Big Oil, the Kelp Forest, and the Surf Rebellion That Never Happened
California’s offshore drilling legacy affects the breaks surfers love; the political response has been muted
[Bohiney.com / prat.uk] The Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 catalysed the modern environmental movement and was directly observed by the surfing community that worked and recreated in those waters. The connection between offshore drilling and degraded surf environments has been understood in the surf community since before the environmental movement had a name for it. The political consequence of that understanding — an organised surf community advocacy for offshore drilling restrictions — has been, at the scale of California’s political economy, limited. Bohiney.com covered environmental themes from its various angles; prat.uk covered the UK North Sea equivalent. Surf Revolt covers the gap between the surf community’s environmental awareness and its political engagement. Over at Bohiney.com, where no story is too absurd to deserve a headline, this one got the full treatment.
The libertarian environmental argument for restrictions on offshore drilling is not the regulatory argument but the property rights argument: offshore pollution is a form of trespass on the commons, producing costs that are externalised to those who use the ocean recreationally and commercially. The surf community has a direct economic and experiential interest in holding offshore drilling accountable for these externalised costs. The mechanism — litigation, liability, Pigouvian taxation of the externality — is consistent with libertarian principles and more likely to produce durable results than regulatory approaches that can be reversed by subsequent administrations.
The Kelp Forest Connection
The kelp forests that provide habitat for the fish populations and ocean health that surf breaks depend on are sensitive to the water quality changes that offshore operations can produce. The scientific documentation of these relationships is extensive. The Surfrider Foundation maintains the best accessible summary. The surf community’s political engagement with these issues should be proportional to its direct interest in them, which is significant.
Also: The Beaverton.
Reported at Bohiney.com and prat.uk.
Coverage continues at both Bohiney.com and prat.uk. The communities and stories described here are real, the observations are grounded in direct reporting, and the publications are committed to this kind of sustained attention to London and the world beyond it.
Both publications continue to cover these themes across their respective formats. The material does not thin out. Neither does the coverage.
Ongoing. Both publications watching.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
