Adventure and Sustainability
Looking at our future on this planet requires some imagination, research and re-thinking our current trajectory. Central to this exploration is the pressing issue of climate change and how we can best live and thrive amidst its challenges.
‘Sustainability’ carries a heavy load. When we discuss sustainability in the built environment, we typically look at material origins and use, energy systems and utilities. “The built environment generates 42% of annual global CO2 emissions.” (Architecture2030) We have the metrics, and constantly evolving efficient solutions to mitigate emissions, increase property value, decrease building costs. Applying some of those easy sustainable material and systemic solutions at any price level is readily available, even as aging infrastructure and training prove to challenge the speed of adaptation.
Real estate operations are responsible for a significant proportion of emissions, where 70% are produced by building operations, and the remaining 30% come from construction” (Regeneration) and are simultaneously the most at risk for the consequences of extreme climate conditions: floods, fire, hurricanes, earthquakes occurring in new places not specific to shifting plate tectonics, but due to fracking, mining and other major shifts to the earth’s core. Insuring this real estate may force people to move to less risky zones or not insure their homes.
How we can alter our lifestyle, habits and patterns to align with sustainable practices without compromising our comforts. We can adjust how we eat, drive, optimize, consume and relate. We can use natural air flow for cooling, trombé walls for passive heating, consume less products, support local vendors, grow our own food, use less water in landscaping. How do we make good choices?
We can learn the psychology of making choices by breaking down the codes to what drives us to eat, sleep, work, play and stress. Once we know how and why we make choices, we can change them. Changing the choices we make gives us the freedom to do whatever we want while understanding the consequences and benefits, risks and rewards.
That’s what leads us to adventure in nature. Risk taking is generally cause for fear and resistance for most people. For others, we see risk as an opportunity to discover something we didn’t previously know, with the possibility of a dopamine hit. Adventure tends to provide us with some certainties: taking us to or beyond our threshold into something more exotic and beautiful, unforgetable.
When we adventure regularly at the edge of our threshold, we expand our resilience and longevity- which in turn, trains our brain/body to understand how moderate doses of stress in the form of cortisol, generates growth hormones, increasing longevity. “Cortisol is a steroid hormone your body uses to mobilize the resources it needs for action, specifically to respond to stress. But your levels are never zero. You need cortisol for life” (Stacy Sims)
Managing cortisol increases resilience, reconstructs our familiarity with fear and changes our markers of happiness, beauty, and our connection to nature. Unregulated cortisol causes our bodies and brains to break down. We build resilience through adventure, by exposing ourselves to regulated doses of GOOD stress. This exposure, “at the same absolute intensity, our cortisol response will be lower after a consistent few months of training.” (Stacy Sims). Training the nervous system to regulate cortisol is the most accessible anti- aging, longevity hack. Go outside and play. Regularly. Super simple. This is good stress. Eliminate as much of the unnecessary stress as you can.
Nature communicates to us through our senses: sound, vibration, smell, light, touch. There are more neurons in our skin and stomach, and nerve endings than our brain. One way to hack your intelligence is to train yourself to learn through your senses, loaded with neurons all throughout our body. We tend to react when our senses are ignited, instead of using that as information. When we can better understand a threat through using all of our senses, we can make a much better assessment of the type and level of threat, and whether we should be concerned or run!
Through adventuring in nature, we recalibrate our body and brain to grow through these chemical inductions. The best way to start is to first, pick the best guides you can find, then research as much as possible about gear, weather, geography, apps, geology, your threshold for any exposure to anything new, then ask as many questions of your guide as possible, then repeat. The slow, steady, incremental learning builds momentum.
Momentum is currency. Momentum is like a garden. If you feed it, momentum will grow into free energy that you can apply towards the specific goal you’ve been targeting. Learning something, changing your mind, almost anything. Momentum is a driver for sustainable change. There’s a reason to start playing outside now. Just turn off your AC for a few hours.