Oceans, Waves and Beaches

Meanwhile back in the Gulf of Mexico they are still cleaning up oil. They’ve evolved their approach, using UV light to identify oil on the beaches.

Building on the recent great article about Surfrider’s work in the Gulf is the below video.
It’s University of South Florida researcher Rip Kirby, recently featured on National Geographic, at this months Emerald Coast chapter meeting. The video is a tad shaky but priceless nonetheless. Rip’s commentary illustrates out the value of local knowledge and grassroots [...]

I podcast to share the gold.
(re-posted from mid-2008)
A few days ago I had breakfast with Julia Chunn. She was born and raised in San Diego, became smitten with the ocean while perched on the front of her dad’s longboard as a kid, came up through the ranks of the San Diego chapter, went on to [...]

I made a trip to the Gulf of Mexico after the oil spill and it was one of the most defining experiences I’ve had at Surfrider. The essence of Sufrider boils down to an activist engaging to preserve their local coasts and the Gulf trip illustrated that concept in spades.
In the midst of a Wag-the-Dog-esque, [...]

Let’s start by establishing the value of the coastlines we’re talking about in the United States.

Coastal tourism in CA, FL, NY, NJ, TX and WA alone account for $175 billion dollars in leisure and hospiutality companies, services and jobs.
Fishing from both coasts accounts for $11.8 billion and $1.9 billion in recreational and commercial fishing respectively.
If [...]

Every staph infection story I’ve heard is nasty… including this one.
That said I think these ARE stories that need to be told… heard.
Joe Mario is you. He’s me. He’s all of us. He’s going about his life, finding his place to add value to the world and enjoying his natural surroundings.
When I spoke to him [...]

The Atlantic’s list of the 14 biggest tech stories of 2010 is full of the usual suspects; ipad release, netflix gobbling up net traffic, etc. One caught my attention, the BP oil spill.
Here is an excerpt
“All of our fancy technology and (you know) civilization sit perched atop a distressed and risky energy system. While [...]

Having come from the tech/business sector and worked for companies such as SAP, I am often asked what I perceive the major difference is between for-profit and non-profit business. Specifically, there seems to be some cloudiness within the general population as to how non-profit organizations measure success.
This is understandable if one compares a NPO to [...]

Many people forget it was George Bush I, in 1990, that put a federal moratorium on net new offshore drilling  in place. He did this as a reaction to the Exxon Valdez spill which, in many ways, helped launch the environmental movement. The offshore moratorium served us well for almost two decades and was allowed [...]

If we are honest with ourselves we will admit we’ve industrialized the open spaces that we used to hold up as examples of places too special to develop.
What do you think of when you hear the word “beach”?
Casey McKee takes the idea of “beaches” and “coasts” and challenges the imagery that’s commonly associated with those [...]