Good for the environment?

Lately I find myself pondering a somewhat heretical question: Is the outdoor recreation industry good for the environment?

The instinctual answer for most of us is "Duh, of course it is!" But when you think it through a little more I'm not so certain. Let's take my initial question and tweak it slightly:
What causes more pollution and environmental: sitting on your ass at home playing on the X-Box or spending 4 hours in a SUV driving to and from a mountain to go hiking or mountain biking?

Well we all know how bad auto emissions are for the environment. Even a Prius puts out more greenhouse gases than simply sitting in your living room. Now imagine what would happen if the millions of people playing X-Box all put down their controllers and hopped in their cars and motored off to the local trailhead. That's a lot of car exhaust being spewed into the air. It gets worse the more serious you are about the outdoors.

After a while climbing the same rock face or riding the same singletrack gets a bit stale and you find yourself seeking out new adventures. Thus is born the "adventure trip". This fulfills the desire to explore new lands and to get even further away from the imposing confines of civilization to seek out ever more pristine natural beauty. Of course the flipside of this is you create exponentially greater damage to the natural world. The simple act of hopping on an airliner involves spewing far, FAR more pollution in the air than any Land Rover. In the 30 minutes a typical 747 spends driving on the ground taxiing, taking off and landing it will spew out 190 pounds of nitrogen oxide - that's more than a car will burn in an entire year of driving! People who insist on flying halfway around the planet to go mountain biking or rock climbing are definitely not in a position to point fingers at people who commute to work in an SUV. These self-righteous adventurers (God help you if you call them tourists even though that's exactly what they are!) do more damage on vacation than the redneck in a pick-up truck does in an entire year of driving.

Of course the air isn't the only part of the environment to suffer. More people on the trails means even more wear and tear on the trails. It also would generate a need for more and wider trails. Narrow, sinewy trails that gracefully drape themselves through the forest suddenly become wide, gravel scars on the land. Anyone who has been to Yellowstone, Yosemite or the Grand Canyon has seen this first hand. It's no great secret that many of our best known National Parks are getting loved to death. Is this how we want all of our public lands to look? Probably not but by encouraging people to put down the X-Box and pick up the Leki pole that's exactly where we're heading.

Speaking of those Leki poles, have you looked at your outdoor gear lately and considered the cost to the environment it took to produce it? Time was many products were made with renewable resources such as wood and wool. Now most are made from synthetic materials and those materials are made with chemicals drawn from the same dinosaur mausoleums that power Hummers and line Dick Cheney's wallet.

While there is no doubt that getting outside is better for your personal health I do wonder if it's better for the health of the planet. The one saving grace of the outdoor industry is that most of the leading companies in the industry - REI, Patagonia, North Fave, etc. - are very actively involved in maintaining and preserving the outdoors for future generations. In this respect they are well ahead of the video game industry which routinely forces consumers to dispose of equipment in a landfill after just a couple of years use.