FOREWORD
I’m not an environmentalist. In fact, I’ve always had a hard time with someof the most elementary green initiatives. I spend more than 12 hours a weekon the 405 freeway in a midsized truck, driving a total of 65 miles a day toand from work. My coffee often comes in a Styrofoam cup. I leave lights on alot, sometimes forget to recycle my cans and often eat take-out food thatcomes in multiple containers. I ride a surfboard and wear a wetsuit — bothof which are made up of some very toxic materials — and actually haveseveral of each. I am a wasteful human and surfer. For this I am sorry.
It just seems that no matter how inspired I become by “green”initiatives, something always gets in the way. It’s too expensive. I don’thave time. Or I just can’t imagine how plastic bottles could makecomfortable trunks (turns out they actually can; see page 72). Let’s behonest: “Being green” has long been something of a trend. It got “so hotright now” for a while —and we all have the organic cotton tees to proveit. But at the end of the day, greenness was put on the backburner in aneffort to make ends meet. Or so we thought.
As we considered whether or not a green issue was even possible thisyear, we made a few simple observations. We noticed carpool lanes wereflooded with budget-crunching Priuses. Surfers like Andrew Doheny and DaneReynolds were riding expired crafts in heats. We were using reusable waterbottles and coffee mugs because tap water and Mr. Coffee just fit in thebudget better. I even bought reusable grocery bags because my trips to thesupermarket for cheap lunchmeat doubled. But the really big cutback I had tomake was skipping ordering a new board right away when my current one wasdiagnosed with terminal tail cancer. Instead of tossing two boards in thegarbage, I uncovered a yellowed old faithful from a shallow grave in thegarage and fell in love all over again. And while none of us were doingthese things to be green, we were suddenly as green as we’d ever been…andsaving money doing it.
This is a good sign. And a great trend. As you’ll see in “Three Shadesof Green” (page 102), reducing your environmental impact doesn’t have to beabout spending money. Scottish wanderer Ian Battrick will show you the keyto more surf time and less impact is in learning to love oatmeal. Or perhapsconsidering the end of it all — as Nathan Myers does in his essay,“Apocalypse” (page 94), — will teach us to rely on ourselves rather than the3G network. Either way, I’m right there with you, struggling financially andlooking for ways to stretch my dollars, but I’m pretty sure I’m as green asI’ve ever been and surfing just as well on a sunburned surfboard. — TravisFerré