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Climate Change can have a massive negative impact on all levels of our society and surfers have realized this. Surfers are creating task forces to save the ocean and to help fund scientific research on what would happen if global temperatures continue to rise. They are doing this to save their industry and because they care about the environment. The surfers realize that if the water levels continue to rise their will be smaller and fewer waves for them to surf. They fear that these dramatic changes could occur in less than 50 years. Along with increased sea levels, climate change causes storms which are limiting to when the surfers can be on the water. The surfers hope to contribute in whatever way they can to the effort to combat climate change. They are financially and socially supporting the battle against climate change one wave at a time.

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Reuters

This story was originally published by the Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
For surfers, countering President Donald Trump 's plan to slash federal funding for climate change research is personal.

Surfers, no strangers to environmental activism around events such as World Water Day, are creating task forces to save the ocean, their multimillion-dollar industry and the scientific research that shows both face incredible threats if global temperatures continue to rise.

"Surfers are kind of like a giant tribe, a giant worldwide tribe of people," said Terry Hardy, a longtime surfer and one of the owners of the World Surf League (WSL), the governing body for professional surfers. "We feel like we have an army we can activate that can create real change."

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The athletes Hardy represents have a lot at stake. If the sea level continues to rise, as scientists warn, there will be a serious consequence for the sport: smaller and fewer waves.

Consistently higher tides will change the way waves break on reefs and beaches, explained Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, coastal preservation manager of Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to coastal water quality.
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For beach breaks, "they'll break closer to the shore, closer inland, and that means that they could be smaller waves or not break at all," Sekich-Quinn explained. "The same goes for waves that break on a reef. When the reef is being inundated with additional levels of sea level rise, the wave just won't break as it used to, and some fear it might not break at all."

Without climate change intervention, those effects could become apparent in as a little as 50 years, she warned.

While that threat looms, surfers and other ocean enthusiasts are already grappling with polluted water caused by sewage overflow linked to higher temperatures.

"As the climate changes, we're starting to see more intense and frequent storms," Sekich-Quinn said, pointing to California's intensely wet winter, which scientists have pointed to as a symptom of climate change. Infrastructure unable to handle that much water can give way, sending massive amounts of sewage into the ocean. Last month, heavy rains led to a sewage spill that closed popular beaches in Long Beach, and a study from Climate Central found such incidents may become more common.

Last April, Hardy's organization launched WSL Progressive Understanding and Respect for the Environment, or WSL PURE, a foundation dedicated to funding ocean research. In its first move, the no-overhead-costs foundation co-chaired by Hardy contributed $1.6 million for research at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

WSL PURE has continued to collect money from influential people in the surfing community, said Hardy, who hopes to partner with more scientists and eventually establish the foundation as "a centralized hub for ocean-related science, health and advocacy."

As those environmental concerns become more politicized, private donors, such as those now involved with WSL PURE, will realize they need to take on a bigger role endowing science, Hardy predicts.

"Private funding is going to become more important for research in general, whether it's health research or environmental research," he said.

"We're interested in making sure that the good work that's going on, that there's not lapses because of loss of funding."

And when it comes to doling out money, data suggest many surfers are equipped to help fund research. According to one national survey conducted by Surfrider of more than 5,000 respondents, the average surfer in the U.S. earns $75,000 a year.

With its climate change efforts, the surfing community joins the likes of former Vice President Al Gore, who in January announced he would host his own climate change summit after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abruptly canceled one it had been planning for months.

Trump's presidency has upped the stakes, surf activists say.

"This is a whole new dawn of the day right now for us," Sekich-Quinn said. "What we're starting to see is this new administration is certainly not friendly toward climate change, and therefore we need to increase what we're doing on the ground."

In January, she said, Surfrider released a "climate change activist toolkit" and trained nearly 50 people to conduct outreach and activism in their communities.

"Surfers will be the canaries in the coal mine on climate change."

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Surfers are riding a wave of environmental activism

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This story was originally published by the Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For surfers, countering President Donald Trump 's plan to slash federal funding for climate change research is personal.

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In America we take for granted the right to freedom of speech and in a time like this especially the right to voice environmental concerns. According to this article, Latin America is now the most dangerous place in the world for environmental activists. The story of Isidro Baldenegro Lopez is told in this article. Isidro was a leader of the indigenous Tarahumara people in Mexico who fought against illegal loggers in their ancient forests. Isidro had received multiple threats and was ultimately murdered as a result of his standing up for the environment. The Mexican government has promised a fair trial for his case but for many that isn't enough. Isidro is one of many activists who have been threatened, injured and murdered by men trying to make profit off of these locals' home. These activists are trying to protect their land and their families. Cartels entering the area are the groups that are terrorizing these locals trying to live the way they have for centuries. Various battles for land rights have occurred in these areas on top of the issues with illegal cartels. This article revealed that over 43% of the attacks carried out against environmentalists came from authorities. It is evident that the environmentalists fighting in Latin America have little to no support, but care passionately about their land enough that they are willing to risk their lives to protect it.

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Pablo Aneli/AP

"I'm in shock," says José Trinidad Baldenegro. "In despair."

On the phone from the city of Chihuahua in Mexico's arid north, he's telling me about his older brother, Isidro Baldenegro López, an activist and leader of the indigenous Tarahumara people. For years, Baldenegro had endured numerous threats as a result of his work protecting the country's ancient forests from illegal logging. But one stormy afternoon in January, standing by a goat pen outside his uncle's house in the village of Coloradas de la Virgen, Baldenegro was shot six times in the chest, stomach and legs. He died a few hours later.

His killing fits a deadly pattern across the region: Latin America is now the most dangerous place in the world for environmental activists, according to a 2016 report by Article 19, a British human rights group. More than 122 activists were killed in the region in 2015, one of the deadliest years on record, according to the most recent study from Global Witness, another nongovernmental organization.

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Mexico has emerged as one of the most perilous countries in the region. Organized crime, state-sanctioned intimidation and near-total impunity have proved to be a hazardous and often deadly combination for the many activists trying to protect the country's natural resources. In January, Mexico's Center for Environmental Rights (CEMDA) released a report that documented 63 attacks against environmental activists in 2015 and 2016. However, this only included cases reported on by the media or other NGOs, so the number could be much higher.

The high rate of human rights abuses in Mexico has drawn increasing international attention: Baldenegro was killed while U.N. Special Rapporteur Michel Frost was in Mexico investigating attacks against activists. Still, the renewed global focus on the activists' plight doesn't mean the violence has waned. Baldenegro had been awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005 for his campaign to protect Mexico's ancient forests from illegal logging-the same work that led to his father's murder 30 years ago. His death came less than a year after the shooting death of Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, who received the Goldman prize in 2015. "It used to be that when you got to that level of awareness about your work, it gave you some measure of protection," says Article 19's David Banisar. "Now even that seems to be undermined. It's a good indication that things are getting worse."

The Mexican government has promised a full investigation of Baldenegro's killing. On March 8, authorities arrested Romeo Rubio Martínez, 21, the husband of one of Baldenegro's distant cousins, who claims he killed Baldenegro because of an old family quarrel. But Isela González, director of Alianza Sierra Madre, an organization that works with the Tarahumara to defend their land right, is skeptical. "We are urging authorities not to abandon the investigation into his environmental work which has resulted in so much violence, not just against Isidro but against many environmental activists," she says.
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Giovanna Garrido Márquez, a subdirector of attention to appeal resources with Mexico's secretary of governance, says that the killing has "raised a huge red flag" and that her department will be holding a special meeting to discuss how to increase protections for environmental activists so that "Chihuahua can be a model for the rest of the country."

But for many, these measures have come too late. Two weeks after Baldenegro was killed, Juan Ontiveros Ramos, another Tarahumara leader, was found dead in the same region. Armed men had kidnapped him the day before, brutally beating members of his family during the attack. "It's incredibly painful," says González, who has received death threats herself and had known Ramos for 20 years. "He was very quiet and reserved. But he was an admired and distinguished person given a fundamental task: protecting his people."

Ramos was in charge of security for the Choréachi community and regularly took the 15-hour trip to the state capital so he could meet with authorities and discuss the challenges this indigenous group face, particularly organized crime. Known as "the Golden Triangle" for the intersection of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua states, the region is a major heroin and marijuana production area for the Sinaloa cartel. The expansion of powerful cartels has brought traffickers into more close contact with local indigenous groups, and all too often the result is violence. According to González, Ramos had just returned from a meeting with state and federal authorities to discuss security and other matters before he was killed. "There's a dangerous cocktail of powerful landowners, sicarios [cartel hit men] and loggers," she says. "It's created a climate of terror."

The deaths of Ramos and Baldenegro came as a shock to many environmentalists in Mexico, particularly indigenous leaders facing their own battles. "It's a deadly message to all defenders of environmental rights," says Mario Luna, a leader of the Yaqui tribe in the northern state of Sonora. Luna has been fighting the state government for years over control of the Yaqui River, which has sustained his tribe for centuries. In 2010, authorities began building an aqueduct to divert millions of liters of water from the river to the state capital of Hermosillo. According to Luna, he and his tribe were not even consulted-a common problem, analysts say, for indigenous groups. "Mexico is proud of its indigenous people in museums," says Astrid Puentes, co-executive director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA). "But they don't care at all about their real, living indigenous communities."

Luna and his fellow Yaquis sued the state government, but despite a Supreme Court decision in their favor in 2013, the aqueduct continued pumping water to Hermosillo. Luna and other members of the tribe organized protests, but in September 2014 he was arrested and taken to prison. "Like some kind of super-terrorist," says Luna.

A year later, the charges were thrown out and Luna was released, but by then the damage was done: The time and energy it took to free him hampered efforts to protect the river, and the aqueduct is still operating. The impact on the tribe, says Luna, has been devastating. After years of water exploitation, many of the tributaries that sustained Yaqui communities are drying up. He says up to 12,000 acres of agricultural land are now unusable. The effect on the tribe's spiritual practices, which revolve around the river, has been equally destructive. "They've killed the Yaqui River," Luna says. "Now they're killing Yaqui culture."

Luna is now under the protection of the Mechanism to Protect Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, created by President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2012. Everywhere he goes, Luna now carries a panic button, a GPS-enabled device to alert authorities in case of trouble, and he also has security cameras installed in his house. "But in the end," he says, "it gives you the feeling that they're watching you and not the bad guys."

For activists like Luna and others, the real problem lies in the government's failure to properly investigate crimes against environmentalists and bring those responsible to justice. "There is no political will," says AIDA's Puentes. "Here, it's a complete and murderous silence."

Ildefonso Zamora, a leader of the indigenous Tlahuica community, has been fighting to protect the lush forests that surround his home in San Juan Atzingo, 50 miles southwest of Mexico City, since 1998. After six years campaigning to stop illegal logging in the region, Mexico's federal attorney for environmental protection began investigating the issue. That's when the death threats started. "The loggers told me they were going to hit me where it most hurts," Zamora says.

On May 15, 2007, while Zamora's sons Aldo and Misael were surveying the forest looking for illegal loggers, they were surprised by armed men who fired at them several times. Aldo, 21, was killed-Misael, just 16 at the time, was badly hurt but survived. "It was an ambush," Misael says. "Everything was planned."

The killing drew national attention, and a few weeks later, Zamora was given the Ecological Merit Award by then-President Felipe Calderón, who promised that those responsible for his son's death would be brought to justice. Still, it took three years for two of the four suspects to be arrested. "The others are still unpunished," says Zamora.

Analysts say this kind of impunity is all too common. According to the Global Impunity Index, just 4.46 percent of crimes that get reported in Mexico result in convictions. "There's a dangerous cycle of impunity and corruption," says Márquez. "All too often, sentences aren't even carried out."

Even worse, activists say, is the government's complicity in acts of intimidation. According to CEMDA's report, 43 percent of the attacks carried out against environmentalists came from the authorities themselves. Márquez admits that this too is a serious issue. "Criminalizing human rights defenders does enormous damage," she says. "We need to recognize the work that they do as contributors to our democracy." She says her team is working on a publicity campaign on social and traditional media in support of activists, as well as holding meetings with state governors to investigate the problem and try to "restore confidence in authorities."

For Zamora, however, that confidence is long gone. Eight years after his son was killed, he was arrested by state police on charges of breaking and entering and theft. He was sent to the prison in Tenancingo, a place he calls "a rat's nest." It took nine months and a sustained campaign from both Amnesty International and Greenpeace to secure his release last year: A federal judge ruled that "his human right to a presumption of innocence was violated; there is no evidence against him."

Zamora says his arrest was part of a campaign to silence him and his campaign. "Behind all of this is the government," he says. "That's who we need to be afraid of." Those efforts have worked to a degree: After so many attacks, Zamora says, he's afraid to campaign as he used to. Still, he's resolved to continue the struggle. "The forest is a legacy given to us by our ancestors," he says. "It inspires me to keep fighting."

But back in Chihuahua, the future for communities like the Tarahumara and the forests they are trying to protect is more uncertain after so many years of violence and intimidation. For José Trinidad Baldenegro, his brother's killing remains an ominous warning. "Out here," he says, "no one is safe."

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Why Mexico's environmental activists fear for their lives

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Pablo Aneli/AP "I'm in shock," says José Trinidad Baldenegro. "In despair." On the phone from the city of Chihuahua in Mexico's arid north, he's telling me about his older brother, Isidro Baldenegro López, an activist and leader of the indigenous Tarahumara people.

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The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, made a decision that moved to reject scientific research in support of banning a potentially harmful insecticide. In late 2016, scientists at Columbia University concluded that exposure to the chemical chloropyrifos was potentially causing significant health consequences such as memory loss and learning declines. This is impacting young farm workers and young children who may be exposed through drinking water and other sources. The company that produces this chemical, Dow Chemical, argued that the research was inconclusive and not reliable enough to ban the use of the insecticide. Mr. Pruitt ultimately sided with Dow Chemical and stated that the science needed to be studied more before the pest-management tool was banned. The USDA and Dow Chemical both supported the EPA's decision, but many are opposed to this decision. Many environmental groups and critics are claiming that this action is just another one of the Trump Administration's decision in favor of major corporations rather than the health and safety of many American families.

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Dow Agrosciences, the division that sells the product, also praised the ruling, calling it in a statement "the right decision for farmers who, in about 100 countries, rely on the effectiveness of chlorpyrifos to protect more than 50 crops."

But Jim Jones, who ran the chemical safety unit at the E.P.A. for five years, and spent more than 20 years working there until he left the agency in January when President Trump took office, said he was disappointed by Mr. Pruitt's action.

"They are ignoring the science that is pretty solid," Mr. Jones said, adding that he believed the ruling would put farm workers and exposed children at unnecessary risk.

The ruling is, in some ways, more consequential than the higher profile move by Mr. Trump on Tuesday to order the start of rolling back Obama administration rules related to coal-burning power plants and climate change.

In rejecting the pesticide ban, Mr. Pruitt took what is known as a "final agency action" on the question of the safety and use of chlorpyrifos, suggesting that the matter would not likely be revisited until 2022, the next time the E.P.A. is formally required to re-evaluate the safety of the pesticide.

Mr. Pruitt's move was immediately condemned by environmental groups, which said it showed that the Trump administration cared more about catering to the demands of major corporate players, like Dow Chemical, than the health and safety of families nationwide.

"We have a law that requires the E.P.A. to ban pesticides that it cannot determine are safe, and the E.P.A. has repeatedly said this pesticide is not safe," said Patti Goldman, managing attorney at Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based environmental group that serves as the legal team for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pesticide Action Network of North America, which filed the petition in 2007 to ban the product.

The agency had been under court order to issue a ruling on the petition by Friday. The environmental groups intend to return to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to ask judges to order the agency to "take action to protect children from this pesticide" Ms. Goldman said on Wednesday.

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E.P.A. Chief, Rejecting Agency's Science, Chooses Not to Ban Insecticide

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Dow Agrosciences, the division that sells the product, also praised the ruling, calling it in a statement "the right decision for farmers who, in about 100 countries, rely on the effectiveness of chlorpyrifos to protect more than 50 crops." But Jim Jones, who ran the chemical safety unit at the E.P.A.

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President Trump signed an executive order which could drastically shift the direction of U.S. environmental policy. This order is the start of the process to undo Obama's environmental regulations that Trump intends to execute. Trump claims that this bill will promote "energy independence" and create jobs. This action has some immediate results but the complete review of the Clean Power Plan that Obama created could take years to complete. Trump declared that American society has been battling "a war on coal" and promised a new age with a thriving coal and natural gas industry. Trump stood beside coal miners and members of his cabinet when making his promise to the EPA to create more jobs and foster production on American soil. Critics of Trump's decision claim that no matter what he tries to do, the coal industry is dying and will not be making a comeback due to the cheaper option of using natural gas. It seems that following this action, the world is waiting in anticipation to see whether or not the U.S. will remain in the Paris Agreement on climate change in the future.

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President Trump Signs Executive Order Rolling Major Environmental Rules

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President Trump will sign an executive order to shift U.S. environmental policy and begin undoing Obama-era environmental regulations

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Researchers from the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica wrote a report about how climate change doesn't just effect physical health but also can cause negative effects on mental health such as anxiety and depression. This study states that issues such as trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression are all tied to extreme weather events and gradual increases in temperature and sea level that are all connected to climate change. According to the new report, these negative effects can contribute to the destabilization of various agricultural and indigenous communities who economically and culturally rely strongly on their landscapes. The reports also offered suggestions to combat these negative effects such as building social connections. The report also called on communities to include mental health considerations when preparing for climate-related disasters.

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The Climate Change Problem No One Talks About: Anxiety and Depression

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The impacts of climate change on individuals extend beyond health effects like asthma and heat-related ailments to mental health

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President Trump's opinions on climate change and his efforts to reverse President Obama's climate change measures is concerning to several foreign nations. Nevertheless they have vowed to be persistent and carry on efforts to fight climate change. These major global powers have differing opinions, China and the European leading the pack with the strongest opposition. The partnership between China and the U.S. was essential to the creation of the Paris Agreement. As the the two biggest economies and emitters of carbon dioxide the agreement they came to put the globe in a position to move forward in environmental movement. China resents President Trump for potentially backing out of the Paris Agreement but have stated they will not waver in their support of the agreement and achieving its goals. The European Union has stated they will also lead on climate change issues regardless of what the U.S. Similarly to the E.U., Canada has vowed to press forward regardless of what the U.S. does. Even India, who has never prioritized environmental issues, has also vowed to push for clean energy.

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How the World Is Responding to President Trump's Climate Policies

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Several countries vowed to push ahead on efforts to fight climate change this week even as they expressed dismay at Donald Trump