Oceans, Waves and Beaches

We have moved this blog to here http://www.surfrider.org/jims-blog
The new RSS for my blog is here http://www.surfrider.org/jims-blog/rss
Thanks for connecting with our oceans, waves and beaches.
J

Many of us have weaned ourselves off our habit of accepting single-use plastic bags at stores. We’ve also made personal pledges to not accept single-use water bottles. But those two items are just the tip of the iceberg. The real, hard truth is that single-use plastic elements (forks, take-out containers, etc.) are everywhere.
Why should we [...]

I popped a photo from Guatemala up a few days ago.  Anna, a Facebook friend saw those and shared the below photos with me from a place she loves, Dakar in Senegal.
Surfrider’s new strategic plan has a very simple vision, healthy coast.
A healthy coast looks like this.
An unhealthy coast looks like this (yes that cat [...]

You may remember our recent Art for the Oceans event. Shepard Fairey’s work was a) large b) veeery multi-layered and c) worthy of capturing the monolithic wave… Jaws.
Good news, you can grab a T with this image at the Obey site.

As many of you know there was a full-court press to help California lead the nation to take a meaningful stand on single-use plastics. Many of us reached out to our networks of friends, family and coworkers to engage them in this campaign and ask the California leadership to take a stand.
The California leadership failed [...]

Despite the overzealous efforts by BP and our Federal government thousands and thousands of pounds of oil are still being taken out of the Gulf of Mexico every day.
The “it’s all gone” and “oh wait there’s more” game being played is nothing short of a shell game.
BP poured millions of gallons of dispersant on the [...]

The United States government, a democracy, exists to serve and protect its citizens. Abraham Lincoln summarized this well with the ending line of the Gettysburg Address “…government of the people, by the people and for the people…”
So why are the United States Federal agencies involved in the Gulf spill failing the people? Why is a [...]

Tropical depressions mix things up. This time around the tropical depression is mixing up the oil which was sunk by the extensive use of dispersants and is washing it onto the shores of beaches.
This shouldn’t be surprising to us… at all. Especially when you think of the things in perspective. The government has said “half [...]

I spent this past week on the Gulf coast along the upper Florida panhandle (everything west of Panama City) and on the Alabama coast. During my trip, I spoke with various business owners, water enthusiasts, lifeguards, hazmat workers, tourists and our Emerald Coast Surfrider chapter. Many topics were discussed but the one that rises [...]