How do you stand? Drill baby drill? Back to the garden? Techno-capitalism will save us? We're all gunna burn?
Massive paddle out in Byron Bay to protest the Equinor proposal to deepwater drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight just ensued.
How massive? Not sure, there could’ve been a thousand.
Some red-headed Irish bloke I spoke to with a Merrick twin fin reckoned two thousand. Neal “Freddo” Cameron, president of Byron Bay boardriders said somewhere between five hundred and a thousand.
Heaps and heaps anyway you slice it.
The protest objective: to fill the frame with masses of bobbing, shouting splashing humanity was easily achieved. Enough to scare the oil company Equinor, nee Statoil, who in fairness have helped raised the Norwegian standard of living to the highest in the world?
Heart says yes, head says no.
Still, Byron Bay is a nirvana for Norwegians and if the Scandinavians get a sniff that they ain’t welcome here, who knows what might happen.
The mise-en scene was nutty.
Representatives of every little sub-tribe out in the hot sunshine and howling onshore wind. Gurfers, murfers with their stock-broker and hedge fund husbands, rockstars, movie stars, slightly anorexic goddesses with logs, hipsters with finless foamies, sinewy old sea dogs, spanish-speaking Euro babes, sultry tattooed Peruvian, Argentinian and Brazilian studs, ageing local shredders on nineties thrusters and their progeny, kiddies, cops, magistrates, bankers, dentists, doctors, ex-pros, “soul” pros, scumbags and every other flavour of surfer. Surf witches were there, no doubt, but likely the blue bands were left behind.
The point of it, as local Bundjalung fella explained, was to put aside our differences to make a unified statement of love for Mother Earth.
If we concede that the Byron Bay hipster, being at the centre of cosmopolitan surf culture is now the arbiter of global taste, then the surfboard of choice for the conscious paddle-out is a single fin.
The beef, for those not living in Australia and unfamiliar with the issue, is two-fold.
One, if there is an accident like the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, oil would smother huge sections of the pristine Southern Australian coastline.
Even the staunchest fossil fuel advocate would acknowledge that as an eco-catastrophe.
Two, burning more fossil fuels cooks the kids via Climate Change.
Sirens wailed by my place yesterday afternoon. I took the kids for a paddle in the lake; a Taiwanese kiddy who could not swim had waded in and drowned. We arrived to paramedics pumping the kid furiously* and, feeling the sting of death close-by, stopped by the bottle-shop on the way home to anaesthetise the feeling of mortality.
Unique to Australia, this run-up to Christmas is known as the Silly Season, when random drinking sessions are a daily reality. This Silly Season, with heat, bushfires and lack of surf has been particularly intense.
Sirens wailed by my place yesterday afternoon. I took the kids for a paddle in the lake; a Taiwanese kiddy who could not swim had waded in and drowned. We arrived to paramedics pumping the kid furiously* and, feeling the sting of death close-by, stopped by the bottle-shop on the way home to anaesthetise the feeling of mortality.
I’m no natural activist, not a joiner like Jen See. My tendency is to observe with an ironic eye, cognisant of the counter-arguments. The reactionary case will rest on the charge of hypocrisy. Hundreds and thousands of boards, all made of petro-chems. I drove a car, solo, from Lennox Head.
“Look at these dumb cunts,” so the argument will go, “don’t they see their utter dependence on fossil fuels. Don’t they see the utter economic devastation wrought if we stopped drilling for oil. We are part of nature, what we do is natural, go live in a cave or fuck off etc etc”.
To which I would add my own moral quandary. I got kith and kin out bush in high-vis and on the rigs working FIFO in the mining/drilling game. If I’m honest I care more about their fate then the trust fund murfer and her stock-broker husband living in the insta-perfect mansion in Bangalow.
Presenting the unified argument in favour of Mother Earth I have to report that the mood for change is strong. At least in this part of the world.
Paddle-out co-ordinator Damo Cole, son of rabble-rousing shaper-designer Maurice Cole called the Torquay paddle-out “incredible” with “maybe three thousand people, I dunno!”.
How do you stand?
Drill baby drill?
Back to the garden?
Techno-capitalism will save us?
We’re all gunna burn?
Have to admit, in my heart of anarcho-primitivist hearts the rapidly de-gentrified dystopian vision of a post-capitalist world without fossil fuels does have some appeal.
The stock-broker might struggle when the shops shut and the bunker runs out of tinned food but I’ll be fine. Trading fish for nuts and berries. Probably got enough boards to see out the End Times too.
Sixty-two paddle-outs around the island continent, tens of thousands all speaking the same message: Fuck off Equinor. A legitimate display of surfer-consciousness, surely.
*Kid ended up living, condition unknown.
How many rigs off Longford? 23. Oil spills? Nil. Onshore explosions? One. Yars, deepwater extraction is riskier but the possibility of something going wrong is very low (cos technology and 50 years experience etc). Do I think it’s a good idea? Not really, but the oil has to come from somewhere and easy oil is over. What’s your solution: those who insist it can never happen? For moi, it’s saddening that in my 40ish years the environment has been royally fuckered and 20 years have been wasted (Kyoto 1992) – but may as well buy a 6 cylinder beemer while the still make em and give it a wazz. Hydocarbons, powering advances in human development and the downfall of human civilisation. Sweet.
The only thing riskier about deep water drilling is the blow out preventer is on the sea bed not on the rig. Even that can be overcome if you have a tension leg platform as the BOPs are at surface.
For me the temporary solution is convert coal power to gas while we develop renewable for base load power. Oil is rarely used for power generation unless you’re in a remote or developing place with no power infrastructure.
And while we are at it phase in hydrogen for cars.
I think the solution for the time being is cogen plants to do something useful with rubbish that otherwise just gets buried. As an investment banker dude once said after a meeting with a wood pellet fired plant dude; I don’t give a shit about feedstock, all I care about is kW. Point being that we may as well waste waste as burn oil or coal.
On the oil as power point – in a previous life I was involved in a scheme to ship aluminium ore to a sandy place that had none but had a shit load of oil and could, consequently, cheaply produce the power to turn those dirty nuggets into shining foil. And the ship the bolts of foil back to where the ore came from. Fucking madness.
That was Bahrain unless there’s other aluminium smelters in sandy places. I’ve been there. Weird place with what looks like chair lifts at the snow but instead used to take the bauxite to the smelter. And drunk Saudis staggering everywhere.
Cheap power allows you to do lots of stupid things like golf courses in the desert. You weep for humanity when you see what abject wealth gets you. You don’t get utopia, more like crass decadence and pissing competitions at a grand scale.
If it’s about global warming, the hypocrisy charge has some purchase. There’s an avoidance of responsibility. Screeching at oil companies while drawing zero connection to the utter dependence our society has on their products… Can’t climate protesters come up with some constructive solutions, etc.? Advocate for government subsidies for electric vehicle purchases, increased renewable energy procurements, etc. etc. A lot of the climate protests start to feel like a demand for some other people to solve this problem.
it;s a long term view , if you are wrong , well are you prepared to sacrifice your family?
Excuse me
I always choose unleaded
But not thar ethanol shit.
What’s this article about? Surfers who drive cars along the coast looking for the best waves, everyday or many times a day? Then flying on airplanes, using jet skies, wearing neoprene, etc. Just because surfers use the ocean does not necessarily make them environments. Just finishing watching Wayne Lynch bio Unchartered Waters (after new computer allowed me to finally access my ITunes), with Wayne driving 4WDs everywhere. One of the best surf movies I have seen (however I am not sure how Nick Carroll makes his usual cameo appearances). Kelly wasn’t in it but NC was.
Fight for the bite is just protect the sharks 2.0 . Green Social media groups make a media storm protecting sharks in WA And protesting against smart drum lines while the rest of the country continues to use drum lines without protest.
Equinor gets smashed by being transparent on potential outcomes yet the controls are ignored while at the same time oil and gas rigs are operating on the bass straight and NOrth west shelf Right now that could have the same out come as equinor and have the same controls as equinor yet they are not being protested.
After the GFC Australia avoided the European 20-40% unemployment levels because of construction in the oil/gas and mining industry allowed billions of dollars to be spent on east coast infrastructure projects enabling the country to remain mostly employed for the past 10 years.
As NC rightly pointed out below the issue is not equinors ability to run an oil rig safely it is Australia allowing the bulk of the financial benefits going to a foreign fund.
If the enviroselfrighteous wish to maintain their self indulgent lifestyle preaching to the globe they better make sure the oil/gas/mining Industry keeps producing(tax) while we transition to renewables because tech(Amazon, FB, Google) doesn’t pay tax in Australia and though social media is good at rallying support for issues such as this none of the social media/tech companies are financing renewable infrastructure construction in Australia.
Drill baby drill, yes.
my bad, sloppy writing. I meant, I’m not a joiner, like you.
Things have changed since the Deepwater Horizon. If the they don’t start exploration drilling in the Bight they’ll do it somewhere else the demand is too high.
Australia is just lucky that we have the ability to organise protests against it and are happy for it to happen in Timor and other parts of the country.
Australia has the most regulated and safest drilling I’d rather it happen here safely that in some dodgy third world country.
Ningaloo is one of the most pristine areas in the world and drilling has happened safely for decades.
People need to adapt they’re lifestyle, government need to change the licensing.
Amen! God knows why it’s been so aggressively targeted at Equinor. It should be the government.
Representing the land of milk and honey ill give Statoil 10 out of 10 so far. It is difficult to be poor and almost impossible to starve in this country. No oil spills that destroyed the place as of yet. Russia wants our expertise in drilling – that’s the propaganda anyway. As long as the Australian government has made up their mind, let us drill – nuts and berries won’t do it up here. We have lost our old skills. Hard to believe our forefathers sailed across the Atlantic a 1000 yrs ago in an open boat, certain that they would sail over the edge. Anyway, let us drill your oil so we can afford to go visit. Byron Bay wouldn’t be the same without our female representatives.
thats true.
“Representatives of every little sub-tribe out in the hot sunshine and howling onshore wind. Gurfers, murfers with their stock-broker and hedge fund husbands, rockstars, movie stars, slightly anorexic goddesses with logs, hipsters with finless foamies, sinewy old sea dogs, spanish-speaking Euro babes, sultry tattooed Peruvian, Argentinian and Brazilian studs, ageing local shredders on nineties thrusters and their progeny, kiddies, cops, magistrates, bankers, dentists, doctors, ex-pros, “soul” pros, scumbags and every other flavour of surfer. Surf witches were there, no doubt, but likely the blue bands were left behind.”
Brilliant. With a brains trust such as this rabble, you know some bang on analysis and thoughtful action is sure to come about. But it’s probably more likely to segue nicely into an epic gangy in Greenough’s tree house. Nice little Saturday.
Uranium.
No coal, oil, or natural gas needed to run your household if you’ve got a single uranium fuel pellet.
They are packed with energy and plenty abundant on earth.
Of course, V8 engines are cool, peeling rubber should always exist.
All true, but our ‘woke’ overlords won’t hear of it.
The best bit is Australia has the world’s largest reserves of the stuff. Also thorium.
This is the problem when decisions are made on feelings and not facts. But instead we all slowly die like frogs in a pot of water.
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This isn’t the Inertia hipster. Beat it.
It’s been estimated that 1/3 of current oil reserves will have to be abandoned to meet climate change targets. So why would you want to be drilling for more? Pretty short-sighted Australian govt
good question. I thought the Govt could resume the lease if it was rejected?
FFS educate yourself , why the protest against Equinor and not the Govt???
probably one of your worst misinformed articles ever …then there are your comp reports , very close!
imagine calling surfers rabble , I know you secretly love that Waterman of the year , your God?
how is it misinformed?
Ok bullshit article that Equinor’s Vice president stated that Equinor “need a social license to operate was key to them progressing the project!” that if “we are not wanted here, we will not push through resistance!”
Which means if enough people show dissent Equinor will not go through with the project….FFS shearer get the facts straight…..or show a bit of backbone and do some due diligence, because all he has done is stir his rabble supporters , like Fred Pawle………so yeah there was a method to the protests , FFS it’s like reading Donald Trumps spin on truth!
Equinor walked away from prospecting where I live. They were well and truly told at public meetings that they weren’t welcome here and I think that had an effect
you don’t think I made that clear in the article?
read the final sentence.
Not at all look at all the comments here , clear as mud…..surfer consciousness , no it’s about a lot more than that….ah you’ll never get it!
I stand with Maurice Cole
It is much easier to blame the foreigners than criticize the man in the mirror …..
My take on it – keep that which is pristine pristine.
Well done piece. Jen See may never recover.