Surfer Chadd Konig first gained national attention when he paddled 315 miles from Santa Barbara, California to Mexico to raise awareness about a proposed development project west of Goleta, California. Now he’s set his sights on fracking. Two days ago he completed a paddle of the 300 miles of sharky coastline between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Check out photos of the trip here. The Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit based in Central California, writes on its website that, “In early May, 2011…it was discovered that Venoco, Inc. had hydraulically fractured two oil wells ... Read More
Will Climate Change Wipe Out Surfing?
August 9, 2012 • By • 1 Comment
Jacob Hechter is gingerly traversing the rocks on his way out to Rincon, in Santa Barbara. Known as the Queen of the Coast, Rincon is a 300-yard cobblestone point that lies at a right angle to the rest of the Southern California coast, catching swells and sending surfers barreling down its sweeping curve. As he navigates the rocks, Hechter, a cartographer, muses aloud about what climate change might mean for a sport whose domain is the thin slice of Earth where the lip of the land gives way to the fury of the ocean—a domain that is expected to alter dramatically as the world heats ... Read More
Addressing PTSD With Surf Therapy
July 20, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
For the last handful of years, Britain and the United States have done quiet experiments with a new form of therapy for veterans suffering from combat stress, using a resource neither nation lacks along their coasts: surf. "Ocean therapy," or surf therapy, will surprise longtime surfers mainly because of the official-sounding name; the idea that an ocean and a surfboard can be good for the body and mind is otherwise not very new. But recent studies have tried to quantify just what happens in the water. The United Kingdom's National Health Service is still conducting trials in Cornwall, ... Read More
Michael Scott Moore Surfing the Airwaves
June 24, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Those who know our European Dispatch columnist Michael Scott Moore for his takeouts on subjects like Holocaust denial, how Europe is coping with its Muslim masses or the Western influence on Somali piracy may be surprised to learn that he’s also an avid — and well-traveled — surfer. Now, as The New York Times’ Andy Martin has put it, Moore’s become a surf bard with the arrival of his new book, Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, With Some Unexpected Results. In a series of essays from little-discussed surfing spots like ... Read More
Tilting at Turbines
April 16, 2009 • By • 1 Comment
The morning was clear and cold, with frost on the church steeple and the cemetery grass. I had a quick English breakfast at a white-cloth table, in my wetsuit, and drove to Newnham, a village on the Severn River in Gloucestershire, parking near the White Hart Inn. Glinting brown water stretched at least a hundred yards from the inn to cow pastures on the opposite side. The current moved with a placid, lazy force to my right. Across the road behind me, a pasture of sheep freezing their tails off bleated from different hapless positions on the grass. "It's a very slow wave," an old farmer ... Read More
