In 1969 the American radical writer Hunter S Thompson ran for the office of Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado.
Thompson was not a law-and-order man. Quite the opposite. He stood in protest after a crackdown by Aspen police and courts against hippie longhairs loitering on the footpath in the chic skiing and former mining town.
He was defending a choice of lifestyle. This week Thompson, author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, took the ultimate lifestyle choice, putting a bullet through the roof of his mouth.
Thompson lost the election to the “round-‘em-up” incumbent, but the contest of ideas and values continues in Aspen and beyond. It is between liberals who want to conserve the town and the environment while allowing people to be free and easy, on one hand, and conservatives who want to restrict individuals being free and easy but wanting individuals to build whatever they want wherever they want it in the name of progress.
I have just returned from Aspen – addicted as I am to the white powder which is far too expensive for my income; ski lift tickets were an astonishing $95 a day.
The skifields, in fact, are part of this clash, or should I say race, between sensible economic activity which does not destroy the very base which provides the wealth, on one hand, and rabid short-term exploitation without regard to tomorrow, on the other.
Aspen with a population of just 6000 has sharp examples of virtually every environmental issue facing the developed world.
The rich and famous open their condos for a few weeks’ skiing each year. There are probably more jewellery and fur shops per head of population than anywhere on the planet. The jewels have to be mined and the furs are emblems of humans exploiting endangered species. The skifields are a classic case of tourism taking over where old industry (mining) became uneconomic — after a change to the silver standard. But tourism creates environmental problems of its own – fossil fuels to run the lifts; cutting down trees to create the runs; consuming habitat and so on. Besides the whole world cannot survive on tourism alone.
The town itself is often divided on development. Sometimes it has gone beyond NIMBY (not in my backyard) to BANANA – build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody). Right now a huge brawl is going on over an employee housing project. The council approved it, but enough petitioners have signed to require a referendum.
Around the area, landowners fight for water rights over environmental flows; forest managers wanting to burn off and thin trees fight landowners who want wild forest; landowners fight national parks over lynx, elk and deer migration; people wanting to preserve natural beauty protect against extensions to skiing areas.
The arguments are not simple. Take furs, for example. Surely, if the fur comes from farmed animals (not endangered ones), it is no different from wearing leather shoes. Indeed, in New Zealand, they argue that buying possum-fur coats is environmentally responsible because the possum – imported from Australia – is now and out-of-control pest.
On the forest, the animals, the water and the built environment, it seems the rampant exploiters are fortunately an endangered species themselves around Aspen. The over-exploitation of these things can be readily seen. Virtually the whole of the economy of Aspen depends on retaining the natural beauty of the surrounds and the elegance of the town itself. Without it, the convention business will drop off, the summer visitors will have nothing to visit and the skiers will go elsewhere. It is not a question of putting nature before people, but protecting the environment to protect economic well-being.
Aspen has avoided the blight of multi-storey parking and traffic snarls by providing free buses in the downtown area and between the four main skiing areas.
Sometimes sound environmental practices provide instant savings. The Aspen-Snowmass skiing area boasts the highest ski lift in North America, at 12,510 feet (3813 metres). It is partly powered by wind energy, saving costs on fossil fuels. This year the ski resorts are trialling a new synthetic lubricant that minimises friction on the lift cables. The synthetic lubricant is more expensive that the fossil lubricant, but it is more than worth it because it saves 9 per cent of fossil fuel used to drive the lift.
On the other hand, where the environmental effects are not readily seen and the impact is indirect, people are less interested.
Unnecessary burning of fossil fuels creating unseen greenhouse gases is an example. Most buildings in Aspen are heated to 25 degrees indoors, while the outside temperature never gets above freezing in winter, even in the middle of the day. So people either have to take off coats and jumpers or sweat. It is so idiotically self-defeating. The heating should be to provide comfort, yet it provides discomfort. Indeed, some people dash from heated car to heated shop without rugging up because they know they will sweat inside. So they suffer the cold outside.
Idiots buy bottled water from Fiji at $A7.50 – in the Rocky Mountains which has an abundance of good water.
Nonetheless, the comforting thing about Aspen is the seriousness of the environmental fights and the diligence of the protagonists.
And herein lies a lesson. Aspen is an extremely wealthy town. While people are not struggling to find the next meal, or worried about affording to clothe themselves (unless they are buying furs) they can turn their attention to the environment. People get the leisure time to realise that their wealth and well-being depend on looking after the environment and to argue for it accordingly.
People in Aspen for the most part do not seem to be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, but the race against the rampant exploiters is not won. It is a pity, therefore, that Hunter S Thompson took the cop out instead of using his talents to help preserve the environment in which he lived.