Ocean Pollution
Should Surfers Vote for John McCain?
We at DailyStoke.com aren’t entirely sure what kind of surfer John McCain would be. We hope that he wouldn’t be like the McCain pictured here. We give him big props for being a prisoner of war, and wonder if, as a pilot, he had the chance to bust out a longboard while in Vietnam, a la Apocalypse Now. Likely not. We also know that, because of injuries sustained at the hands of his captors leaving him unable to lift his arms over his head, the bastards left McCain likely unable to paddle a surfboard. In sum, we’re fairly certain that John McCain would take great pleasure in paddling around on a Stand-up Paddleboard. And when it comes to the environment and issues that surfers care about, we’d bet he’d hope the ocean he was paddling on didn’t have a stream of shiz flowing into it, or the din of cars from the 241 Toll Road Extension in the background. That’s our bet. We hope he cares. It’s hard to tell amongst the noise surrounding presidential elections.
McCain, long held as a political moderate, shifted his stance on offshore drilling in 2008. Up until June of this year, our favorite Republican Stand Up Paddleboarder had been in support of the ban, but in his new energy proposal - dubbed the Lexington Project - McCain states:
“The Outer Continental Shelf alone contains 77 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. It is time that we capitalize on these significant resources and build the infrastructure needed to transport this important component of electricity generation and transportation fuel around the country.”
It’s worth pointing out that the Obama camp does not discount the implementation of offshore drilling either in an attempt to wean The United States of Surfing off of its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
McCain, a former Navy man, is an ocean “appreciator”, but in policy, doesn’t take a particularly strong stance. He had this to say about ocean conservation in the Science 2008 Debate:
The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy has provided government leaders with an “Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century” that has many good ideas; however, even it struggled with the enormity of the management challenge that lies before us, and recognized that there are no easy answers. This is at least partly due to the fact that so many of the human activities that adversely affect ocean health are not “ocean activities”, but are landside activities. Regional and ecosystem management concepts are easy to talk about, but are complicated to implement effectively, and they depend of obtaining a commitment from various necessary stakeholders.
To us at DailyStoke.com, that sounds a bit too flexible, but admirable in noting that the human activities on the land are affecting the ocean. That’s a good start.
That said, we know his Vice Presidential Pick, Sarah Palin, is from Alaska, which has some interesting surfing opportunities, and the governor herself is into extreme sports, like…hunting. That said, she’s a “drill, drill and drill some more” candidate.
In any event, check out this Youtube video which, while having not much to do with McCain, does feature him “surfing”. Hehehe.
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