CNN fingers “most environmentally damaging person on earth” and iconic surf champion Kelly Slater as accounting for more than 50% of total aviation emissions from passenger air travel!

Damaging.

Oh man and oh hell. Just got off the horn (and by horn I mean glitchy Zoom connection) with the one-and-only Derek Rielly and the iconic Sean Doherty, author of many books including the upcoming History of the World Surf League (Dirty Water soon).

It is a fine conversation, maybe best podcast ever, and Sean spoke openly and honestly about very many things including Kelly Slater’s proposed Surf Ranch build on/in an Australian protected wetland where many birds, fish, etc. will die forever while the ocean, that produces the intermittent waves Surf Ranch is set to reproduce, is but a mere 1+ kilometer away.

For those that use the non-metric system, that equals spitting distance.

“Cognitive dissonance” is what Sean called Kelly’s environmentalism and a new report from CNN highlights the dissonance.

Slater perpetually banging the environmental drum. His actions, aside from digging up a wetland basically on the beach to make a fake wave driven by fossil fuels, hmmmmmmmm.

Per CNN Climate:

Frequent fliers representing just 1% of the world’s population accounted for more than half of total aviation emissions from passenger air travel in 2018, a new study says. “In a world that seeks to reduce carbon emissions, we need to look at those emitting the most,” said Stefan Gössling, a professor at Sweden’s Linnaeus University who led the study. “It seems difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the UN climate goals without addressing the super emitters.” Gössling defined “super emitters” as people who fly 34,000 miles per year, once a month or take three long-haul flights a year.⁠

Imagine how many times the world’s greatest surfer has flown around the world for its greatest waves over the course of his life.

300?

700?

A Gavin Newsom “do as I say, not as I do” moment?

I would love a response directly from The King (not Peter) but he has blocked me from social media and certainly doesn’t take my calls.

Probably because I am unnecessarily rude and very jealous of all his jet-setting.

Pointing out hypocrisy is, though, the Sport of Plebs and pretty darn fun.

More as the story develops.