I'll probably get a lot of hate for this, but I don't agree with "leave no trace" at all. I am an animal on this planet just like any other, why should I therefore have some sort of curatorship over it? It's not mine, it's not my responsibility. I'm not an alien in this world, this is where I was born and existed, this is my environment. Why is it my responsibility to "preserve" it? For whom or what? If you look at any other animal in the world, they just exist in their environments. They fuck things up, shit everywhere, smash over the plants and trees. Nature isn't pristine.
Just yesterday I was along the seashore amongst the seals, and they literally just fuck up all the plants, shit and piss everywhere, reek like absolute shit and then waddle into the ocean and kill things. They don't care, so why should I?
And what are we even preserving here? Some dumb fucking brutes that just kill other brutes? The natural world isn't a "paradise", it's a zero-sum death struggle for survival. It's filled with immense amounts of meaningless suffering. And the entire earth crust, the entire biosphere is in constant flux. there's nothing stable to preserve. The tides, the seasons, evolution both biological and geological. Nothing is ever the same.
Basically what I'm getting at is I don't care. I just throw my litter in the environment, do whatever I want. Hell I ate a can of tuna among the seals yesterday and just biffed it in the ocean. Why shouldn't I? Should I take it back with me, reek out my bag, put it in a bin so a truck can take it to a big hole in the ground and bury it there? What's the difference?
People may say "oh but you're spoiling the environment for others!". OKay firstly, I don't care about other people, but more importantly and this goes back to the bigger point is we aren't distinct from the environment. I was born of this world like any other animal. This IS my environment. It's as if humans see themselves as distinct from the world.
