vehicle time is spent idling,” he says, and it can cost you anywhere from $200 to $1,000 in wasted fuel per year (depending on what you drive).

“If your car is more than 10 years old, idling is actually bad for the engine and can cause overheating. In today’s modern cars, idling is less detrimental to the engine, but if someone tells you that it’s actually good for your car, that’s a myth.”

Why do we idle so much? Zima pins the problem on two things: outdated myths about how engines work and our smartphone obsession with scrolling. “Modern-day cars are engineered to be driven, not idled,” he says. “If you’re stopped for more than two minutes, you’ll actually prolong the life of your car by turning it off.”

As for smartphones, Zima says they turn us into mindless zombies. “Go to any school parking lot and you’ll see rows of cars filled with well-meaning moms and dads, heads down, scrolling on their phones with the windows up, the AC or heat blasting, and toxic chemicals spewing out their tailpipes,” he says. “Our schools have become the location for dirtiest air our kids have to breathe in their lifetimes, and at a very critical time in their physical development.”

Why Idling and Car Pollution Are Bad For Your Health (and Your Kids’ Health)

Dr. Patrick Ryan is a professor of pediatrics and environmental healthÌęat Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center who studies the effects of traffic-related air pollution on children’s health by measuring air pollution at places where children spend time including their homes and schools and simultaneously monitoring children’s health impacts.

“What we’ve found is that just 30 minutes of exposure to ultrafine particles (which is what comes out of the tailpipes of school buses all over the country) kids experience lower lung function,” he says. “And if those kids have asthma, symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath are .”

But the impacts don’t stop there. Ryan’s research also indicates that too. “When kids breathe these tiny particles, they can cause an inflammatory response,” he says. “In our studies we’ve shown kids who are exposed to higher levels of air pollution in early childhood have at age 12. Other studies have also linked air pollution to a decrease in executive function and negative cognitive outcomes.”

Idling + Car Pollution: The Toll on the Climate Crisis

The environmental impact of idling carsÌęand trucks is pretty staggering.

According to Argonne National Laboratories which does research for the U.S. Department of Energy, Americans , just by idling. Zima contends that that number is low and estimates that between the U.S. and Canada, it’s more like . But even taking the more conservative number, that amount of idling generates more than 58 million tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent car pollution of driving almost 12 million gas-powered passenger vehicles for one year (source: ).

In April 2023, the Biden administration announced an ambitious plan to accelerate the transition to clean transportation future through a broad range of emission control technologies. If successful, the plan would require car-makers to eliminate 56 percent of emissions by 2032. “We can’t wait 20 years for the world to transition to electric vehicles,” says Zima. “We need to take widespread action today if we want our kids and grandkids to be able to survive on this planet. Once we become mindful of it, breaking the idling habit is such an easy lever for us to pull, and it will immediately impact our carbon emissions.”

A Car Expert Reveals The Truth About IdlingÌę

Outdated cars and old technologies contribute to the environmentally-crippling myths about idling. I spoke to Al MacPhee, former chairman of the Canadian Auto Dealers Association and owner of MacPhee Ford in Nova Scotia, to clear the air. “If your car is more than 10 years old, idling is actually bad for the engine and can cause overheating,” says MacPhee. “In today’s modern cars, idling is less detrimental to the engine, but if someone tells you that it’s actually good for your car, that’s a myth.”

Another popular myth goes like this: Turning your engine off and on repeatedly damages the starter. Not true, says MacPhee. “Starters in today’s passenger cars are entirely different than they used to be. They don’t wear out.” Same goes for batteries. “We used to think that idling was good for batteries. But modern-day batteries do just fine on their own. They don’t need to be idled to keep their charge.”

The bottom line, says MacPhee, is that engines perform best under load (auto lingo for while driving) at 40 to 60 miles per hour. “Idling engines are not happy engines.”

3 Expert Tips to Avoid Car Pollution and Reduce Idling BehaviorsÌę

Take Advantage of the Shade

On hot days, park in the shade and crack the windows a few inches. This will create a nice cross-breeze, says Zima. “And on really hot days, crank up the air conditioning five minutes before you reach your destination. Then park and turn off the engine. Modern cars are extremely well-insulated. The ambient temperature will stay cool for 20 minutes or more.”

The Best Way to Warm Up Your Car in Winter

On cold days, don’t let your car idle in the driveway with the heat cranking. Turn it on, clear off the ice and snow, and immediately get in and start driving. That’s the safest and fastest way to warm up a car, says MacPhee. And wear a hat and gloves!

Raise Local Awareness to Stop Car Pollution

Start an anti-idling movement in your community. ÌęThe EPA has created the with dozens of ideas and resources to curb car pollution at your school and in your neighborhood.

If all these reasons aren’t enough to inspire you to be more conscious of your idling, there’s also this: idling for more than a few minutes is also , and while these rules are all too infrequently enforced, the penalties can be pretty steep—up to $500 for the first offense in some areas.

Doing right by the planet can make you happier, healthier, and—yes—wealthier. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű’s Head of Sustainability, Kristin Hostetter, explores small lifestyle tweaks that can make a big impact. Write to her at climateneutral-ish@outsideinc.com.Ìę

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Last week, while on my way to pick up my daughter from preschool, a neighbor pulled up next to me at a stop sign. “Nice RadWagon!” he said by way of greeting. “How do you like it?”

A is an electric cargo bike made by Rad Power Bikes. Like other e-cargo bikes, it’s a battery-powered cycle that plugs into a regular wall outlet and is made to haul hundreds of pounds of people and stuff. Some e-cargo bikes, like the , are front-loaders, with an open or closed box that looks like a wheelbarrow mounted at the front.

Others, like the RadWagon or , have an extended rear that can carry numerous configurations of children, adults, groceries, and gear. Both types have become ubiquitous in recent months in my hometown of Durango, Colorado.

While I sometimes see teens riding e-cargo bikes to school or retirees pedaling them home from the grocery store, they’re especially popular among families with small children. Parents use them instead of cars to bring their kids to school, sports events, music lessons, parks, and everywhere in between. Sure enough, my neighbor was riding a new black RadWagon to pick up his six-year-old twins from the local elementary school.

“I love it!” I shouted as we pedaled across the street. “We’ve put 170 miles on it in a month!”

I knew this because the small screen on my handlebars, which tracks battery life and speed, also includes an odometer. I’m sort of obsessed with the odometer: unlike the dismay that comes with watching the mileage on my car climb ever closer to an oil change or mechanical breakdown, racking up miles on my e-bike brings a feeling of smugÌęsatisfaction. Every 25 miles represents roughly a gallon of gas saved. Beyond that, each mile represents less time spent sitting in a car and more time breathing fresh air, saying hi to my neighbors, and moving my body.

Before getting an e-cargo bike, I tried to be conscientious about riding my bike instead of driving. But I live at the top of a hill at 6,500 feet above sea level, and as my daughter got bigger, biking with her became less convenient. I’m in decent shape, but the heavier she got, the more excuses I came up with. I just took a shower, I don’t want to get all sweaty pedaling up that hill, I told myself. Or, I need to pick up groceries on the way home. I can’t haul a 30-pound toddler and 30 pounds of food!

With the RadWagon, though, the amount of pedal assist increases or decreases with the push of a button, so I can carry up to 350 pounds without getting sweaty and out of breath. And riding is often just as fast as driving when it comes to trips around town. The RadWagon runs 45 miles on a charge, and my average cruising speed is just shy of 20 mph. Plus, by taking bike paths and back roads, I largely avoid traffic lights.

Equally important: e-bikes make running errands straight-up fun. I’ve lent our RadWagon to several friends, and all of them have returned from their spins around the neighborhood grinning from ear to ear. Some have even whooped out loud with the kind of joy that I associate more with snowboarding in powder than commuting to work. I’m pretty sure I whooped out loud myself the first time.

Overall, sales of electric utility bikes in Europe grew by 60 percent in 2019 alone, and they’re predicted to rise by for the next decade. But given the number of such bikes in Durango, I wondered whether most of the sales are going to similarly affluent mountain towns, which aren’t necessarily representative of the places where most people live. So to make sure this is an actual trend, I posted on Twitter that I was looking to talk with other parents who regularly use e-cargo bikes to haul their kids around.

I was inundated with responses. People reached out from rural Pennsylvania, a small town in Maine, Canada’s Yukon territory, Denver, Portland, Seattle, Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Minneapolis, Madison, Austin, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Tel Aviv, Vancouver, Calgary, London, Geneva, Auckland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Australia, and on and on and on. Parents shared pictures of their bikes carrying multiple children, mountains of sports gear, and even a Christmas tree. Some said they had used e-cargo bikes for years and were thrilled that the trend was becoming more widespread. One guy told me he’d put 2,500 miles on his in the first year. Their enthusiasm was palpable.

Electric cargo bikes are only accessible to families who can afford them, but their usefulness is undeniable. Roughly are less than a mile long, so replacing even a small portion of those with bike rides can cut down on the 28 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions that come from transportation. Perhaps even more important, biking instead of driving shows children that they can play a role in keeping our planet clean and safe. Even my three-year-old understands that driving less helps keep pollution out of the air.

A few miles after chatting with my neighbor, I pulled up at my daughter’s preschool to see a veritable fleet of e-cargo bikes. There was an Urban Arrow capable of carrying three kids; a dad with his son’s pedal bike strapped to the back of his ; and several iterations of RadWagons. Parents stood around the bikes chatting. I thought of school pickup during my own childhood: a line of gas-guzzling ’80s station wagons and early ’90s minivans lined up at the curb, with parents—nearly all of them mothers—ensconced inside, often smoking cigarettes.

Even if the scene at my daughter’s preschool isn’t representative of the country as a whole, we’ve come a long way since those days. And with e-cargo bikes gaining in popularity among not just parents but also delivery companies, older adults, and other groups, I’m hopeful their price will eventually decrease—helping all of us continue to move in a healthier, more sustainable direction.

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Over the past 20 years electric vehicle technology ,Ìęcommercially available, and extremely viableÌętoolÌęfor reducing emissions and blunting the effects of climate change.ÌęThere are even economic incentives for purchasing electric cars.ÌęSinceÌę2005, the federal government has offeredÌębuyer tax credits of up to $7,500Ìęfor hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles. That makes sense: if you want to use economic nudges to address climate change, you should focus first on the most popular behaviors, like driving. It’s been an impressive success. Just 17,763Ìęplug-in EVs were sold in 2011 nationwide.ÌęIn 2018, as furtherÌęfederal incentives for both buyers and carmakers drew more manufacturers into the market, EVÌęsales to over 360,000.

But up to now, we’ve largely ignored one of the most powerful tools for shifting away from internal combustion engines: the e-bike. After all, the best way to lower emissions from personal travel is to get people out of cars altogether. And bikes are arguably the most energy-efficient form of transportation we’ve ever devised: .

Modern e-bikes have as the hybrid car, which first came out 23 years ago. But so far, financial incentives for e-bikes have only existed at the local and,Ìę,Ìęstate levels. They’re modest in size, limited in scope, more difficult to claim than EV incentives, and most people have no idea they even exist. As federal electric car tax credits from the 2009 American Recovery Act ,Ìęand the pandemic bike boomÌęcontinues to bring more cyclists onto city streets,Ìęmaybe it’s time—long past due—for a federal incentive program for e-bikes.

Thankfully, California’s Jimmy Panetta and Oregon’s Earl Blumenauer agree. In February, the two Democratic representatives introduced HR 1019, the E-BIKE Act. The bill is shortÌęand simple: it would provide a federal tax credit of 30 percent of the purchase value of an e-bike, available to an individualÌęonce every three years, capped at $1,500 and applicable to e-bikes costing less than $8,000. That’s far more generous than the thin patchwork of state and local incentives that currently exist, ranging from $200 rebates from utilities like Vermont’s Green Mountain Power to as much as $700 for California’s Clean Cars For All program.

Blumenauer said the idea behind his and Panetta’s new bill is to incentivize exactly the kind of e-bikes that are becoming popular: utility models between $1,000 and $7,000 that are perfect for replacing car trips in metro areas. “We’ve seen an explosion of interest in e-bikes,” Blumenauer told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “And this comes at a time where there’s not just renewed interest in cycling, but a realization that we’re in a [climate]Ìęstruggle. The future of the planet needs to be a low-carbon future, and e-bikes can significantly accelerate that transition.”

To be sure, this is . And no one knows better than Blumenauer that the path for a bike bill to become law is long and difficult. Blumenauer has represented Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes much of Portland, since 1996, and is known for his extensive bowtie collection and his love of bikes. In D.C. he commutes regularly on a Trek Portland. He’s sponsored 38 bike-related bills in his time on Capitol Hill, and gotten several key wins, including a bike-commuter tax benefit. (It was later eliminated in the 2017 tax-cut bill passed by Republicans, but Blumenauer is trying to revive it this legislative session with another bill.)

“It’s hard these days to have standalone legislation,” Blumenauer concedes. The best path is likely to get folded into a larger package. He points to the Ìęunveiled in late March by the Biden administration as a likely candidate.

Getting the bill passedÌęwon’t be easy. With an $8,000 purchase-price ceiling,Ìęopponents will level the atÌęthis bill that theyÌęused against electric car incentives: that the tax credit means no one wants an e-bike, or that owning one is just virtue-signaling for rich liberals. “The e-bike isn’t a Tesla, for heaven’s sake,” says Blumenauer when asked about it. A modest tax credit on e-bikes is “the most cost-effective way to decrease carbon emissions. And that affects everybody.”

Noa Banayan, federal affairs managerÌęat advocacy group , points out that the purchase price cap hits a sweet spot. It includes almost every utility e-bike sold, even big frontloaders like , but is below the price of some (if not all) high-end enthusiast road and mountain models.

Right now, the act has 10 co-sponsors, all Democrats. But Blumenauer is big on what he calls “bike-partisanship.” He points out that the Congressional Bike Caucus, which he founded his first year in Congress, now has over 100 members. “Two-thirds of the states are represented,” he says. And he hopes he can count onÌęBike Caucus co-chair Vern Buchanan (R-FL)—who also sits on the Ways and Means Committee, where the bill is directed—to help reach across the aisle to build support.

Assuming Panetta and Blumenauer can shepherd the bill to success, there’s a bigger question: will it lead more people to buy e-bikes and use them instead of driving?

We don’t know for sure, but indications are encouraging. Because incentive programs aren’t widespread in the US, there isn’t good data on behavioral change here. So, People For Bikes looked internationally. One primary resource isÌęa from , the co-director of Universtiy of California-Davis’s BicyclingPlus Research Collaborative. Fitch analyzed a set of European studies onÌęe-bike purchase-incentive programs. “Incentives between 20 and 33 percent of the cost were most popular,” Banayan told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, “and also showed the best factor of increasing adoption and ridership.”ÌęAs for switching car trips to bikes, Fitch found that between 35 and 50 percent of reported e-bike trips in the study set would have otherwise been done by car.

According to Banayan, People for Bikes feels the U.S. is ready for large-scale adoption of e-bikes. “We’re seeing anecdotally and through research just how much people are realizing they can do with electric bicycles instead of taking their car,” she said. The range of potential adopters is large. There’s the longtime bike commuter for whom an e-bike upgrade means a less-sweaty ride to work. There’s the parent who is tired of being stuck, sedentary, in car traffic while shuttling children to school and sports practices that are in easy riding distance—if only there was a way to carry both kids and their stuff. And then there are the people who would be interested, if only they knew it was even an option.

That’s the key: for adoption to happen at real scale, people have to witness that potential and maybe even experience it. , from Portland State’s Transportation Research and Education Center, looked at what makes an incentive program successful in actually changing behavior. Long-term, personal experience seems to be crucial. A six-week e-bike loaner program at Kaiser Permanente offices in Portland in 2017 led to a doubling in the rate of bike commuting, even after the program ended. And an e-bike “lending library” program in Vermont offered week-long trials that resulted in a 17 percentÌępurchase rate among participants—even six months to a year later. The takeaway is that generous federal tax credits may work best if paired with local demo programs, which could increasinglyÌęincludeÌęelectric bikeshare fleets.

Ultimately, Blumenaer emphasizes that speeding up the adoption of e-bikes has little to do with “people in Lycra riding fast.” He defines the E-BIKE Act as a climate change bill first and foremost. But, he quickly adds, “having electric bikes woven into the [urban]Ìęlandscape isn’t just about the potential of significantly reducing carbon emissions.”ÌęE-bikes, which are widespread, and increasingly affordable and reliable, are a post-pandemic powerhouse for addressing health problems and livable city issues like pollution, traffic congestion, and transportation equity. And there’s no time like now to get started.

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On his first day in office, President Joe Biden dropped a sweeping directive in the first paragraph of to protect the environment and tackle the climate crisis: the federal government “must advance environmental justice.” This week, Biden doubled down on that order , one that will establish an interagency council on environmental justice in the White House and create offices dedicated to itÌęacross his Cabinet,Ìęfrom the Health and Human Services Department to the Justice Department.Ìę

Yes, please. That is all great. But what would it actually look like to realize environmental justice? And how can the outdoor world helpÌęachieve it?

In 2020, the protests in response to Ìęand the long-burning buildup of police brutalityÌęhighlighted the many ways that race delineates who is allowed to feel safe and welcomeÌęand whereÌęthey’re able to, from corner stores to national parks. “Why would you want to go into the backcountry, if in your mind it’s associated with lynching?” sociologist Anthony Kwame Harrison, who writes about diversity in skiing, once asked me.Ìę

That reckoning rocked the environmental movement, too. InÌęJuly, the Sierra Club, the oldest green group in the country, acknowledged Ìęand the way John Muir’s racism has shaped itsÌęconservation ethic since the organization’s founding. In theÌęfall, the Audubon Society made a similar . The two groups are not alone in that problematic past: a history of white supremacy is woven into the fabric of the entire American .Ìę

Environmental racism can be virulent and , but it also shows up more subtly in assumptions about who is consideredÌęoutdoorsy, who gets to make decisions about land use, and whoÌęgets to safely goÌębirding and biking. Meanwhile from the environmental movement are often the same people who face the Ìęand have the most to lose fromÌęenvironmental degradation. Along with carbon emissions,Ìęracism is one of the biggest environmental problems we collectivelyÌęface.

But a report found that support and energy around movements like Black Lives Matter has fallen off since the summer, especially among non-Black people. InÌęthe outdoor world, which skews heavily white, we need to keep the pressure on to make lasting change.Ìę

Confronting theÌęreality of how interconnected these two issues areÌęis the first step. “The only way we’re going to have success is if many people feel as sad as I do about environmental racism,” says Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, whoÌęuntil recentlyÌęwas the North American director ofÌęthe international climate-action organizationÌę. She says it’s crucial to acknowledge how a flawed past has put us in the position we’re in now.Ìę

But there has to be more thanÌęan inward look if we want to ensure that the current moment isn’t simplyÌęsymbolic. To build a sustainable, equitable future, and not propagate past mistakes, we have to change the practices of environmentalism. To do that, O’Laughlin says thatÌęenvironmental organizations need to allocate their power and money to attack the breadth of environmental harms, not onlyÌęthe ones that are convenientÌęor top of mind. It’s not justÌęa matter of preserving beautiful places, it’s the necessity of breathable air, clean water, and a livable temperature.

But those sorts of priorities often come from the top, and there’s a dearth of diversity in the leadership of conservation organizations, lobbying groups, and academic institutions. ToÌęexpand the scope of what’s given attention,Ìęwe need to put people of color in positions of power, listen to what’s happening at the grassroots level, and confront the lack of pathways and entry-level opportunitiesÌęto get into environmentalism.

Thomas Rashad Easley, at the Yale School of Forestry andÌęEnvironmental Studies, knows how narrow the routes in can be. He fell into environmentalism when he was at Alabama A&M University through a Forest Service scholarship that was available to historically Black colleges and universities. But he realizes that his path as a Black person in forestry could easily have been different. Inclusion and feeling like you belong are crucial to being able to claim a movement as your own, he says, and that doesn’t come easy. “Regardless of who you are, you need a line in, and it’s particularly important if you historically haven’t been looked at,” Easley says. He’sÌęadvocating toÌęrecruitÌędiverse applicants and createÌęnew rolesÌęthat bringÌędiversity into historically siloed environmental institutions, from the Ivy League to government agencies,Ìęwhich would showÌępeople who have not traditionally considered themselves environmentalists that they belong.

Easley’s preferred method of communication is hip-hop—when he’s not in academia he moonlights as an emcee—which he incorporates into the classes he teaches. He believes thatÌęto promote inclusion, we have to explicitly explain why environmental issues are connected to people’s lives, and why someone who doesn’t look like John Muir (or Bill McKibben or Greta Thunberg)Ìęis still part of the green movement. We need to actively recruit and show people that they’re welcome.

“When I’m talking about the environment with people of color, I make it about the impact it’s having,” he says. “I talk about the community. I talk about air quality and water pollution. If you’re Black from the ’hood or the country, you understand it.”

Changing the narrative to be more inclusive and personalÌęis core to other, newer political advocacy groups, too, like the youth-led Sunrise Movement and theÌę. Both groups were founded on the intertwined importance of environmental and social justiceÌęand on engaging nonwhite people in climate activism. They’re gaining ground in size and , but they still don’t get as much funding from foundations and donorsÌęor have as much political powerÌęas older groups like the Sierra Club. Their growth embodies whatÌęEasley and O’Laughlin are talking about: bringing people in, listening to them, supporting them, repeat. “There is hope in this moment that change can happen,” O’Laughlin says.

The green movement’s effort to take down past iconographyÌęand poke holes in the legacyÌęof toweringÌęfigures like Muir is important, but it’s only symbolic until power, money, and representation are diversified. The new presidential administration appears to be taking that seriously—this week’s executive order included a goal to direct 40 percent of federal investment in sustainable infrastructure toward disadvantaged communities, which is a great start—and organizations like the Sierra Club have pledged to do the same.

But the voices of the people who have been most impacted need to be the loudest. And to do that, the onus of change is on thoseÌęwho have had it easy, who have not had to think about whether they might be able to get a job at a green nonprofit or if their government will support them when their community faces a natural disaster or environmental harm. Anyone who wants to protect the planet has to be actively antiracist, because it’s impossible to pull apart the past threads of exclusion and violence and land use and race. We can’t untangle environmental policy from systemic racism, so we have to tackle them together, from the top of the government on down.Ìę

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It’s amazing that Ayana Elizabeth Johnson found the time to talk to me. To cite just some of the things the 40-year-old Brooklynite has been up to in the past year: running a conservation consulting firm, Ocean Collectiv; founding a coastal-cities think tank, ; advising Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign on the , an ocean-focused strategy for reducing carbon emissions and boosting the economy; taking over account to guide a dialogue on environmental justice; editing an ; and launching a podcast with industry heavyweight Alex Blumberg ambitiously titled .

So, yes, she’s been busy. And with good reason. With her expertise, personal story, and collaborative grassroots approach to problem solving, Johnson has emerged as a uniquely powerful voice in the environmental movement. She is one of a small number of scientists who operates at the nexus of climate change and racial justice, and the only one who has been able to connect the dots between those issues in a way that might actually get us somewhere.

Plus, she’s a natural entertainer. “Ayana is genuinely funny,” says Blumberg, the cofounder of podcasting juggernaut Gimlet Media, which sold to Spotify last year for a reported $230 million. As cohosts of How to Save a Planet, they examine achievable solutions to climate change. A common question they ask guests: How screwed are we? (Spoiler: It depends. We have a choice of possible futures.) “She’s an actual subject-matter expert who’s charismatic and can crack a joke and think on her feet. That’s rare.”

When I spoke to Johnson during a gap in her schedule, she described a life and career journey that began when she was on a family vacation in Florida at age five, sitting on the back of a glass-bottom boat with other kids throwing cheese popcorn to the fish. She is allergic to dairy and was covered in hives by the time her mom pulled her into the boat’s cabin to rinse off. There she found herself alone staring down through the glass at the life below. “I had a private view of this underwater magical world,” she says. That was all it took: she fell in love with coral reefs.

Johnson’s father was an architect, her mother a public-school teacher, and she was a brainy kid who spent hours digging up worms in their Brooklyn backyard. She studied environmental science and public policy at Harvard University, then earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In 2007, she began her graduate field work, in Curaçao and Bonaire, by redesigning fish traps to reduce bycatch and getting local officials to require their use. Her low-tech solution cut the capture of ornamental fish by some 80 percent and also convinced her that she “didn’t want to just write research papers that nobody was going to read, that wouldn’t result in any action.”

In that spirit, her dissertation on sustainably managed coral reefs was informed by interviews with hundreds of Caribbean fishermen and divers. The core of what she asked them: “If you could write the rules to manage fishing in the ocean, what would they be?” Their responses showed her the importance of engaging communities in the creation of policies that would alter their lives. “The hours I spent interrupting dominoes games and hanging out at the docks really changed the way I see the world,” Johnson says. She later applied that collaborative model in her work with the , a nonprofit focused on restoring fish populations, where she cofounded and directed an initiative that supported the citizens of Barbuda as they crafted their own marine regulations. The result was one of the most progressive and comprehensive ocean management policies in the region.

In 2016, Johnson moved back to Brooklyn to seek a career that would enable her to have the biggest impact in ocean conservation and climate change. She took on a series of freelance gigs: working with XPrize on a contest for the best use of ocean data, aiding Greenpeace on a coral-reef initiative, and authoring a report for the World Wildlife Fund on waste in the seafood supply chain. She was getting so many offers she couldn’t handle it all alone—and she didn’t want to. So she called up “a dozen of the coolest people I knew” and in 2017 formed Ocean Collectiv with the goal of supporting conservation groups “that are trying to do something differently—and in a way that is always really careful about the justice implications of the work.”

Returning to New York gave Johnson a new appreciation for the city’s shoreline and eventually spurred her to cofound the think tank Urban Ocean Lab with entrepreneur and designer Marquise Stillwell and veteran congressional policy advisor Jean Flemma. Their hope is to cultivate policies that help America’s coastal cities adapt to the threats of rising sea levels and more powerful storms. Johnson points out that the role the oceans play in climate change is often overlooked: when congressional Democrats released the Green New Deal, the oceans were barely mentioned. This prompted her to coauthor for the environmental outlet Grist calling out the “big blue gap” in the plan, and that led to her being tapped to work with Warren’s campaign.

Even after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Johnson was a swirl of activity. Then came George Floyd’s death and the country’s explosive response. Suddenly she wasn’t able to get anything done, a fact that she expressed in a for The Washington Post that sharply identified the intersection of environmentalism and racism: “How can we expect Black Americans to focus on climate when we are so at risk on our streets, in our communities, and even within our own homes?”

“I wrote that out of fury and grief,” she told me. “To say, ‘White environmentalists, I know you just want to ignore racism because our environmental challenges are already massive. And I, too, wish we could ignore it, but I am proof that you can’t ignore it and still get this work done.’ ”

The piece elevated Johnson to a new level of intellectual leadership in the environmen­tal movement. There was perhaps no one who better understood what needed to be explained—or who was more capable of doing the explaining. On that same family vacation where she gazed in wonder at a coral reef, her father taught her to swim in a hotel pool. It was a joyous trip, but decades later her parents let her know that it had been tainted by racism. “My dad’s Black and my mom’s white,” Johnson says. “When my dad showed up, none of the white people would get in the pool.”

For Johnson, the environmental and civil rights movements are linked by a shared moral clarity and a relentless effort to make things better. “When I was five, I wanted to be a marine biologist,” she says. “And then at ten I wanted to be the lawyer who got the next Martin Luther King out of jail.”

She’s bringing that same urgency to How to Save a Planet, which launched on August 20. She and Blumberg have an odd-couple-like dynamic, which may well help them in their bid to produce “the podcast about climate change that people actually want to listen to,” Johnson says with a laugh. The anthology she coedited, ($29; One World), offers another unexpected approach to climate activism. The contributors include scientists, lawyers, and think-tank policy experts, but also farmers, artists, designers, and poets.

“My love of nature and humanity drive my work,” Johnson says. “It’s not some abstract interest in policy or science—those are tools for understanding the world and shaping it into something that is verdant and fair.”

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On Wednesday, the Trump administration that will strip protections from 9.4 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The move is being made despite overwhelming opposition from the general publicÌęand Native AmericansÌęwho rely on the forest for food and clean water. It’s expected to decimate salmon populationsÌęandÌęeliminate the largest carbon sink in the country, worsening the impacts of climate change. If that’s not bad enough, logging the Tongass requires massive financial support from taxpayers, resulting in a net loss to the government’s bottom line.Ìę

Published without comment or fanfare, in a possible attempt to influence Alaska’s Senate election, the rule works against the express desire ofÌęcitizens to create a corporate welfare program that targets marginalized communities while destroying the environment.ÌęIt’s all the worst parts of this Presidency wrapped up in a final fuck youÌęto the country right before election day.Ìę

Encompassing 16.7 million acres of southeast Alaska, the Tongass is our nation’s largest national forest. But fewer than ten million acres of it are actually forested, with the rest being composed of glaciers, wetlands, and other ecosystems. Still, those forests are so large that they of our country’s annual carbon emissions—equivalent to the total yearly emissions of ten million cars—and are composed of virgin, old-growth trees that grow up to ten feet in diameter, 200 feet tall, and 800 years old. No other part of our continent per square mile. And the Tongass is full of animals, too, including five species of salmon, the densest populations of brown bears and bald eagles on the planet, the rare Alexander Archipelago Wolf (or Sea Wolf), orcas, humpback whales, otters, and much more. It’s common to hear the Tongass referred to as “America’s Amazon,” but since it’s a temperate, rather than a tropical, rainforest, it’s actually . About 2.4 million square miles of tropical rainforest remain across the planet, but only 117,000 miles of temperate rainforest exist. Destroying the Tongass’s 14,000 square miles of rainforest would eliminate 12 percent of all the temperate rainforest area remaining in the world.Ìę

The Tongass has been protected since 2001 by , a Clinton administration edict that prohibited new road building across sensitive areas of national forests. Because extractive activities, like industrial logging, require roadsÌęto operate, the Roadless rule effectively limited the operations of such industries in forests, where it applies, to their 2001 levels. But, as of Thursday, all 9.4 million acres of forest in the Tongass areÌęopen to logging.Ìę

The move is not popular. During the public comment period, over 2.5 million Americans , with 96 percent of respondents opposed toÌęthe rule change and only one percent in favor. All five of Alaska’s tribal nations , writing, “We refuse to allow legitimacy upon a process that has disregarded our input at every turn,” in a letter to agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue.Ìę

National forests are part ofÌęthe Department of Agriculture, and not the Department of the Interior, which runsÌęBureau of Land ManagementÌęlands, national parks, and more, and has been embroiled in its own corruption scandals.

Logging the Tongass will not benefit taxpayers. A federal mandate dictates that timber sales in national forests result in profits for the private businesses involved, so the forest service , including road building.ÌęA study conducted by , a nonpartisan advocacy group thatÌę“believesÌęin fiscal policy based on facts,” found that existing logging operations in the Tongass have cost taxpayers $44 million a year since 1980. That rate of loss is predicted to continue as more areas of the forest open to extraction. The Guardian that each mile of road constructed in the Tongass could cost taxpayers up to $500,000.Ìę

Nor is logging the Tongass necessary. As of 2012, the most recent year for which this data is available, unused logging inventory in areas with existing permits totaled . The total amount of lumber the Tongass holds is .Ìę

It’s also unlikely expanded logging in the forest will substantially benefit the local economy. According to Alaska’s Southeast Conference—a business council—, or 372 total workers. In contrast, the seafood industry employs 3,743 locals, or eight percent of the total. Tourism employs 7,344 people there,Ìęaccounting for 18 percent of the economy. It makes no sense to endanger industries made possible by a healthy, intact ecosystem with one that only stands to profit from destroying it.Ìę

of Alaska’s $986 million annual commercial salmon harvest comes from the Tongass’s 77 watersheds. It’s expected that erosion and other runoff will enter those streams and rivers, smothering salmon eggs and . That directly threatens $276 million in commercial activity for the state.Ìę

So without a benefit to taxpayers in Alaska or elsewhere in this country, and at a significant threat to the local economy, who benefits from this particular regulatory rollback by the Trump administration? China, whichÌę to fuel its booming construction industryÌęand to produce furniture and other consumer goods it exports to America, and other markets.Ìę

Ìęcreated by the USDA stated that the percentage of lumber produced in the Tongass and exported to China wasÌę“over 90 percentÌęin both 2005 and 2011.”

conducted by the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research found thatÌę“nearly all 2015 Alaskan log exports were sent to Pacific Rim countries in Northeast Asia, withÌęChina receiving approximately 76 percent of the volume leaving the Anchorage Customs District.”

, a conservative lobbying organization started by Ronald Reagan in 1977 for the purpose of, “protectingÌęthe American taxpayer by undertaking grassroots initiatives to stop the advance of liberal government,” pulls no punches about what’s going on here. , “IfÌęthe Roadless Rule is lifted, the expanded logging in the Tongass will generate millions for China’s economy—but little for America’s economy.”Ìę

Meanwhile, money that could be generated by keeping the Tongass intact, in benefit of the American economy, is being left on the table. Already, , a Native-owned for-profit corporation thatÌęhistorically engaged in logging, has turned its 300,000 acres of the Tongass into ,Ìęover five years,Ìęin the form of carbon credits. In that time, the price of carbon has increased 25 percent.

But the forest service to sell or regulate carbon offsets. The forest service exists . And decades of entrenched lobbying are preventing that from changing.Ìę

The Western Values Project, a conservation advocacy organization, that Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski accepted campaign donations from Viking Lumber, one of the chief benefactors of expanded logging in the Tongass. It also found that a prominent USDA lawyer formerly represented Viking in their efforts to expand logging in the forest, and goes on to paint a picture of further financial links between pro-logging interestsÌęand political offices in the state.Ìę

Meanwhile, the Alaskan economy has been rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, and politicians running for re-election in the state are under pressure to deliver at least the appearance of creating jobs. Dan Sullivan, the state’s junior Senator, is locked in a tight re-election campaign, and The Washington Post that President Trump’s attempts to keep him in power could be the reason why the rule opening the Tongass was advanced at this moment.Ìę

According to the Post, the President allegedly asked Senator Sullivan: “How the [expletive] do you have an economy without roads?”Ìę

One ray of hope here is that a hypothetical future Biden administration would likely reverse the revocation of the Roadless Rule, halting new road construction as soon as three months after it was permitted. As of the time of writing, over 50 million Americans have already cast their vote. If nothing else, this should be a reminder that your vote really does matter.Ìę

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The coronavirus pandemic has frozen the whole world in place as we try to keep ourselves and each other safe. We’re in the middle of an unintentional global experiment that has shut down entire nations and industries. That has put a spotlight on how our personal choices and global systems affect climate change and what we need to do to flatten the curve of emissions.

The coronavirus lockdowns have triggered what is expected to be the largest annual drop in carbon emissions on record: an 8 percent decline globally, amounting to 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon by the end of 2020, . As we stay at home—especially in developed countries like the United States, which has the highest carbon emission rate per capita—consumer demand for fossil fuels has plummeted. Renewables have when it comes to rates of energy use. went negative in March, after supply began to outweigh demand and available storage. Air travel between early March and mid-April (though air traffic fell by only 50 percent, because airlines continued to fly mostly empty planes). Air travel is likely to remain unpopular for the foreseeable future. In other words, quarantine has shrunk our carbon footprint significantly.

But drastic cuts that came from upending our daily lives are still not enough to curb climate change. Even with this year’s unprecedented emissions cutbacks, atmospheric carbon level and global temperatures are likely going to . Today’s global warming is the result of past choices: and heat up the planet over decades, and the atmosphere can’t create an immediate feedback loop that incorporates our recent cuts. This April was still the warmest on record. According to the United Nations, in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures (the target of the Paris climate accord, which the United States withdrew from last year), human beings would have to every year for the next decade.

That means we need structural change on an international scale. It’s now clear that meaningful emissions reductions won’t come from personal actions alone or even unilateral change from conscientious countries. But we can use this moment to consider a new path. There is no status quo anymore: the pandemic has forced us, on individual and collective levels, to rethink work, commutes, industry, recreation, supply chains, and urban planning. As we rebuild, we have a chance to do better. Individual actions can still be a big part of creating market and political pressures to reduce emissions. But we also need policy that makes individual action easy and enforces reductions in carbon use in major industries.

So, what can we do to keep these carbon reductions going as the economy begins to open, especially here in the United States? We could begin by examining transportation and electricity production, which, along with industry, are the sectors responsible for the majority of U.S. emissions: respectively, they are 28, 27, and 22 percent of our total, according to the . Each sector could reduce emissions by increasing efficiency and switching to renewable fuel—but we have to create incentives through regulation as well as through consumer pressure. We could regulate dirty industries more tightly, incentivize clean ones to fill the gaps, and give assistance to industries like renewable energy and agriculture that could bring back the economy while doing minimal further harm. Voters have already said they want that.

łą±đłÙ’s start with transportation, since rethinking the way people move around the globe is an opportunity to marry individual action with regulatory power. It would be difficult to wean airlines off fossil fuels, because there’s no energy-dense and sustainable equivalent of jet fuel. But organizations and the government could make plans to meaningfully reduce travel: businesses might commit to fewer company flights (especially now that many offices ) if incentivized, and airlines might limit flight traffic and stop running if federal assistance stipulated that they do so. As for personal vehicles, which are responsible for about how about top-down regulations for emission standards and incentives for electric cars, like the Obama-era plan that Trump misguidedly rolled back? is a great way to keep the country healthy as people begin to drive more frequently once restrictions lift. If we couple that with better public transit and streets designated for pedestrians or cyclists in cities, we could meaningfully reduce emissions in our most densely populated areas.

I wish that sustainable transportation policy didn’t feel like a hypothetical situation with a president known to favor industry over sustainability. To give just one example, the Trump administration auto emission standards in a way that smashed jobs while also making driving more dangerous and expensive. (Both the EPA and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration opposed the measure, which may be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.) But greening the auto industry is necessary to reduce emissions—we have to keep pushing for it.

Energy use is another area that deserves both individual and regulatory attention. Global energy demand was 3.8 percent lower in the first quarter of 2020 than last year. With lights out in stadiums, restaurants, and office buildings, the coronavirus lockdowns have pushed down the demand for electricity by 20 percent or more. When overall demand is down, it becomes instead of fossil fuels—so let’s punch coal, oil, and natural gas-based energy while they’re down and make sure those industries don’t get back on their feet to do more damage.

“Only renewables are holding up during the previously unheard-of slump in electricity use,” says Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. “It is still too early to determine the longer-term impacts, but the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before.”

For the , we’ve seen that renewable energies like solar and wind—which are used as baseload power in many places—can take more of a share of electricity without gaps in service. We should lobby to build them up and let coal die. According to the , those would be the most effective measures to reduce emissions, along with encouraging the industry sector to use greener energy and materials across supply chains.

Do I keep bringing up policy and regulation? That’s because forward-thinking governmental action could make a real difference for long-term sustainability. I get sick to my stomach when I think about how hard that will be to achieve when the defining features of the United States’ current political era are partisan gridlock in Congress and a president with a record of opposing sustainable environmental policies and regulations. The situation would almost feel satirical if people weren’t already and likely to continue to die because of it.

But we’re at a climate inflection point. The pandemic has underscored the fact that no one can save the planet alone, because even with a near-total shutdown of transport and industry, we are only barely approaching our climate emissions goals. It’s deadly to inject money into damaging industries to jump-start the economy—that’s exactly what happened after the 2008 recession, and by 2010, global emissions were higher than ever.

We have to support the changes we want to see. They will not happen by accident. But the pandemic will be twice the tragedy if we don’t adapt to its economic and cultural shocks with a better sense of global solidarity and sustainability.

It’s still early in this experiment, but we can learn from it. We have to.

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In the outdoor industry, Patagonia has always been among the more vocal brandsÌęopposing the Trump Administration’s effort to roll back environmental protections and undermine public lands. Now, the iconic outdoor company has teamed up with another industry giant, Columbia Sportswear, to throw their support behind an effort to prevent the Environmental Protection AgencyÌę(EPA)Ìęfrom gutting regulations that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For both companies, it’s not only the right thing to do for the planet, it’s also good business.Ìę

Last month, the two gear manufacturers joined forces to file an , a legal document advising a court of additional considerations in a pending case, in support of a lawsuit by health and environmental groups challenging the EPA’s decision last year to overturn the 2015 Clean Power Plan (CPP) and replace it with the weaker Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. Their brief asks the court to weigh the damaging impact the rule change will have on the $887 billion outdoor industry.Ìę

The ACE is a boon for the coal industry in that it curbs the CPP’s ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, the Ìęof greenhouse gases in the United States. The new rule could potentially , and by , ACE could lead to thousands more premature deaths every year along with a jump in the number of people experiencing respiratory disease.Ìę

The suit itself was filed by the American Lung Association and the American Public Health Association in July 2019. It asks the court to invalidate the new rule on the basis that it does not fit with the EPA’s mandate to protect public health under the Clean Air Act of 1970. The case is before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC. Climate scientists, health groups, and religious organizations also filed amicus briefs in support of the plaintiffs ahead of last Friday’s deadline.Ìę

Patagonia began considering an array of options to join the effort before deciding the amicus brief would be their best route, said Avi Garbow, the company’s environmental advocate and the former EPA general counsel during the Obama Administration. But they weren’t going to do it alone.ÌęÌę

“We also thought there would be strength in numbers, figuring out a way of pairing two giants of the outdoor industry to present the viewpoint of the outdoor industry and the private sector would really bolster our case and be very helpful to the court,” said Garbow. “We were delighted to partner with Columbia and proceed as a duo.”Ìę

The companies are no strangers to cooperation, but that’s typically been limited to manufacturing issues like sustainability and product regulations, explained Abel Navarrete, Columbia’s vice president for corporate responsibility. And even for two brands that have been active in the political spaceÌębefore, it may seem like a big leap to throw their weight behind a court case like this one. But the issue of climate change is a direct existential threat to their business and the larger outdoor recreation industry,Ìęwhich supports nearly 8 million jobs in the United States.Ìę

“It’s not new to have businesses weighing in on big court cases. It’s a little bit new to have them weighing in on the side of the environment and planet,” said Garbow. “If we’re not going to use our voice, our community, and our resources to deal with one of the greatest crises that we face, then we’re not living up to the mission of the company.”ÌęÌę

As relaxed emissions standards hasten the pace of global warming, it threatens to destroy outdoor spaces and limit people’s ability to recreate outside. Ultimately, , that means fewer opportunities for people to get outdoors, which in turn leads to less money spent on clothing and gear and in recreation-dependent communities.ÌęÌę

“As we like to say here, when we wade into a swamp it’s to test our products, but there are some things that are just that compelling that you have to,” said Peter Bragdon, Columbia’s executive vice president, chief administrative officer, and general counsel. “The brief tells the perfect story of what we’re trying to protect here—it’s the consumers, the special places, rural communities. It’s really remarkable that it was ignored by this administration.”Ìę

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As a planning nerd, I enjoy activities that others bristle at. For example, this year I didn’t just commit to one New Year’s resolutionÌębut 20. (It’s called , y’all!) One of my goals is to rewrite my bucket list, and with all travel plans canceled for the foreseeable future, I now have plenty of time to do so. The list isn’t limited to travel—there are life events I hope to experience, such as getting married and bouldering a V7, that will take up a permanent residence until I see them through—but I think some of us adventurous typesÌęfeel the urgeÌęto accomplish feats, like climbing Mount Everest or stepping foot on all seven continents, without necessarily reflecting on if that’s actually what we want. I’m guilty of this as much as the next person.

In the past, when working on my dream file, I’ve Googled things like “bucket-list ideas” rather than thinking thingsÌęthrough myself. (As you can imagine, I ended up with items like “walk across hot coals” and “scream like a gladiator inside the Colosseum,” neither of which I have the faintest desire to do.) In this day and age of travel, which has been marked by overtourism and massive carbon emissions, we need to acknowledge that not every single destinationÌęon the planetÌęcan or should be on the agenda. With the future of travel uncertain—especially the question of —reflecting on our current dreams might help us to re-prioritize. We have to get choosyÌęabout whereÌęwe’ll go and even the modes of travel we’ll participate in, and living through this pandemic is making theseÌęcrystal clear.ÌęSoÌęwhip out a red pen, and get ready to edit your own bucket list. This step-by-step guide will help you to pare it down to the places that really matter to you.Ìę

How to Get Started

If you’ve compiled a physical bucket list in the past, find it. If this is your first time putting one together, decideÌęwhere to keepÌęit. I have the utmost respect for the yellowing paper list, but I prefer toÌęuse a website called to record all my to-dos, thoughts, and dreams. I love the site’s visual capabilitiesÌęand that it also exists as a phone app. As an evangelist ofÌęÌę(the bestselling productivity book by David Allen), I subscribe to the methodology of having a single dashboard for myÌęentireÌęlife. In addition to my bucket list, I use Notion to store items like work projects, my 20 New Year’s resolutions, my shopping lists, and notes from books.Ìę

Once you have your list in front of you, do a fewÌęread-throughs, and cross offÌęanything that doesn’t utterly thrill you. Next, spend a good 20 or 30 minutes brainstorming new ideas. My favorite technique is the good ol’ mind map. Consider all areas of your life—relationships, hobbies, work, travel, health, finances, spirituality—and write out as many dreams as you can think of for each one,Ìęwhether it’s improving communication with your partner by learning about the five love languages, getting your sport-specific guide certification, achieving financial independence, or starting a prayer journal.ÌęThenÌęmake a list of your interests—a period of history, a type of food, a landscape, or a culture—and find experiences that tap into them. If you’re a foodie and haven’t been to Italy, you may want toÌęplan a trip to the island of SardiniaÌęto . When you feel like you’ve exhausted all your ideas, log off, and sleep on it (seriously).

Find Inspiration

The next phase of crafting a kickass life list is the most fun: get inspired! If you’ve ever cut out images from magazines or created a mood board,Ìęyou know what I’m talking about. Select a handful of sources, and spend a few days or weeks living vicariously through them. Think: movies and TV shows, books that dive deep into a single destination, magazines, social-media accounts, travel blogs, and even conversations with friends about their own trips. Don’t neglect your own backyard, either. There’s this societal understanding of a bucket-list trip being a lavish adventure to a far-off destination, but a true explorer is curious about theirÌęown surroundings. Take a scroll through Yelp, search for interesting localesÌęin your state or those nearby, and expand your horizons in terms of what qualifies for your list.

Allow yourself to follow your interests and go down rabbit holes. The key to making sure this process is fruitful, though, is to set a deadline and stick to it. You have your whole life to organically add things to the list—don’t feel pressure to plan everything out now.

Cull Your List

By this point, you should have amassed a bunch of fantasies, which means it’s time for another cull. If you’ve gone through the KonMari tidying process, the principle of only keeping what “sparks joy” will be familiar. Do that in this context, too. Ask yourself questions like:ÌęIf I only had one more year to live, what would I most want to experience? Why do I want to do this?ÌęWould I still want to doÌęthis if I didn’t care about what others thought?ÌęAnd, for some of us, Would I still be intrinsically motivated to seek this out if I couldn’t post about it on social media?ÌęRemember, life’s too short to invest in activitiesÌęyou think you should do rather than thoseÌęyou can’t imagine living without. Eliminate everything that doesn’t pass theseÌęlitmus tests.

Revisit It FrequentlyÌę

One of the indelible truths about travel is that it changes us. In addition to hopefully making us better people, it introduces us to cultures, ideas, and activities we may have never been interested in previously. Last year for my birthday, my parents took me to Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New MexicoÌęto go caving. Crawling around in a dark, wet hole for several hours was not the glamorous vision for a birthday I had in mind, but lo and behold, my browser history is now full of gloriousÌęcaves around the world, a fewÌęof which I hope to admire in person one day. On the other end of the spectrum, some experiences sate our thirst and give us permission to cross similar journeys off our lists. Once might be enough for a specific style of travel or a destination: You may realize that you’re not the type to spend an entire vacation lounging on a tropical beach, or that you prefer traveling alone instead of being part of a group tour.ÌęOr perhaps, like many travelers, you realize that the experience of a single place gets richer the more time you spend there, soÌęinstead of seeking out new harbors, you choose to return again and again.

Commit to dusting off your bucket list at least once a year—perhaps when deciding how you’d like to use your vacation days—and give it a quick edit.

Never Stop Dreaming

Finally, we must never stop dreaming, evenÌęnow, whileÌęwe’re stuck at home.ÌęMake the most of what’s available from your day to day—books, podcasts, and films about grand adventures to provide inspiration, socially distanced chats with friends and neighbors, and walks around the block to deliberate on ideas from your research. When the world opens back up, you’ll be ready.

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