But wait! Could free market capitalism save the day?
A nightmare scenario is developing in California’s other surf city. A terror so grave it is almost impossible to imagine. Santa Cruz, and its iconic waves, could be entirely undone by climate change leaving Pete Mel, Ken Collins and Jason Collins all bereft.
Santa Cruz has a surf history as rich as any hamlet on earth, of course. Three Hawaiian princes are said to have brought their favorite pastime to those pristine shores in the late 1800s and it has flourished ever since. Steamer Lane, Pleasure Point, The Hook etc. all now very famous.
But, again, climate change and its deniers might just snuff them out.
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the Save the Waves Coalition and Black Surf Santa Cruz embarking upon the most in-depth economic value of surfing in Santa Cruz in an effort to inspire care and conservation!
Save the Waves Senior Manager Trent Hodges told Lookout Santa Cruz, “We’ve never done a holistic picture of what surfing brings in terms of economic impact, from the surfers visiting here to coastal property values and travel costs. All that information is really important when we think about how to prioritize protecting our surf breaks.”
The study will be conducted alongside California State University Channel Islands and funded by a $199,999 grant. Professional surfer Shaun Burns, the World Surfing Reserve coordinator for Save the Waves, shared that he hopes the various surveys will pinpoint exactly how much money surfing pumps into the local economy. “Everyone always starts out with millions of dollars,” he said. “But the funny thing is, no one has that exact number.”
Surfider Foundation CEO Chad Nelsen, who coined the idea of “Surfonomics” wherein the monetary value of waves causes businesses etc. to become more ecological based upon greed, declared, “There’s no lift-ticket price for swimming and surfing in the ocean. But there’s a value to the waves at Steamer Lane even though it’s free to access them.”
Economist Jason “Ratboy” Scorse was the first to ever examine how surf impact housing prices, in 2013, and discovered that people were willing to pay $100,000 more dollars to live near good waves. This new study will be much fuller, though, and the team hopes to be finished by March 2025.
If you had to guess, what Shawn Dollar amount would you put on surfing’s value to Santa Cruz?
Please don’t start out with a million.
