Let's clean up our surf act.

Things you probably already know: CO2 and other greenhouse gases are building up in our atmosphere, trapping some of the heat that would otherwise radiate back out to space. The increase in these gases is coming almost entirely from our use of fossil fuel. Scientists noticed this CO2 buildup decades ago, predicting an accelerating pattern of warming oceans, rising sea levels and melting polar ice sheets. Unfortunately, you no longer need to be a scientist to notice what's going on. According to NASA, the 14 warmest years ever recorded, have all occurred since 1990. Even 2008, a coolish "La Nina-" influenced year so far, is a bit above the 40 year average.

You might also know that even now when most people believe that climate change is serious and likely to affect our lives in the looming near future, we're still emitting more greenhouse gases than ever! People say they want to cut back, but most of us haven't gotten started.

But here's something you may not know: joining a small group of people who all want to cut back their emissions makes it a lot easier. In Oregon, neighborhood groups who went on "carbon diets" produced an average of 25% emissions savings in 30 days, and that once people adopted better habits, they kept them up long past the study.

These "eco- groups" worked best when people cooperated to set goals and figure out how much fuel they were using and how they could begin to cut down. Working in small collaboratives seems to help shape the effort as a constructive project, so that people don't feel they're denying themselves, but that they're making a positive change with people they respect.

But why a surfing "eco-group"? Media images of surfers barreling down fragile sea cliffs in Jeeps and old Woodies paint what now seems like a fairly toxic portrait of thoughtless hyper-consumption. So we can keep enjoying surfing in this real ocean which is now absorbing 80% of our CO2 emissions, we might want to start to clean up that image. If we all use less, we'll enjoy it a lot more.

So I'm asking you to consider joining a group to cut greenhouse emissions. Some ways we can cut back include sharing rides to the ocean, finding spots closer to home, planning to buy more fuel efficient cars. I'm taking the initiaitve by asking you all to take an inventory of your surfing emissions. Within a few weeks, we'll try to put the first group together. In the meantime, please leave comments so that we can all start thinking about how this is going to work.