PWMC: A Warmer Pacific Threatens The 4/3 Hooded Fullsuit Market
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat file this dispatch from the Pacific salt-and-foam frontier.
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — The Pacific Wetsuit Manufacturers Council has reportedly hired a Sacramento lobbying firm to formally oppose climate change, citing rising water temperatures off the SoCal coast that threaten the long-term viability of the 4/3 hooded fullsuit.
The PWMC’s new policy paper, titled The 67-Degree Crisis, argues that if Pacific water temperatures continue to rise, an estimated 84% of all 4/3s, 5/4/3s, and ceremonial drysuits will be rendered “structurally unnecessary.”
The Policy Position
“Climate change is, in our view, a real and present threat to the wetsuit-industrial complex,” said PWMC Executive Director Carter Neoprene. “Every degree of warming represents one fewer reason for a Newport Beach surfer to buy a $389 chest-zip booty-and-hood combo. We cannot stand idly by while glaciers melt and our entire winter business model goes with them.”
The Council has formally petitioned both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State of California to “consider the wetsuit factor” in all future climate modelling.
Public Health Concerns
According to internal industry data, the average SoCal surfer purchases 1.7 wetsuits per year. If water temperatures rise above 68 degrees year-round, that figure could plummet to 0.4, taking with it an estimated $211 million in annual revenue and approximately 47 specialty store leases between Ventura and Imperial Beach.
“You laugh,” said Neoprene, “but in a world where the South Bay is 70 degrees in February, who is going to buy a 5/4/3? Nobody. They will paddle out in board shorts. They will look fine. The industry will collapse.”
Counterpoint
Climate scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography declined to formally engage with the PWMC’s position, noting only that “we have other concerns at this time.”
The Council’s lobbying effort has reportedly been complemented by a public awareness campaign featuring billboards along the 405 reading Climate Change Is Killing Your Hood and Save The 4/3, Save The Sport.
An adjacent campaign by the California Board Wax Manufacturers Association has reportedly endorsed the PWMC’s position, citing similar concerns about the long-term market for cold-water tropic-blend sticks.
“This is what happens when industries refuse to plan for warmer mornings,” concluded Neoprene. “We are not climate deniers. We are climate negotiators.”
For more dispatches read further at prat.uk satire and Bohiney Magazine. For a second opinion that is also wrong, see Private Eye.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/category/satire/