bringing in and generating nearly 70 million tons of trash
God knows how they get to that number tho. Probably was a sum of all trash operations for all parks system-wide? That would include all the ranger’s trash from living there, along with any waste generated by maintenance, hospitality, and rescue activities. That makes a bit more sense if we consider that there are many national park service units (including national lakeshores, national battlegrounds, etc.), some of which presumably have a much lower ranger:visitor ratio than, say, Great Smoky Mountains NP. Like Gates of the Arctic NP!
Some activities are pretty wasteful (looking at you, mountaineers) and some people dump their RV trash in the little trash cans at the visitor center, but no way that puts a dent in 400lb/person, IMO.
Perhaps the NPS is exempt from those statistics as a federal agency – I imagine the EPA's oversight is different there (as it is for usual local and state agencies, which those stats seem to cover.)
I could believe it, if most visitors are simply walking through the visitor centers and then leaving, which I bet is the case for a lot of the high traffic parks (think Independence Hall, Lincoln Memorial, etc.) At most you’re dropping some food wrappers, which is pretty light.
Seems low. Talking about trash on both sides of the economic exchange. Buy a meal and you will generate a bunch of trash on consumer side, the business will also generate trash during production.
> Rangers spent 20 minutes removing it. Animals will eat the cheetos, mold will spread to the walls
Where it will be consumed by the mold eating cave inhabitants. Do they really think that cave ecosystems weren't prepared for a deer carcass? They had received external supplies of nutrients for millions of years.
Keeping caves clean is a good thing, but if people can't behave can be fined for it. In any case, regular cleaning teams should be included in the budget of the park as part of the management. Stop being cheap with nature.
Except for the aluminum and plastic bag, easily removable, this is a storm in a teacup. Would be relevant only when prehistoric art is present.
IMO it’s sincere and valid. Experts at the national park service assert X, anonymous contributor asserts disagreement Y. It’s fair to ask what your qualification is when disagreeing with a named expert.
HN is one of the few places on there internet where, more often than not, assessments and arguments are mostly integrated based on their merits, logic, and referenced sources, rather than the credentials of the author of the comment.
I'm interested to try, and to figure out where those limitations are, rather than to just shut down discussion for lack of proper credentials.
I honestly don't know whether, for example, a deer carcass is a potentially destabilizing element for a cave of this nature, or how often such a thing occurs, but I think it's not an unreasonable approach to tease out the particulars.
As you can tell from GP's response to my question, it was actually quite effective in pushing the conversation forward. It revealed GP's (alleged) confusion in separating the blogspam commentary in this article from the NPS's statement on ecosystem health.
I mean, maybe if you don't know something, you just don't have to comment at all. Not every discussion needs to be had, especially when every single commenter doesn't have the requisite background but still tries to debate specific technical merits anyway. This is how you get Uber inventing buses and then acting like it's a new thing.
People on this website really overestimate their ability to be experts in things they have zero experience in, and it's kind of terrifying.
Sure. But the OP doesn’t really state any sources not does the argument have a ton of merit. It kinda reminds me of the legendary Onion article “This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t”:
Carlsbad Caverns visitor numbers fluctuate, but seem to be in the range of 500k yearly based on published data. To answer OP's question, I strongly doubt that this is one piece of litter, or that the rangers are publishing this article because of one singular Cheetos packet. HN rules say "assume good faith" and I don't feel like the OP is doing this (particularly in his response comment.)
If authorities say that some cave ecosystem is really fragile and could be damaged by litter, well this is a reasonable hypothesis. I'll buy it.
The article sets the outcome with a terrifying "corn flour could have triggered chaos", but without providing links to research that will support this hypothesis. Meanwhile, I'm being required to provide links to a negative outcome research, or to flash a ridiculous license to think.
Well, If you want the proof, is in the fact that this ecosystems still exist. Existed for millions of years.
Despite the number of bones found on caves all around the planet,
Or the fact that people makes cheese on caves since thousands of years,
Or that the surface waters carrying bacteria, algae and viruses pass through caves...
... Despite this, nobody has seen a cave disappear after being filled with mold. Somehow, the surplus of mold disappears from this ecosystems. How?
The empirical experience show us that ecosystems poor in nutrients are boosted locally when they receive an external supply of carcasses or organic garbage. As long as is a reasonable amount, the ecosystem can deal with it. This garbage just provided dinner for the cave crickets that are preyed by spiders later. The most probable outcome will be: "more endangered crickets and more unique spiders". The science of Ecology has studied the concept of stress on ecosystems thoroughly: Some stress increases biodiversity; too much is bad.
You could say: "but people could be trowing too much garbage here!".
Yep. But "could be happening" is not the same thing as "is happening". Show the numbers.
In any case the real problem is not this.
The real problem is that the same authorities talking about chaos in ecosystem, are allowing 500k f*ing people a year walking in that ecosystem. Didn't they said before that it is so, so fragile?. Maybe they are being hypocrites about this?
The solution here seems very simple. If the cave ecosystem is in danger, stop tourism until it recovers. You can't have your cake and eat it.
The fact that 500k people per year do go through the cave system and it hasn't collapsed yet is empirical disproof of your claim "You can't have your cake and eat it."
Nobody is saying this cave will cease to exist if there's some Cheetohs or even a dear carcass in it. They're saying that every disturbance runs the risk of destroying what is interesting to us about the caves.
There are literally countless caves that are far, far less interesting than Carlsbad. The hope is that this continues to be a unique and interesting one.
Your other comment that a dear carcass wouldn't cause harm "irreparably" reveals your underlying confusion. There's no concept of repair or harm or irreparability as far as nature goes. We know that Carlsbad is interesting to us in the state it's currently in. Contamination could make it even more interesting/valuable to us, or it could destroy its unique value to us. The cave's caretakers obviously believe the latter is the more likely outcome, and in either case we almost certainly will not be able to "repair" it back to its current state.
I don't need to be a caretaker of cave systems to notice the manipulation in this article. Lying for a good cause is still lying, and in the end destroys any credibility.
Bullshit like for example saying that cave ecosystems could be destroyed because <huge improbable number> of trash has been discarded in the sum of <every> protected areas.
Sorry but, how much of these areas do have cave ecosystems? A cheetos bag does not have the same impact in a prairie than in a cave.
The article is leading the reader toward the assumption that caves are flooded with millions of tons of trash; but does not show any data to support that claim except that "the problem was solved in 20 minutes".
If we don't have a real value, we should do research and find a real estimate. Extrapolating from things unrelated to achieve our desired emotional response (based in fake data) is dishonest towards the public. And eventually they will discover the trick and will stop caring.
You're jumping from "this article is bad" to "the underlying event is 'a storm in a teacup'"
I don't take issue with the argument that this article (which is clearly blogspam) is bad. I take issue with your assertion that this is a non-event despite NPS saying otherwise.
Frankly I can't bring myself to believe that you're actually confused by the distinction between the blogspam and the NPS's statement, but I suppose it's possible.
If is so bad, just show me the research, or at least any proof showing that the ecosystem is collapsing.
You know, as me, that the blogspam is the only part what the public will read. And then you have a lot of people with lots of silly and wrong ideas about how nature works.
I'm happy to defer to the professional caretakers of caves to have collated the relevant research behind their opinions, which is why I asked whether you are one.
You're not, so I think onus is on you if you'd like to provide evidence to the contrary of actual expert opinion.
So you require other people to provide links and all sorts of guarantees and royal letters, but you refuse to provide one flimsy cite to support your opinion apart of "experts are experts are experts". And you think that know all about me. Okay. Keep thinking that.
Any other thing that you would want to include before to end this conversation?
Wait sorry, if you're just discarding the entire concept of expertise, then what source could possibly convince you of anything? The sources themselves are just more experts!
Also to be clear, I didn't assume anything about you. My very first question was about your expertise.
Have you considered reaching out to tell them they're wrong and to not waste their time? I'm sure as cave caretakers and scientists they're busy doing other things that you could also correct them on.
The scientific community is rife with pretentious know-it-all types. The type that draw conclusions before something is conclusive. Better not to take them seriously.
They recently built a cafe deep inside carlsbad caverns. If food was an issue, that seems a dumb idea.
It wouldn’t actually make a difference right? Like it would be world changing for the life in the cave in the sense that it is short lived and fiercely competitive, but it would quickly return to the original balance, no?
It would achieve a balance but not necessarily the original one. How long it would take I'm not competent to assess unlike apparently everyone else commenting here.
If you can't go out into nature without trashing it, just stay home.
When I got hike, I just started taking a trashbag. Was on a waterfall trail in Colorado three weeks ago; someone left a sock, another their _entire pants_ in a tree (we checked around before cleaning them up, and it was obvious they had been there awhile). How you forget your pants is beyond me.
And don't get me started on people's stupid dogs. Dog feces is pollution, and is non-natural in these environments. People will sometimes scoop, but then leave the bag. What part of that is acceptable?
I have come across the full dog poop bag phenomenon a lot lately on trails and sidewalks. A small group forms, as if there was a memo that someone else wants them or would be picking them up. It is baffling. I would guess that these are people who were not bagging their poop and were chided for that. And then these people took the command too literally, bagging but not carrying away.
45 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 94.7 ms ] threadWhat? Does this include waste the parks themselves generate in brochures and such?
I cannot fathom how each visitor to a national park generates an average of 467 pounds of trash.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/teaming-up-to-keep-park-was...
God knows how they get to that number tho. Probably was a sum of all trash operations for all parks system-wide? That would include all the ranger’s trash from living there, along with any waste generated by maintenance, hospitality, and rescue activities. That makes a bit more sense if we consider that there are many national park service units (including national lakeshores, national battlegrounds, etc.), some of which presumably have a much lower ranger:visitor ratio than, say, Great Smoky Mountains NP. Like Gates of the Arctic NP!Some activities are pretty wasteful (looking at you, mountaineers) and some people dump their RV trash in the little trash cans at the visitor center, but no way that puts a dent in 400lb/person, IMO.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...
I could believe it, if most visitors are simply walking through the visitor centers and then leaving, which I bet is the case for a lot of the high traffic parks (think Independence Hall, Lincoln Memorial, etc.) At most you’re dropping some food wrappers, which is pretty light.
Where it will be consumed by the mold eating cave inhabitants. Do they really think that cave ecosystems weren't prepared for a deer carcass? They had received external supplies of nutrients for millions of years.
Keeping caves clean is a good thing, but if people can't behave can be fined for it. In any case, regular cleaning teams should be included in the budget of the park as part of the management. Stop being cheap with nature.
Except for the aluminum and plastic bag, easily removable, this is a storm in a teacup. Would be relevant only when prehistoric art is present.
I honestly don't know whether, for example, a deer carcass is a potentially destabilizing element for a cave of this nature, or how often such a thing occurs, but I think it's not an unreasonable approach to tease out the particulars.
People on this website really overestimate their ability to be experts in things they have zero experience in, and it's kind of terrifying.
https://theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mi...
Being a person of authority might help make up for the evidence being entirely lacking, hence requesting it.
Agreed; I just think that it's better for the discussion to proceed on that basis.
[1] https://www.nps.gov/cave/learn/news/interesting-facts-about-...
The article sets the outcome with a terrifying "corn flour could have triggered chaos", but without providing links to research that will support this hypothesis. Meanwhile, I'm being required to provide links to a negative outcome research, or to flash a ridiculous license to think.
Well, If you want the proof, is in the fact that this ecosystems still exist. Existed for millions of years.
Despite the number of bones found on caves all around the planet,
Or the fact that people makes cheese on caves since thousands of years,
Or that the surface waters carrying bacteria, algae and viruses pass through caves...
... Despite this, nobody has seen a cave disappear after being filled with mold. Somehow, the surplus of mold disappears from this ecosystems. How?
The empirical experience show us that ecosystems poor in nutrients are boosted locally when they receive an external supply of carcasses or organic garbage. As long as is a reasonable amount, the ecosystem can deal with it. This garbage just provided dinner for the cave crickets that are preyed by spiders later. The most probable outcome will be: "more endangered crickets and more unique spiders". The science of Ecology has studied the concept of stress on ecosystems thoroughly: Some stress increases biodiversity; too much is bad.
You could say: "but people could be trowing too much garbage here!".
Yep. But "could be happening" is not the same thing as "is happening". Show the numbers.
In any case the real problem is not this.
The real problem is that the same authorities talking about chaos in ecosystem, are allowing 500k f*ing people a year walking in that ecosystem. Didn't they said before that it is so, so fragile?. Maybe they are being hypocrites about this?
The solution here seems very simple. If the cave ecosystem is in danger, stop tourism until it recovers. You can't have your cake and eat it.
Nobody is saying this cave will cease to exist if there's some Cheetohs or even a dear carcass in it. They're saying that every disturbance runs the risk of destroying what is interesting to us about the caves.
There are literally countless caves that are far, far less interesting than Carlsbad. The hope is that this continues to be a unique and interesting one.
Your other comment that a dear carcass wouldn't cause harm "irreparably" reveals your underlying confusion. There's no concept of repair or harm or irreparability as far as nature goes. We know that Carlsbad is interesting to us in the state it's currently in. Contamination could make it even more interesting/valuable to us, or it could destroy its unique value to us. The cave's caretakers obviously believe the latter is the more likely outcome, and in either case we almost certainly will not be able to "repair" it back to its current state.
Bullshit like for example saying that cave ecosystems could be destroyed because <huge improbable number> of trash has been discarded in the sum of <every> protected areas.
Sorry but, how much of these areas do have cave ecosystems? A cheetos bag does not have the same impact in a prairie than in a cave.
The article is leading the reader toward the assumption that caves are flooded with millions of tons of trash; but does not show any data to support that claim except that "the problem was solved in 20 minutes".
If we don't have a real value, we should do research and find a real estimate. Extrapolating from things unrelated to achieve our desired emotional response (based in fake data) is dishonest towards the public. And eventually they will discover the trick and will stop caring.
I don't take issue with the argument that this article (which is clearly blogspam) is bad. I take issue with your assertion that this is a non-event despite NPS saying otherwise.
Frankly I can't bring myself to believe that you're actually confused by the distinction between the blogspam and the NPS's statement, but I suppose it's possible.
You know, as me, that the blogspam is the only part what the public will read. And then you have a lot of people with lots of silly and wrong ideas about how nature works.
You're not, so I think onus is on you if you'd like to provide evidence to the contrary of actual expert opinion.
Any other thing that you would want to include before to end this conversation?
Also to be clear, I didn't assume anything about you. My very first question was about your expertise.
They recently built a cafe deep inside carlsbad caverns. If food was an issue, that seems a dumb idea.
When I got hike, I just started taking a trashbag. Was on a waterfall trail in Colorado three weeks ago; someone left a sock, another their _entire pants_ in a tree (we checked around before cleaning them up, and it was obvious they had been there awhile). How you forget your pants is beyond me.
And don't get me started on people's stupid dogs. Dog feces is pollution, and is non-natural in these environments. People will sometimes scoop, but then leave the bag. What part of that is acceptable?