Rethinking the Ark
Noah Peffer has spent his life around boats. Growing up near Martha’s Vineyard, sailing with his parents, and fostering a love for the ocean, Noah unwittingly dedicated his life to maritime adventure. Studying fine art sculpting at Tufts, Noah realized that he needed to fuse his passion for wood-working and art with a practical vocation — one that would pay the bills. He began his career as a carpenter, enabling himself to not only work with his hands, but also to build complex pieces like his own sailboat.
A sailing professor at both the University of Southern California and CalState, Noah’s sincere love for his craft and maritime culture is palpable. He teaches with such deep reverence for the ocean, such keen awareness of nature’s unpredictable temper, and an understanding that out at sea sailing is a constant game of adaptation to changing circumstance.
In a recent lecture about boat-building, Noah led with, “People seem to forget that wood comes from trees,” jolting us awake to the reality of boat-building and the gargantuan devotion of resources toward it. Why did boats on average get smaller over time? It because we were running out of trees.
However, it wasn’t until Noah’s recent trip to the Redwood Forest that the gravity of deforestation became clear. In this film, Noah mentions that he could never build something as “cool” as these “jurassic forests.” While he recognizes his own contribution to deforestation, that trip nurtured a progressive attitude and aim toward sustainable methods, from not buying lumber from exploitive area, recycling old lumber, and using alternative materials.
Noah isn’t the perfect role model of sustainability now, but he’s in a very relatable predicament: How do we continue to do the things we love without jeopardizing our future? How do we become more sustainable, bit by bit, day by day?
