A new year beckons. Let’s take our lessons from 2014 and keep implementing change, in the good way we have begun to.
The world is changing. That much is undeniable. There are many different camps surrounding reasons as to what exactly is causing the change (and how influential human action is in contributing to this change), but the change itself isn’t really up for debate. And 2014 was yet another banner year for change… however, this time around, it was in a good way! After what feels like decades of relative complacency as we dove head first into global warming and overpopulation and everything else doomsayers are picketing, we’re finally taking action — humankind has finally decided to buck up and face the music.
The Inertia community very much reflected this action with personal essays and thoughtful features speaking to issues near and dear to our hearts, from surfing and snowboarding to general love for the oceans and mountains. And while all of them contributed to the conversation, these 10 pieces really resonated with our team, and we simply couldn’t let them be archived to this past year without surfacing them once more for your all’s education and enjoyment. With that in mind, we hope you find each of these stories as educational and enjoyable (when appropriate) as we did.
Now onward!
As legendary as always, Dr. Sylvia Earle and her passion matter more than ever.
To her, surfers ought to play the same part: ‘[We] see what others do not.’ And similarly, the future depends on us. It is up to us to educate others, fellow surfers and non-surfers alike. The ocean needs an ally as much as we need the ocean.
2. Rise Above Plastics: An Environmental & Public Health Concern
This is not the way it should look. Photo: Surfrider Foundation
This isn’t a coastal problem — it’s a world problem.
Many of us have seen the heart wrenching images of sea turtles, otters, and other marine life washed up on the shore, dead to complications related to the ingestion of plastic bags. But we don’t see most plastic bag-related marine deaths, as the majority of bag-victims sink to the bottom of the ocean floor. Animals that survive immediate ingestion are slowly starving to death, their digestive tracks clogged with bags that look identical to jelly fish and other ocean food; associated nutritional deficits can cause reproductive problems in animals that survive.
3. How Climate Change Works: A 10 Minute Read
The Cascades from above Camp Schurman. Photo: John Robison IV
It is hard to help when you don’t know what’s going on…
So far in human development we’ve tended to think that we are the owners of the Earth. I reject this — we are her conscious curators. Yes, we must inevitably use resources to survive and thrive. Now we must learn how to do so responsibly, that we all fit into this together, and that each individual has a responsibility to the rest of us.
4. Protect Our Winters: Jeremy Jones Issues A Call to Arms
Let’s stop this from happening. Photo: Protect Our Winters
All for one and one for all!
It’s hard for one single person to have a big voice; but collectively, you pull all these voices together and we can and will be heard.
5. Why I’m Fighting For Kauai: A Run for Mayor
Leading an anti-GMO demonstration on the North Shore of Hawaii. Dustin Barca’s is not only fighting for Kauai, but all of the islands. Photo: Courtesy of Change for Balance Productions
Dustin Barca makes you proud to be a surfer.
Running for Mayor and getting into politics is not something I ever imagined I would do. But things changed when I began to get a world education, seeing destroyed communities and environments everywhere I went, and then saw the same things happening to my own home, particularly how the largest chemical companies in the world are exploiting Hawai‘i.
6. Jack Johnson on Plastics, Beyonce, and Surfing Over Music
Jack Johnson had never heard the song Drunk in Love by Beyonce. We fixed that. Photo: Zach Weisberg
His stance is as melodic as his, well, melody.
What I’ve tried to do is put my name on the cause of labeling GMOs on the national level. We have played several times at Farm Aid, raising money for, and supporting family farms. One of the big things that they are pushing for is labeling GMOs. Also going back to the idea of building on the positive. There’s a certain amount of agricultural land in Hawaii, and a lot of it is getting taken up by GMOs, but if there’s nothing else happening on that land, it’s going to get re-zoned for development or different things. If it’s not GMOs, what’s it going to be?
7. Why Culling Sharks is a Dumb Idea
“It’s coming right for us! Kill it! Kill all of them!” Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The Inertia Managing Editor Alexander Haro needs you to know this genocide of sorts isn’t only dumb, but completely ineffective.
I’m not going to say that anyone that agrees with it is wrong, or dumb, or cruel, but I will say that they’re misinformed. Culling sharks does NOT work. It only serves to make the people that assume that killing large, terrifying predators decreases attack rates feel better.
8. Explore the World’s Reefs with Google Street View
Playful Sea Lions, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador — a World Heritage Marine site. Photo: Google
Earth porn? Sure. But seeing what you’re being asked to fight for is important, and in this case makes you want to fight even harder.
Collected by the Catlin Seaview Survey, this catalog of vicarious trips is nothing short of amazing — they even include gnarly sea life such as whale sharks and manta ray (we’ve chosen a handful of our favorites and screenshot-ed them above). It’s an effort to not only present the natural beauty of our oceans, but to exemplify the reef’s dramatic state of decline, having ‘lost over 40% of corals over the last 30 years due to pollution, destructive fishing and climate change. According to the scientific community the decline is set to continue, it will affect 500 million people globally who rely on coral reefs for food, tourism income and coastal protection.’
9. Teenager Boyan Slat to Remove 7M Tons of Trash from the Oceans
Will this kid save the world? Photo: The Ocean Cleanup
His teenage angst (about pollution) is much less annoying than “normal” teenage angst.
Basically, instead of chasing the trash around the vast expanse of sea, the forward-thinking teenager suggested we, in turn, use the five rotating currents (or gyres) to our advantage. By employing an array of floating barriers, we’ll catch and concentrate the debris, effectively enabling a much more efficient extraction.
10. Surfing on ‘Shrooms: Open Your Minds, Save the Environment
Is this a positive trend, or a temporary fad? Photo: Ecovative
You care about the environment? It’d be a lot cooler if you did.
No, I’m not talking about ambitiously tripping out before a surf sesh. I’m talking about literally surfing on Ecovative Design’s new Mushroom Surfboard.
