Thinking Upstream
Adventures in Sustainable Living Podcast
Episode 83
Thinking Upstream
I often marvel at the complexity and enormity of the natural world. Consider for a moment the Mississippi River. This river discharges almost 4.5 million gallons of water per second.
But it doesn’t start out that way. I got to wondering what I would find if I went upstream? Where does this river come from?
Well, one day as I was sitting by the creek below my cabin, I got to wondering the same thing. What would I find if I went upstream? Well, finding the answer to that question created quite an adventure that resulted in a close encounter with a really big bear.
Stay tuned if you want to hear that story and find out why thinking upstream is vital to our sustainability.
Welcome back everyone to the Adventures in Sustainable Living podcast. This is your host Patrick and this is E83 which is called Thinking Upstream.
Once again I would like to remind everyone that if you need to contact me with questions, comments, or even suggestions for content, especially if it is something you would really like to hear about, then you can contact me at
So, let’s get right down to today’s topic Thinking Upstream.
First of all, you have to know that I am not a stay at home type person. You could even say that I’m a bit restless. I get bored easy. I enjoy challenging myself. That is why I went to veterinary school. That is why I have lived and worked in multiple different countries. That is why I am also a scuba diving instructor. It seems sometimes that I always want to be outside and that is the very reason I have not watched television for over 20 years. I am so busy investigating and experiencing the natural world. That is why is love so much that I live in the middle of the forest.
About 26 years ago I purchased some acreage in the mountains southwest of Denver. It was simply a plot of raw land. This is where I still live these days. There is now a green house, a cabin, a chicken barn, as well as some other things. Anyway, after owning this property for several years, I was sitting by the creek that is at the bottom of the ridge below the cabin. I got to wondering about where the creek comes from. Where does it start?
It turns out that the headwaters of this creek are very high in the mountains. After making several unsuccessful attempts to find the headwaters because of deep snow, I decided to take another route. I hiked south over a different ridge to another creek thinking that maybe these two ran together. That was my first mistake.
At any rate, I walked for several hours through the forest climbing to a higher and higher elevation as the creek grew progressively smaller. I did not know exactly where I was but I rationalized that I could always just follow the creek. Before I knew it, the creek disappeared underground just before I reached timberline. I stopped and took a good look around to make sure I knew my landmarks and decided to climb the rest of the way up the ridge.
I sat at the top of this ridge for several hours having lunch and enjoying the view. Just before noon I decided to head back home in order to avoid the afternoon thunderstorms. I spotted the creek at timberline and followed it. After about an hour, the creek disappeared underground. That is when I realized I had taken the wrong drainage. That was my second mistake.
I sat for a moment deciding what to do. After all I wasn’t really lost I just did not know exactly where I was. I retrieved my compass from my pack and decided to walk directly east for 2 hours then turn directly north. That should get me back approximately where I started.
The challenge began when the terrain kept getting steeper and steeper. I ended up hiking into a very narrow gorge that was steep and completely unforgiving. After struggling for a couple of hours and getting no where fast, I was getting tired. I took my pack off and rested on a nice flat rock to eat lunch. Thinking out loud I ask myself, “Could this day possibly get any worse?” That was my third mistake. Just then I heard something in the rocks a few feet over my head. I turned to look only to find myself nearly face to face with a really big bear. As I slowly reached in my pack for a weapon, my first thought was “Well, this day just got worse.”
Fortunately for me the bear quickly lost interest and left. At least that was my conclusion. But you better believe I spent the rest of the day looking over my shoulder. A couple of weeks later on another hike I finally found where my creek started. Turns out there is a large underground spring high in the mountains that first forms a lake. The drainage from that lake which drains forms the stream. On the way down the mountain another larger stream connects which results in the nice active stream that I see everyday.
After my adventure whenever I sit by the stream below the cabin, I picture that nice pristine lake in my head and I feel some sense of accomplishment because I now know what goes on upstream.
Now for a moment lets circle back to the Mississippi, which has a downstream flow rate of 4.5 million gallons per second. This mighty river has its humble beginnings in Lake Itasca State Park in Minnesota. It starts as a small stream draining from the lake and then flows 2,348 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. It drains 33 states and the watershed of the Mississippi covers nearly 50% of the United States. It is interesting to think that the beginnings of this enormous river resembles nothing of what it becomes down stream.
Had I never taken the time and effort for a nice adventure I would have never known what goes on up stream from the cabin. But now I do and I have a great appreciation for it and that lake has become one of my favorite spots for a quick weekend hike. But it is much the same with those that live along the Mississippi River. Most people just see the river and have no idea where or how it starts. They only have a “downstream” perspective.
But if they only thought about what goes on upstream they might even visit Itasca State Park, become familiar with the humble beginnings of that enormous river that influences their daily lives. They may even develop an appreciation for the fact that the mighty Mississippi starts out as a pristine lake from clean, clear springs and multiple other creeks. What starts out small slowly builds momentum and then becomes an enormous giant.
When you think about it the same is true with how many of us live day to day. We only have a downstream perspective and we hardly ever consider what goes on up stream that creates the things that influence our daily lives. We only enjoy the end product that creates enormous ease and convenience. What we practice everyday is downstream thinking because that is the only thing we see. We purchase something and eventually throw it away. But the problem is that there is no “away”. If you do the responsible thing, you will recycle. Better yet, you will make sure that what you purchase is recyclable in the first place. But, recycling will never be enough. We have to go further than that. We have to start thinking upstream.
For example, most people that want to purchase a house work directly with a real estate agent. With modern technology and the internet we are able to shop online and basically pick which one we want. But the average person has no idea what actually went into building that house. They only most people see is the end product. But if you have construction experience you can walk through a house and know exactly what it took to build what you are looking at. But then you have to think even further upstream.
The timber had to be harvested, transported to the mill to be processed into lumber, sold at market, transported to the retail location the sells the lumber. Then all the materials had to be transported to the construction site, all the lumber, concrete, drywall, electrical supplies, roofing material, plumbing. Sand, metals, rock, all had to be mined in order to make the materials that go into the house. Not to mention the fact that every square inch we inhabit used to be wilderness at some point.
But, let’s get even simpler than the house you live in. You turn on the faucet in your home and water comes out. That water had to be pumped out of an aquifer, a lake, a river, or some other source. It had to be purified and disinfected at a processing location. Then it travel through water mains provided by the city, or town, or whatever organization provides the infrastructure. All the things that go into providing you with clean fresh water produces carbon emission and pollution. Not to mention the fact that our entire environment is now contaminated with what is being called “forever chemicals”, with industrial agricultural pollutants, with the very things you spray on your lawn on a regular basis.
And this does not even include the bottled water that we purchase. On average we purchase 42.6 billion bottles of water annually. Only 29% of those bottles ever get recycled. The rest ends up in the landfills which eventually breaks down into micro plastics which are now so ubiquitous in the environment that these plastic particles have even been found on top of Mount Everest and in the polar ice caps.
You flip a switch in your house and the light comes on. Why? Someone had to mine the coal, the natural gas, or the petroleum to run the power plants that produce electricity. Someone had to mine the radioactive materials that end up in nuclear power plants. Whether it is fossil fuels or nuclear, energy is needed to run the steam turbines that produce the electricity that eventually comes to your home. This entire process destroys the environment and produces even more carbon emissions that are causing climate change just so you can have the convenience of flipping a switch and instantly having light.
You turn the key to the ignition in your car, truck or SUV and the engine starts. How does that happen? Someone had to drill for the oil that ends up at the refinery to make petroleum products such as gasoline. The United States imports billions of gallons of gasoline annually. Petroleum products that get shipped across the ocean in tankers that can hold as much as 14 million gallons. We use energy to harvest. We use energy to refine. We use energy to ship it across the ocean. We use energy to distribute petroleum products across the country. Then we fill up our vehicles with a device that burns gasoline and pollutes the environment again. This is a perfect example of pollution and environmental degradation along the entire life of a product.
Consider the electronic products that we repeated purchase. They only last so long due to planned and built in obsolescence. We then throw them away and buy another. These products contain plastics, precious metals, and batteries that take hundreds to thousands of years to degrade. Our trash is then shipped to a third world country to recycling or disposal. Then someone has to mine even more precious metals and make even more plastics because of our insatiable appetite for the latest and greatest iPhone or some other electronic gadget.
But what about the food we eat? Think about all the non-essential food that is shipped across the globe, all those non-seasonal items that we insist on eating. We are now at the point that roughly 2/3 of our fresh fruit and 1/3 of our vegetables are now imported. Just think about the environmental benefits of eating locally and seasonally.
Take a moment and consider the things you throw away without ever giving it any thought. Vegetable cans, aluminum cans, glass bottles. Every time you throw something like this away, someone has to go mine the materials, process the raw products, transport it to the manufacturing plant and make yet another food container because you could not take the time and effort to recycle.
This may sound somewhat ridiculous but I was standing in a supermarket a few months ago reading the label on a can of soup. I was simply asking myself where all the ingredients came from? Were they harvested sustainably. Where did the steel come from that made the can that the soup was in.
My whole point in this episode is to get people to realize that you have to start thinking upstream. This is the only way we are ever going to make a difference. You have to understand why the simple things in life that we do everyday affects far more than our wallets. You have to understand why leaving the lights on and constantly leaving unused electronic devices plugged in has a detrimental affect. You have to understand why you really shouldn’t leave the water running. You have to consider the true end result of spraying your lawn with chemicals or using toxic products to clean your house that get flushed down the drain and into our water supply.
We literally live in the age of information. Access to hundreds of years of knowledge is at our fingertips. These days ignorance is truly a choice. We no longer have the luxury of waiting for someone to take us by the hand and explain the consequences of the choices we make everyday. We can sit and wait for that if we want but in the mean time big business is going to continue to rake in billions of dollars in profits, the environmental degradation will continue, and they are going to point the finger at us and always say, “Well, that is what you wanted.”
The simple fact is that we are going to have to change the way we live. We have to start making conscientious choices in what we do everyday. The only way big business is going to get the picture is if we say “NO!”
Having a more sustainable lifestyle starts with the realization that we are responsible for everything we do and everything we choose not to do. Several months ago I asked myself the question if there was any one thing I could do that did not impact the environment. Turns out the answer to that was no. That is the realization you have to come to. Everything you do has an impact, not only immediately but also far upstream from the very things you do everyday. If we are ever going to make a positive impact we are going to have to start thinking upstream. Thinking upstream means we solve problems before they happen. You ask to ask yourselves if convenience is truly more important than our future existence on this planet.
I want to give one last example before closing this episode. However, I cannot take credit here because this example comes from a class on waste reduction.
“It is pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from a refinery, turn it into plastic, shape it appropriately, truck it to a store, buy it, and bring it home, is considered to be less effort that what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’re done with it.”
Folks, it is time to think upstream. It is the only way we are going to make a difference. It’s starts with conscientious refusal. After all what starts out small builds momentum and then slowly becomes and enormous giant.
Our problem started when we became convinced that the Earth belongs to us. The solution will come when we accept the fact that we actually belong to the Earth.
This is your host Patrick signing off until next week. Always remember to live sustainably because this is how we build a better future.
