Are Environmentally-Minded Surfers Doing Enough to Combat Climate Change?

Are many of us environmentally-minded surfers actually taking the easy way out when it comes to combatting climate change and fighting for ocean health?

- Justin Housman

It was a stunning day for a paddle: 75 degrees, water as green as the purest emerald, a light easterly breeze carrying the scent of pine, the ocean tossed with a gentle windswell sending ankle-high waves smacking noisily into rock stacks crowded with barking harbor seals—as beautiful as the Golden Gate gets. After about a quarter-mile of paddling, I sat up on my midlength, marveled at my good fortune to live in such a place, and wheeled the big board around to paddle back toward the cove where I started. A flash of light on a sliver of untouched beach caught my eye: a clear plastic bag washed up on a beachside boulder, the only thing marring a perfect scene. I tsk-tsked to myself, cursing the careless polluter who’d let the bag drift into the ocean, collected it and began stroking toward home.

By the time I hauled my board onto the hot sand, I had three plastic bags in my hand, collected during the paddle back: two empty and torn ice bags and one Ziploc bag. I dropped the sandy bags into a plastic recycling bin in the parking area above the beach and exchanged a knowing look with a lifeguard spending his lunch in the truck.