Category: environment
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Monsanto vs. Surf Activists
At the end of March, Monsanto was taken to task by Kelly Slater (who recently left his longtime sponsor, and Monsanto-linked, Quiksilver), Cyrus Sutton and Kyle Thiermann on the company’s newly created Instagram account. In this conversation, Kelly Slater brings up GM cotton: “I will say that certain cottons, for instance, are proven to need…
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Kelly Slater’s Ethical Choice to Leave Quiksilver
Kelly Slater has exited a brand that has seen its fair share of dramatic push-back over the last year, from the uproar around the Roxy Biarritz Pro Trailer to the link I discovered between Quiksilver and Monsanto. Many are wondering why KS made such a drastic move. In my post, A Year in Review, 2013,…
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The Year in Review, 2013
This was a monster of a year for discovery and activism in surf culture. For this reason, I think it would be beneficial to highlight and revisit those topics covered this year that have been most salient, before we enter a new year. Please feel free to add to this list in the comment section…
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Wetsuits from plants? Yes, says Patagonia.
Patagonia is up to its old antics, forging a sustainable and responsible path forward in the surf industry. This time they tackle the fossil-based wetsuit material neoprene, replacing the majority of their wetsuit material with a rubber gleaned from the Guayule plant. I hope they plan to make women’s wetsuits out of this material as…
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Vandana Shiva on Bt cotton in India (video)
[4/1/2014 edit: Since posting this, the video has been made private on youtube and only a small portion of it is now available to view on the BBC here. There is, however, plenty of info on youtube that is easily searchable about Bt Cotton and Monsanto’s desire to control seed and a video link with…
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Reconstructing Surfing
Environmental justice, as opposed to simple environmentalism that can be co-opted by corporate consumerism to drive sales in the mode of greenwashing, understands that all forms of oppression are interconnected. That is, oppressions of race, sexuality, gender, class; oppressions that privilege heterosexuality and certain body types over others; oppressions that encourage (often in complicity via…
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Quiksilver and Monsanto: bedfellows
[4/1/2014 See also: Kelly Slater’s Ethical Choice to Leave Quiksilver] [5/29/2013 EDIT: The Reliance Group of industries Quiksilver has joined up with in India deserves its own post. For a taste, see page 6 of this document and this article.] Suicide has become the second leading cause of death in India among young adults. Of…
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Bangladesh: Dying for Fashion
ONE YEAR LATER: 4/24/14. Parent company of REEF and VANS, VF Corp, continues to refuse to sign Bangladesh accord. Updated 5/30 : Along with VOLCOM and REEF, I found BILLABONG men’s shorts, Made in Bangladesh Updated 5/26 : Bangladesh factory banned by Wal-Mart is still used by the VF Corp (see note 2 below), the…
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Endless Cannibalization of Authenticity, Cease
Bruce Brown’s 1966 The Endless Summer(TES) presented an alternative narrative to the shenanigans of the many beach/surfy lifestyle movies that erupted from Hollywood after Gidget emerged to much fanfare in 1958. In TES, there are no post-surf bonfire orgies, no frustrating hetero-love triangles that finally resolve in dramatic Hollywood fashion, and certainly no surfing ladies…
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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Surfing
ob but really look on… Los padres de la hacienda had fought the mud from the periphery of the building for years, mud that was laced in the building’s own genetic-code, mud that dressed the building in droplet skirts when La Virgen wept from heaven (so they said), mud that speckled the interior of the…
