“What’s up?”
I’ll tell you what’s up. I recently took a boat trip to Indonesia and figured out that each wave I surfed equated to half a liter of diesel fuel per wave!
Again, I find myself as a paddling contradiction, and I am pretty sure you will too.
It’s 2011, and the climate change boogieman is in all of our living rooms. The carbon emissions topic has been in the political forum for a while, yet socially it’s an abjectly boring topic. There are plenty of boneheads out there dismissing climate change as tree-hugging hyperbole and balancing the equation are extremists who take Nostradamus-type positions declaring Earth will implode by 2012.
So to us surfers residing in a mostly environmentally aware sub-culture, how do we fare in the climate debate, and are we wearing shoes too big for our feet?
The daily walk to the beach from my house is short and sweet; I’m lucky enough to not have to drive to the beach, though I have in the past. The opportunities to bitch and moan about the ignorance of those who discard their McDonalds trash that blows like tumbleweed into the ocean are numerous, though this is hardly a revelation. Our society is becoming more disposable everyday and the beach falls prey to the same consumer trends of our modern age – from bad haircuts and fast food to the vehicles that park at the beach. A high count of suburbanite monster trucks in the lot is a disturbing trend that I wouldn’t have thought would come from our tribe. Please no, surely we’re not following the herd on a forward to death march guided by Advertising Gods like every other misguided suburbanite?
Most of us claim to know the struggles of our environment, leaving only footprints and all that, but as I observe fellow surfers in my local car park, it’s apparent we have no clue as to what our impact actually looks like on a day-to-day basis.
This challenging headspace lead me to a book I was given, and within it were enlightening insights on why Australians are buying more 4WD’s than ever before. In summary, it’s because we feel we have a need to defend our way of life, and stand up for what we have. But we are not under attack; we are still The Lucky Country to a degree, so defending our way of life via consumerism (the advertising driven type) sets us up for a fall of the ignorant kind.
Well, I never! Surfers ignorant?
Surfers have a consumer voice, and it’s a representation of who we’d like to be, and who we actually are, but it will never inform us on who we should be. Perhaps you’re a surfer that doesn’t ride around in a monster truck – you’re still a consumer nonetheless. The common proverb about ignorance being bliss, won’t wash today. Ignorance is ignorance, and if surfers hope to remain one of the more progressive units in the social pyramid, our awareness that is usually reserved for ocean games needs to be applied at the checkout and in the home.
Did you know when you take a flight to Bali from Sydney, Australia, you consume about a liter of fuel for every 22.2 km? So round trip, you’re looking at having about 400 liters dedicated to hauling your ass to slide some of Ulu’s lines, and the round trip has your carbon footprint looking at one-and-a-half metric tons of CO2.
Sadly, this is my (our) contradiction. It’s where I become an ignorant and selfish consumer. Groaning at those driving 4WDs at my local, though with little awareness to the fuel consumption of a jet plane or the appetite of the boat I was cruising the Mentawai Islands on.
Accepting that each of us is responsible is the first step in an ecological rehabilitation program. It’s where it begins.
It’s possible that surfers are probably one of the more consuming types who walk the Earth. I know I drive miles for waves, my computer has been on for 10 years solid, and I have thrown away about 5 desktops over the years. I charge cameras, guitars, amps; my joy away from the waves is run by electricity, and no, I don’t have solar or offset any of my bills. My trip to Indo could have been offset, I could’ve contributed, but I was never shown how, I never knew…
When I don’t walk to the beach, I drive a modest station wagon that drinks over 3500 liters of petrol a year, emitting about 3.9 tons of C02 into the air. If you’re one of those defending 4WD owners who might go off road once, your yearly emissions are more like 7 tons of C02 into the atmosphere.
There is a credible algorithm that calculates annual carbon emissions in the Australian home. It takes into account things like food preferences, your thirst for new fashion, your choice of products and their packaging, the furniture and electrical goods in your abode, how much you recycle, the car you drive and your driving habits, right down to how you do your finances and other administrative services. This algorithm also takes into consideration your recreational activities. You feel the shudder too, huh? While we don’t participate in drag-racing and tree-lopping, the wrath of the PU surfboard on the environment is a monkey on the back of the modern day surfer eco-warrior. Our craft is a poisonous tablet that Mother Nature licks each time we slide a few. Where do all those old boards go? I know I have gone through about 20 a year for over 15 years. Australia’s top surfers are known to have about 100 sleds a year crafted for them. With the burgeoning population of wave riders in Australia, it equates to a lot of illicit little pills she has to eventually swallow.
As environmentally-aware humans, we have the green finger pointed fairly and squarely at us. Our flaw as surfer consumers is that we are educated, yet we often get beaten at the checkout. The more useless shit you buy feeds the perpetual greed machine that transforms a modern day consumer into Mother Nature’s monster. Surfers have a primary investment in the ocean, so our purchasing decisions should reflect this. We know better.
If you’re surfing at dusk, paddling a sharky seaway or getting whipped into a slab you’re bound to have a unique level of awareness. Surfers are often in a more heightened state than most with a head like a barometer, and a heart like the sun. These are gifts from a lifestyle that is granted to us by Mother Nature, and by enjoying this wondrous lifestyle we owe a great debt to represent it through considered action in our way of life.
We have a higher level of environmental consciousness that surpasses many of those that we live amongst, though we are in danger of becoming another brick in the wall if we fail to use this level of awareness to make a difference.
Though we are consumers, we’re educated, aware consumers, and we can remain an empowered sub culture by making a considered effort in understanding our own carbon footprint, knowing how big our feet actually are, and being responsible to buy the right shoe size.
If I find myself cruising the Mentawais in the future and a local asks me
“Apo lai bung?”
Hopefully I’ll reply: “I am very good, thank you. And you’ll be happy to know I wear a size 11, but run mostly barefoot.”
Does your shoe size match your footprint?
