When scientists say that global warming is the greatest threat to life on earth - why is it that so many refuse to accept their claims?  Of note, many people who refer to themselves as fundamentalists are the first to deny the scientist’s claims.  Could it be that throughout the last 2,000 years the world has been going to end at any moment - at least according to prophecies (from dozens of quarters)?  Could it be that too many 'scientists,' 'gurus,' and theologians, have predicted the end of all life - usually with a strong emphasis on human life - and it simply hasn’t occurred?

We’ll never know the true answers to these questions.  What we do know is this - never before has the world been moving so fast.  In fact, when you talk to the average working person, they’ll all tell you: “everything is moving too fast.”  I’ve thought long and read widely about the causes of our fast-moving world.  Toffler, the author of Future Shock, explained in detail the advancing speed of transportation.  From a 6-mile an hour camel train - to a 50-mile per hour steam-driven train.  Here we see things speeded up by a factor of 8.  Then came the airplane - which produced modern aviation and the commercial jet which flies at 600 miles an hour.  This is a speeding up factor of 100.  All of this speeding up has taken place within about 150 years.

Modern man can move from country to country - racing over time zones - at 600 miles per hour.  He can communicate with email at the speed of light.  For example, we can email an Australian customer and he gets it almost immediately - even though there’s a 12-hour zone-time difference between Vancouver, WA and Adelaide.  But what does all this do to our minds?

People can no longer keep up with the amount and frequency of change.  Gobbling up the latest computer operating system, downloading upgrades, reading at least the most important books each year, staying up with important political events, trying to cope with more and more responsibilities at work, trying to keep a relationships going, all of this seems impossible as each of these parts of life take time we don't feel like we have.  And if time itself is accelerating, man’s mind may have reached its limits to stay connected with his own individual reality.  This produces more alienation from reality, more stress to manage throughout the spectrum of one’s life, with less time to think, to absorb and adjust.  And as his work day lengthens and his currency shrinks, he becomes more and more insecure.  It produces feelings of futility and despair.

These circumstances drive man to places where things are quieter, more manageable, more understandable, less complex (at least on the surface), in order to re-create himself in order to go on coping with modern life.  Our appeal to those who use wilderness is to use it to re-create yourself (surely this is one of the main reasons we head out to wilderness and backcountry areas) - but not at the expense of the creatures who live there.  Use these remaining sacred places with the idea of leaving as little trace of your visit as possible.  In this way, we can preserve and protect these places which we will need even more in the years to come. 

Our strong suggestion is to either bury or pack out your poop and toilet paper.  To make this as easy for you as possible we offer the Packit Toilet kit - which includes our Ultralight Packit Toilet, our Digger (makes digging a good 8-inch deep hole easy; stows without poking holes in stuff), a roll of 12 biodegradable bags, and a roll of biodegradable toilet paper.  No more splashing, accidents, or having to leave your tent in a 3 a.m. drizzle.  Makes camping a whole lot easier.