Rick Crawford
We are thrilled to announce our new blog series “The Sustainable Angler!” Our intent is educate and create more awareness about the impact things like climate change, plastic pollution, over-population and policy have on our fisheries. So, we are interviewing the biggest names in fly fishing to discuss what they are seeing on the water and what might be possible solutions to the aforementioned problems.
I would personally like to thank Hilary Hutcheson, Jako Lucas and Todd Tanner for their willingness to participate in The Sustainable Angler blog series, and also bring the climate change discussion to the forefront and begin talking about it. And let me be clear, I am not a climate scientist and neither are those I am interviewing, but the reality is that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are accelerating the warming of the planet by burning fossil fuels, and I believe them! Why do I believe them? I believe them because I trust in the scientific method, which is:
a method of research in which a problem is identified (planet warming), relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from the data (does burning fossil fuels accelerating the warming of our planet?), and the hypothesis is empirically tested.
Well, 97% of climate scientists concluded that burning fossils fuels is in fact accelerating the warming of the planet to dangerous levels. That is enough reason for me to do everything I can both personally and through my business to protect what I love.
However, if you don’t believe in climate change, and you are certainly entitled to your beliefs, I respect them and would ask everyone reading this blog series to do the same. This is not about “I’m right” and “you’re wrong” but about having adult conversations about a topic that has massive implications to our fisheries. Additionally, our purpose as a company is to protect what we love, and we intend to do just that!
All of that being said, the bottom line is I love fly fishing. I love everything related to the experience. The camaraderie, the early mornings and hot coffee. I love when everything goes wrong (in hindsight of course), traveling to new places and appreciating just how beautiful the world we live in actually is…and catching fish is just a bonus. So, I hope you enjoy reading The Sustainable Angler over the coming months, and wherever you are, begin to protect what you love too, because if you don’t, no one else will!
Stay tuned as The Sustainable Angler will be a monthly blog series with more of the biggest names in fly fishing!