My 2c
Posted: 15 September 08 11:25 pm
This may be so but who said they'd be doing nothing? I have lots of valuable things to take up my time around home, most people do....those caches you don't think much of, are better than sitting at home doing nothing...
I often wonder if "numbers cachers" maybe driving around all day doing seemingly pointless caches are considering that they are just consuming $$$ in fuel & generating copious quantities of greenhouse gas...
Where at least if there's a point to the cache - something educational, interesting, historic, scenic, fantastic location or hide - it can help me rationalise why I spent the time & money getting to it.
One of the masters of quality management & theory of the last century offers a few quotes of relevance to this discussion:
Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.
Quality is everyone's responsibility.
(W Edwards Deming)
Is caching for numbers environmentally friendly? It's an interesting question to me. It certainly contributes to my reason for not being a "numbers cacher".
Do ordinary caches (by my estimation at least) promote numbers caching? Probably.
Is there any point in ordinary caches other than to encourage people to travel places they would otherwise have not, chewing up fuel? Possibly.
Is driving an extra 10km out of your way to find a film container poked into a cranny in an otherwise uninteresting park or laneway good for caching or the environment? Nup. And it validates the hide to the hider.
Don't interpret this as me criticising those that do. I couldn't care less and I'm not trying to be judgemental. I'm just putting some of my thoughts on the issue out there.
I don't often go very far out of my way to do caches [img]unless[/img] the cache page indicates to me that I or the kids are going to be rewarded by visiting something that will leave us with a valuable experience. I place caches for others to have the an experience that would meet or exceed my own expectations.
If a cache I wouldn't normally jump at is on my route I might stop for it if I feel like stopping. I drive past plenty though. Even so my stats say that I've done 38381 km caching. Many of those kms I'd have done anyway as I enjoy outback travel & 4wd touring. But I reckon if I was a prolific cacher I'd have doubled that by now.
I'd love to see a statistician work out how many tonnes of greenhouse gas caching generates each week, and how much of that is discretional travel - travel they'd not have done otherwise. I don't even know if that can be done.
Food for thought. Just my 2c.
DJ