My green rant

This is going to be a rant, plain and simple.

A little armchair philosophising, some facts researched, others less so, but at least relatively informed and open to criticism and opinion from all sides. This is an opportunity to open up a debate on a subject close to my heart, not just as a surfer but someone who enjoys stepping into the wide open. So read this blog and please pass comment. This is my two cents, tell me yours and let’s see where we can go from there. Silence, after all, will get us nowhere.

It all kicked off on the boardwalk at J-Bay, South Africa. I’d been staying in Plettenberg Bay with a friend of mine, John, and he’d seen the swell a mile off. All the signs were there for some all-time rides so we packed up the night before and took off along the N2 in anticipation of some serious waves. At 46, John had made this pilgrimage hundreds of times before. He’d been surfing J-Bay since the ’70s and was dialled into the necessary conditions and various climatic idiosyncrasies needed to send waves marching down the point at Supers; the hard blow from the West to herald the beginning of the swell then the switch to the South to bend the swell around Cape St Francis and into J-Bay. It’s like clockwork, ask any J-Bay local, it’s always been that way and you can time it to the hour. So we were slightly perplexed as we sat on the boardwalk and watched the swell charge past us on the horizon as the West blew hard for three days straight. John scratched his head unable to explain what he was seeing and we drove home empty handed. In his 40 years of surfing he hadn’t seen a West blow so hard or for so long, another of a growing list of anomalies he had seen over the last 18 months or so. And there started the conversation and the seedling for this blog; The environment is changing – fact. And as surfers we are some of the first to feel it. Now, as that change becomes more and more tangible, something needs to be done.

We have seen all the statistics and we know how the environment is changing. As surfers we have seen it, we have felt it – just as much as anyone who appreciates time in the open. It’s not an exclusive club. We have seen the destruction waged on the land by human kind as we look to grow and expand. We are witnessing the devastation daily as species after species become extinct and ecosystem after ecosystem is destroyed never to be restored. Temperatures are rising, ice sheets are melting, and oceanic currents are changing. There’s a wealth of information out there for us to read and we are bombarded daily with the cost and the consequences of our actions. But somehow there is still no great shift. We are told how things are changing but it’s only when we question why nothing is happening that it starts to become a little more obvious as to where the problem lies.

Environmentalism is being sold to us as the greatest of all grassroots movements: that it is ours, the public’s, responsibility to take the small steps that will hopefully evolve into one giant leap forward to save mankind. The responsibility to change, it seems, is squared solely at us. And yet when you look at the reason we are in this mess it seems entirely unfair. If we are to take a great step forward action needs to come from the top, an example needs to be set by those in charge and radical legislation passed if we are to make any sort of impact. Here, in my opinion, is why.

Of all the statistics bandied around, the most alarming is our overuse of the earth’s natural resources. We currently use in excess of 250% of the world’s resources; that means we need two and a half planets to meet our current daily consumption. Add to this a population that has trebled in 20 years, and one that continues to do so exponentially, and it’s immediately obvious that we are living way beyond our natural means. We are using what we can’t replace at a rate that can in no way sustain itself. So while it’s all very well off-setting our individual carbon footprints (as is the current trend), this will have no impact whatsoever in the long run as we continue to live on what we don’t have. We’ve done this once already and are experiencing the fallout of our unchecked actions as I write (the credit crunch, anyone?). And the cause? We were told we could live on a credit that couldn’t be sustained and allowed ourselves to be strung along. Those that drove policy and industry were left to their own devices until it was too late, driven by their own personal greed. There was too much trust on our part and no intervention. But where an economy can crash and recover, what hope is there for our own environment? And we can hardly say we’ve not been given adequate warning to do something about it this time.

The options facing us seem obvious and simple but as always there are huge complications as people seek to satisfy their own agendas first. If we are living on borrowed time, exhausting our environmental credit, then we need to slowdown, we need to downsize. All the carbon offsetting in the world cannot replace what we are taking away, but which government is going to have the balls to step up and ask its country to cut productivity and consumerism by 250%? Which government is going to stand up to industry and introduce wholesale changes until a solution or viable alternative can be found? At the moment it’s easier to lay the responsibility at the door of the public, but such a change can’t come from the bottom.

And what of the developing nations? After years of Western exploitation who are we to tell them they have to fall in line with environmental standards we don’t even abide by – countries whose economies and industries are just beginning to take off? In their eyes we have had our time, our chance. Now that it’s their time, who are we to implement double standards?

It can no longer be acceptable for dominant nations, in fact any nation, to shirk their environmental responsibilities purely to protect their own domestic interests. The problem facing us is a global one and it is a challenge that needs to be met together. Serious issues need to be voiced and dealt with, poorer nations assisted by wealthy nations and we must be willing to deal with the fallout. There can be no more individual pacts and treaties that undermine the good work and intentions of the nations willing to step-up, no more shady deals or clandestine handshakes and those that choose to flaunt the regulations should be punished accordingly, no matter who they are.

There needs to be a re-evaluation of our environmental responsibilities. There has been too much hyperbole, too many companies jumping on the green bandwagon looking to market, package and brand ‘eco’ in an effort to cash in when we should in fact be doing the opposite. It’s all short term, quick fixes, minimum contributions to keep profit margins high and pay lip service to any long-term responsibility. The reality is we are far beyond our means and we need to start cutting back, and while we all need to do our bit, true long-term change will start at the top with those that have the power to implement wholesale reforms.

It’s painfully obvious and yet we let it slide. We’re all aware of it, we all know it, it’s the largest single threat to us as a generation. Terrorism, the credit crunch, it’s all rubbish really, they are all surmountable obstacles but they are easily manipulated to distract our attention from what really needs addressing. We’ve taken the environment for granted and have become accustomed to a profitable lifestyle that is no longer sustainable. We’ve come too far and we need to simplify and look at what we really need. Who are the real benefactors of what we call ‘progress’ today and where are they leading us? What is the cost of the comfort zone we have built around us and how much do we really need?

If you don’t see it, if you dismiss this as another hippy on the tree-hugging trail then get outside. Grab a surfboard, grab some hiking boots, read the facts and equate it to what you see and feel over the course of even just a few months. Get your head out of the sand and take an interest, you’ll be amazed at how much is changing and how quickly. Then voice your opinion and maybe something will change for the better.