Two Hot Takes on Each End of Environmentalism

Coming soon in the November issue of Latitude 38’s Letters, we have two letters proposing what we can only call extreme environmental views on opposite ends of the spectrum. One take proposes prohibiting motoring in a sailboat in the name of environmentalism; the other take proposes to cull the pod of orcas that have been “playing with”/”attacking” sailboats in the Mediterranean.

However, the thrust of this ‘Lectronic Latitude is not to excessively give in to base emotions and illicit outrage to fill out Letters. Rather, we’re wondering if these respective hot takes might help us thread some kind of radically rational middle ground.

We have long maintained that despite the polarizing rhetoric, as sailors, we all fundamentally agree that we love the ocean and are interested in its stewardship. We’re willing to bet that the authors of the following hot takes are against dumping oil and trash into the water. In fact, we’re willing to bet that no matter where any sailor stands on the environmental spectrum, they believe that we should have clean air and water.

So we agree on some fundamentals! Isn’t the rest just a matter of degree?

Here’s hot take #1:

“As a lifelong environmentalist and former environmental campaigner and environmental attorney, I have to respond to the letters and responses in the September issue regarding motoring while delivering boats home from races. Motoring on a sailboat is motorized recreation, plain and simple. When I was an environmental campaigner, motorized recreation is one of the human activities we fought against.

“Consuming and burning oil, polluting the air and water, and making unnatural noise that disturbs the animals that live in the ocean, and all for some fun? I don’t see any justification for this. I realize that the delivery back from the Transpac is hard — I made that passage once when returning from Tahiti — but this is, after all, just fun, not some necessity.

“Refraining from motoring is not about global warming/climate change. If the only greenhouse gas emissions were from sailboat engines, human-caused global warming/climate change wouldn’t exist. Real environmentalists don’t obsess on global warming/climate change to the exclusion of and/or to the detriment of other environmental issues. I listed the main environmental problems with motoring on the water, and global warming/climate change is not one of them.”

We 100% disagree! There is so much to unpack here, namely the entire premise of what the author described as the main environmental problems: “Consuming and burning oil, polluting the air and water, and making unnatural noise that disturbs the animals that live in the ocean.” If the author concedes that sailboats do little to contribute to climate change (we 100% agree with that), then surely motoring sailboats’ contributions to air, water and noise pollution are even more negligible.

It seems that the writer is fixating on the morality of burning fossil fuels for “fun.” If we unpack how much pollution results from buildings and public parks, or building and operating a public transit system, then guess what? Those projects are far more polluting than a single racer-cruiser motoring all the way back from Hawaii. (Some readers also made the case that the wear and tear on a set of sails also has a carbon footprint. We’ll have a full breakdown of the various numbers in the November issue.)

We think this brand of environmentalism, which fixates on the perceived morality of an activity and wildly (and inaccurately) inflates its impact, is, as the author said, ultimately detrimental to other environmental issues.

Here’s hot take #2, which was commenting on a story last year about another sailboat in the Med sunk by orcas.

“That pod of whales needs to be hunted and culled, regardless of how ‘endangered’ they are, or if they are swimming in ‘their home.’ This is nonsense. These whales are destroying property and endangering human lives. When tigers or lions eat humans they are hunted and put down. The Spanish government is responsible for these whales not being properly dealt with. Send out a team of professionals and deal with this problem, or mariners will eventually solve it for themselves. When someone dies because a pod of dangerous whales is permitted to attack small vessels, then the gloves come off.”

We 100% disagree, and there’s a lot to unpack here, too, but we acknowledge that the Iberian orca attacks are a frightening and very real problem. (Some people object to the word “attack” being used to describe the behavior of the Mediterranean ocas; one study suggested that the offending orcas were “just bored teenagers.”) Just three weeks ago, one sailboat was sunk and another was damaged by orcas off the coast of Portugal. Since 2020, some 250 boats have been damaged and somewhere between seven and eight have been sunk.

We’re getting especially hung up on “When a pod of dangerous whales is permitted to attack small vessels.” It almost sounds as though the whales have been sanctioned (or even encouraged) by bureaucrats to go after sailboats after filling out the requisite paperwork. Just as everyone wants clean air and water, everyone wants safety and security, too.

So what’s your take, Latitude Nation? Again, we’re hoping that rather than outrage, we can use the above takes like bumpers on the bowling alley to stay honed in on the target and avoid the gutter.

Special thanks to Kareem Rahma and SubwayTakes.