Surfers are a shallow, one-dimensional lot whose lives revolve solely around the daily search for waves. Right?
Wrong. Way wrong.
Surfers are environmentalists by nature. Their very identity is defined by the intimate relationship they have with the natural world. In his 1911 book Cruise of the Snark, Jack London went as far as to compare a Hawaiian surfer to a statue carved suddenly by some miracle out of the seas depth from which he rose.
For avid waveriders, the ocean is their second home. The beach is their backyard. The clean, fresh air of the coast is their drug of choice. And, as the environment continues to bleed, many surfers have become increasingly aware of the need to do something about it.
I spoke to leading surfer activists Mark Rauscher of Surfrider Foundation in the United States and Richard Hardy of Surfers Against Sewage in the United Kingdom.
Mark Rauscher is environmental director at the Surfrider Foundation. With 40,000 members in fifty chapters in the United States and Puerto Rico, plus affiliates in Australia, Brazil, Europe and Japan, Surfrider is the largest surf-based NGO in the world. In its twenty-year history, Surfrider has won many victories, from restoring natural dunes habitat on the Outer Banks in North Carolina, to mitigation and an artificial reef at a Standard Oil plant in El Segundo, California. Most recently, Surfrider helped introduce the Beach Bill, which mandates water-testing across the United States.
Surfrider
openDemocracy: What do you know about climate change?
Mark Rauscher: For one thing we can expect sea levels to rise. As a result, coastal communities and beaches will be put under greater pressure from erosion processes. Homes and businesses will be subject to greater exposure to waves and water. This in turn may drive greater reliance on shoreline hardening such as seawalls and revetments. These structures have well-documented negative impacts on beaches, causing them to literally disappear from pressure on both sides: oceans and waves rising with an immovable structure landward. Our beaches will get sandwiched (click here for why these structures are bad.)
Beaches offer affordable and critical recreational opportunities for the masses, but not if theyre gone. Beach fill (or nourishment) projects are trying to slow coastal erosion by replacing lost sand, but this is unsustainable in the long run. The only real answer for long-term preservation of coastal environments under threat of global sea levels rising is retreat from the coast. This may not be very palatable for many who live near the coast and dont want to be told to move and would prefer to engineer their way out of harms path.
openDemocracy: Do average surfers know much about climate change? Is it discussed at all?
Mark Rauscher: I dont think that average surfers, let alone the general public, think much about environmental issues at all, despite the fact that our waves and beaches are under fire from many directions. Climate change in particular is a very ethereal issue that people feel is way off in the future and doesnt directly impact their lives. Were working hard to change that.
openDemocracy: What is Surfrider doing about it?
Mark Rauscher: Many of the actions that we promote to address other issues like water quality and beach preservation actually can have an impact on climate change. For instance, better water conservation in our homes and businesses leads to less urban runoff and dirty water, while also reducing the need to burn energy to pump the water to our homes in the first place. Those pumps are likely powered by electricity generated by burning fossil fuels. So simple things like putting native plants in your yard that require less water or washing your car in an efficient way can have multiple advantages.
Surfers Against Sewage
openDemocracy: From a surfers standpoint, what are the main consequences of climate change?
Richard Hardy: If we continue to emit CO2 unchecked, it is likely that we will see an increase in extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and storms and a rise in global sea temperatures. This would be devastating for many coastal areas around the world and could result in severely reduced water quality for many recreational water users like surfers.
openDemocracy: What is SAS doing about it?
Richard Hardy: SAS is extremely concerned about the impacts climate change will have on our water environment unless government consensus pushes this issue to the top of the political agenda now. The issue of climate change has been a core feature of our campaigning over the past few years and increasingly so throughout 2004.
One of our core campaigns is sewage and sickness. Whilst SAS has helped bring about improved sewage treatment systems over the years, extreme weather witnessed over the last couple of years is leading to problems with raw sewage spills from storm overflow pipes. These are on the increase, and we believe they are occurring because treatment works that mix sewage and storm water together cannot cope with the increased flows of water during or just after intense rainfall and therefore have to discharge it untreated close to surf breaks.
SAS has been asking the government and industry to take climate change into account into environmental improvements to be undertaken by the water industry over the next five years. Sadly, that advice was ignored and the water industry has used out-of-date climate change data to plan improvements.
Richard Hardy is campaigns director at Surfers Against Sewage (SAS). With 8,000 members, SAS is the main surf-based NGO in the UK. Described by The Independent as Britains coolest environmental pressure group, SAS campaigns have been responsible for £8 million investments in building acceptable sewage treatment systems all over the UK.
openDemocracy: Where does SAS stand on energy policy?
Richard Hardy: We are particularly keen on offshore renewables - wave, tidal and wind devices that harness natural energy from a renewable source.
The unsolved problem of dealing with radioactive waste is an issue for surfers, and so is that of low-level radioactive discharge from nuclear power stations. Sandside Bay in northern Scotland sits in the shadow of Dounreay Nuclear Reprocessing Plant - the beach has glowing reports, but not always for its quality of waves! Little green radioactive particles have been showing up on the beach now for several years and have recently been found at a surfing beach further east of Sandside.
Whilst its difficult to speculate what impact this could have on surfers health, the climate in that area is ideal for embracing renewable energy production. Its wave rich - that much we know and it hasnt gone unnoticed. European Union funding has brought about the first Marine Renewable Energy Research Centre in Europe on the Orkney Islands, and they are currently testing a range of wave and tidal energy devices which could provide us with our energy needs of the future.
openDemocracy: Do average surfers know much about these issues?
Richard Hardy: I think clued-up, environmentally-conscious surfers are becoming more aware of these issues as they become the victims of pollution incidents in the water, but I dont think are aware of the impacts climate change may have on their sport. That being said, they are aware of the term climate change as a buzzword in the media - though at differing levels as to the extent of its damage.
openDemocracy: How can surfers help out?
Richard Hardy: Surfers can play a key role in influencing the debate. We use a waves energy for pleasure, it would be good to see that same waves energy being used to power our houses electricity needs. By knowing wave energy can be used in such a way gives it more value in our day-to-day lives and would ensure we seek to protect them more.
This article appears as part of openDemocracys online debate on the politics of climate change. The debate was developed in partnership with the British Council as part of their ZeroCarbonCity initiative a two year global campaign to raise awareness and stimulate debate around the challenges of climate change.