A Word From Our Sponsors

They say you should drink a lot of water to help acclimate to high altitudes. Apparently, at past Ideas Festivals that's meant handing out a lot of plastic water bottles. Not very sustainable. So this year, the good people at Chevron gave everyone durable water bottles and set up water stations like the one pictured above where we can fill up. Between that and their investment in geothermal energy (they're the world's largest producers) I can't imagine what complaints anyone could have about their environmental record.

Comments

Ah, I see someone ordered their irony very dry today. Well played, sir.

Posted by Freddie | July 1, 2008 10:19 AM

Can you get them to hand out some bottles of that light, sweet crude? To me, that's always sounded like the most delicious and refreshing form of oil.

Posted by Rid | July 1, 2008 10:20 AM

Except that a durable water bottle that you lose after the festival probably uses more plastic as all the flimsy bottles you would recycle combined.

Posted by Aaron | July 1, 2008 10:21 AM

Not to mention likely contains phthalates.

Posted by Trevor J | July 1, 2008 10:27 AM

Make sure you pour out a little on the curb in memory of all the barrels of oil who aren't with us anymore.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | July 1, 2008 10:34 AM

Here's an Idea, next year have the Festival in Peru.
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/ecsflemings/s._america-2007/1184340360/cimg2404_cuzco_coca_tea.jpg/tpod.html

Posted by beowulf | July 1, 2008 10:46 AM

Reusable plastic water bottles: stay hydrated AND prove to all your annoying friends how TOTALLY concerned you are about the environment!

And where was this conference? I'm sure it was located somewhere close to where at least SOME of the attendees live, right? Not someplace everyone needs to fly too, right?

Posted by Mike | July 1, 2008 10:57 AM

They're right about the water. As for Chevron's environmental record, it's probably not good. But their human rights record is much worse. Buying a pipeline built with slave labor is bad enough, but that pipeline pretty much sustains the Myanmar junta. So, naturally, the pipeline is exempted from any economic sanctions. Those poor, oppressed oil companies just can't afford to lose any revenue. But the fabulously wealthy Burmese people can afford to give up all their their rights to sustain Chevron.

Posted by fostert | July 1, 2008 11:01 AM

Internet phenomenon that depresses me: how absolutely everyone is a concern troll when it comes to global warming and the environment. To listen to most of the snarky fuckfaces around here, it doesn't matter whether global warming specifically or environmental damage in general are big problems, because no matter what, if you try to confront those problems you are a pretentious yuppie who's doing it just for image. Better that the world burn than we allow bobos to feel a little morally superior, after all.

Posted by Freddie | July 1, 2008 11:14 AM

"They say you should drink a lot of water to help acclimate to high altitudes."

Geez. Aspen's only 7500 feet or so -- it's not any higher than the Denver/Boulder exurbs like Evergreen or Nederland.

Now, last weekend we hiked halfway up Mt. Evans. Climbing up a mountain at 12,000 feet with a two year-old strapped to your back? That's a little difficult.

Posted by Joe | July 1, 2008 11:24 AM

Freddie:

Chevron giving out reusable water bottles: cynical environmental posturing.

People tut-tutting about anyone who doesn't use a reusable water bottle: sincere environmental activism.

Sound right?

I'm not opposed to solutions, but there's only one that I think is likely to be even remotely effective: $10/gallon gas forever.

Posted by Mike | July 1, 2008 11:48 AM

"That's a little difficult"

Try it in the Himalayas. I'm a Coloradan, but the Rockies look like pimples compared to the Himalayas. You think 12,000 feet is high? That's the flatlands in Tibet. That's where they build their towns. They carry their dead up to mountains to eaten by vulchers from there.

Posted by fostert | July 1, 2008 12:01 PM

"They carry their dead up to mountains to eaten by vulchers from there."

Wow. Two dropped words in a single sentence. How's this?

They carry their dead up to the mountains to be eaten by vulchers from there.

Still clumsy, but at least grammatically correct.

Posted by fostert | July 1, 2008 12:08 PM

Try this:

Vultures

Posted by Sister Mary of t he Cross | July 1, 2008 12:12 PM

"Try this:

Vultures"

I knew my spelling didn't look right. But firefox couldn't help me. And I got so many hits on my spelling with google that I wasn't going to contest it. Anyone got a good spelling link? I'm a hopeless engineer when it comes to spelling. It's too bad that firefox's spell checker is as bad as I am. It still won't accept 'Obama'.

Posted by fostert | July 1, 2008 12:25 PM

"You think 12,000 feet is high? That's the flatlands in Tibet. That's where they build their towns."

Bolivia, too. La Paz is in the middle of a valley that drops from about 20,000 feet to about 15,000 feet. The higher you go, the poorer the neighborhoods.

I was just a little surprised, because I'm in pretty good shape -- I run 30-40 miles/week at a 6:45 pace at 5500 feet, and I'm only a couple years removed from a sub-3:00 marathon and a 3:15 Boston marathon run with (i) virtually no training the six weeks before the race and (ii) a stress fracture. But strap the little monster to my back and start climbing up the mountain and I was almost immediately out of breath.

Posted by Joe | July 1, 2008 12:33 PM

My grandaddy used to tell me about things they used to have like them Chevron "water stations"--called 'em "drinkin' fountains" or something like that.

Posted by citizenstx | July 1, 2008 12:51 PM