Coastal Conservation Society applauds six-year commitment to sustainable board technology while declining to audit recipient transportation habits

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

LAGUNA BEACH, CALIFORNIA — A Laguna Beach surfer was honored Friday at the annual Southern California Coastal Conservation Society awards ceremony for his pioneering six-year use of a biodegradable surfboard made from recycled agricultural byproducts, during which he drove alone from his home in Riverside to the Laguna Beach coastline three mornings per week in a 1971 Ford Bronco that achieves, in optimal conditions, nine miles per gallon.

The Award Ceremony

Dylan Marsh, 31, received the Conservation Society’s Green Wave Award before an audience of approximately two hundred coastal advocates, several of whom arrived by private plane from secondary residences in Santa Barbara. The award recognizes individuals demonstrating exceptional commitment to sustainable ocean sports practices, defined in the Society’s charter as any measurable reduction in an individual’s surf-related environmental footprint, defined narrowly enough that the Bronco did not come up during deliberations.

“Dylan represents the future of surfing,” said Society President Catherine Ellsworth, presenting the award. “A surfer who understands that the ocean is not merely a playground but a precious ecosystem demanding our stewardship, our sacrifice, and our willingness to pay a forty-dollar premium for agricultural-fiber board construction.”

Marsh accepted the award graciously, thanked his board shaper, thanked the ocean, and said that surfing on a board you knew was returning to the earth was a spiritual experience he recommended to everyone. He added that yes, the board was heavier than standard polyurethane construction, and yes, it had snapped twice in moderate surf, and yes, both times he had driven the broken pieces home in the Bronco to be composted, a round trip of approximately ninety miles each way.

The Transportation Question

The Bronco entered public consciousness approximately twenty minutes after the ceremony when a photograph posted to Instagram by a Conservation Society member showed Marsh loading his award into the passenger seat of the vintage four-wheel-drive vehicle, which in the photograph appeared to be emitting a quantity of exhaust smoke that one commenter described as “visually audible.”

By the following morning, the photograph had accumulated fourteen hundred comments engaging in the kind of good-faith environmental discourse for which social media is universally celebrated.

“I am not anti-Bronco,” Marsh said in a statement issued through the Conservation Society’s communications office. “The Bronco is a vintage vehicle. Keeping vintage vehicles on the road rather than manufacturing new vehicles is itself an environmental choice. I am participating in circular economy principles.” He added that the vehicle had “a lot of sentimental value” and had “basically become part of the family.”

Environmental economist Dr. Sarah Park at UC Irvine, asked to evaluate this reasoning, said it was “not entirely without merit but was doing a great deal of work to justify a choice that was primarily made because the person likes the Bronco.”

The Numbers Nobody Wanted Produced

A back-of-envelope calculation provided by a retired aerospace engineer who lives near Marsh and describes himself as “not trying to be that guy but also slightly trying to be that guy” suggests that over six years of three-weekly Riverside-to-Laguna-Beach drives in the Bronco, Marsh has emitted approximately fourteen metric tons of CO2, roughly equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of a European family of four.

The biodegradable surfboard, by comparison, represents a carbon saving of approximately 18 kilograms relative to a standard polyurethane board, a figure derived from a lifecycle analysis published by Surfer Magazine in its annual sustainability issue, which runs adjacent to a sixty-page advertising section for products shipped from Asia in cargo containers.

“The math is not flattering,” the engineer confirmed. “But I want to be clear that I am not judging. I own a boat. A large one.”

The Conservation Society Weighs In

The Conservation Society issued a clarifying statement noting that the Green Wave Award evaluates surf equipment choices specifically and does not constitute a comprehensive audit of the recipient’s overall environmental impact, transportation decisions, home energy consumption, dietary choices, or frequency of international surf travel, adding that this clarification applied to all past recipients and not merely to Marsh, who they remained proud to honor.

President Ellsworth said the Society looked forward to presenting next year’s award to a recipient the Communications Director was already privately describing as “someone who at minimum lives within cycling distance of saltwater.”

Marsh, for his part, said he was considering moving closer to the coast, possibly to Laguna Beach, which has a median home price of approximately three million dollars, a figure he called “a bit steep” but “worth researching.” He said the important thing was intention, and that he intended to eventually be closer to the ocean, at which point his overall carbon profile would improve considerably.

The Bronco was not available for comment as it was warming up in the driveway for the ninety-mile commute home to Riverside. It has two new tires, Marsh noted. That is also a form of maintenance that extends vehicle life, which is also sustainability, if you think about it correctly.

The Conservation Society has not yet responded to follow-up questions about whether thinking about it correctly is an official evaluation criterion for future awards.

Sustainably covering unsustainable behavior at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine.

Equally carbon-neutral humor at The Daily Mash | The Beaverton | Babylon Bee

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/laguna-beach-surfer-wins-green-award-drives-bronco-from-riverside/