Why all surfers should vote green

For foreign readers, we have something called the super-election-year in Sweden, meaning we have both an election to EU as well as the Swedish election during the same year. The EU election is this sunday, the 25th of may so the politic debate is hectic at the moment. So why should surfers vote green?

Well. We are ocean loving people. We love the freedom of being in the ocean. Living by them. Surfing waves in them. The natural phenomenons that produce waves. The wind. The sunsets, the crystal clear waters, the reef, the fish, the ocean mammals and much much more. We’ve found out that spending time in the ocean is all we need, not some fancy car, a big house or anything else. Just the nature and simplicity is enough. Nature is like 99% of what surfing is about.

But the ocean is not for certain. Traveling the world has given us first hand insight that clean oceans shouldn’t be taken for granted. In Bali we surfed in plastic so thick and big you couldn’t see the surface, you had to surf trough it from the take off zone all the way to the beach. The locals collected it and burn’t it. In California we couldn’t surf because the ocean was to dirty by sewage spill. And a lot of the coastline was privatized so you couldn’t even access the ocean. In india the pollution in the cities was so big it was hard to breathe. In the Kattegatt, were we surf in Sweden a danish government is pulling tons of sand from the bottom, digging holes 20m+ deep changing the currents and everything. In EU the out fishing by big trawlers is emptying our oceans destroying the whole circle of life. The list goes on… All of this because the main goal today is economic growth. It’s just not sustainable. If we don’t do something there will be no waves to surf.

The green party (Miljöpartiet) is founded by people with that same nature love us, surfers have. It’s by people that work and have years of experience within the field. They know how precious the nature is. What differs them from the rest is their first hand goal – to protect and preserve the nature so that we can stand against the coming climate threat. That’s the first goal.  We’ve been thinking about putting a vote on F!, the feminist revolution is coming, it’s important and we proudly support it. But Miljöpartiet has the best mix of all worlds. Their climate, feminism and human rights politics are the strongest out there. And they are the opponent to the rasist parties. So what are they doing for the oceans.

Well. Apart from the ideology is formed on an environmental basis, they have one great politician fighting especially for the oceans. And we think that no matter what political color you feel like, you can always vote for a person fighting for the things you love. Her name is Isabella Lövin. She’s made a gigantic effort in the EU parliament making a new fishing reform come to place, protecting our oceans from unsustainable fishing in EU for years to come. It’s an incredible work, and it’s done thanks to her. Today all parties say they are fighting for our planet, but they will always be compromising to support their own ideologies. Miljöpartiet is the only party with a well developed green politic as the main outset. Isabella a super smart, sharp, strong woman who make these things happen. And she must be able to continue follow up her work to protect our oceans as other parties don’t prioritize these questions.

That’s why a surfers vote should be a definite Isabella, Miljöpartiet & The Ocean.