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I live and surf in SoCal. SoCal like many coastal areas has a trash problem, well it’s really a people problem. Too many people leaving there trash and too many people not caring about others trash. 5ones posts on one solution for the trash problem devised by a 13 year old. “At the ripe old age of 9, the Southern California native Cobi Emery did what few 9 yr. olds would do and started his own environmental organization, PickUp3. Cobi had become unsettled with the conditions that the beaches he grew up surfing at were progressively becoming more cluttered with every imaginable piece of trash known to man.” Cobi’s solution is simple and easy to implement, every time you go to the beach clean up your mess and pick up and dispose of 3 pieces of trash.

Hopefully, Cobi’s work will inspire cleaner beaches. Mexico tried their own version with a trash-fishing contest, why not here?

I bought a magnificent quad fin fish last year. Surfs beautifully, sadly it won’t last. It’s a fiberglass board glassed with light fiberglass probably for high performance. Within a couple session, the deck had visible dents on it and I had to apply another layer of glass and resin to it. Fiberglass boards are the one-hit wonders of surfboards. They’re great for a few months, but die out after that, losing pop and gaining weight from dings. Within a year of consistent surf, if they’re not already broken most traditional fiberglass surfboards are done at a high environmental costs. Nothing can be recycled with fiberglass boards, they’re made with toxic chemicals, and production of the blanks, resin, and fiberglass requires petrochemicals and outputs a significant amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Simply, the system is broken. It was born broken.

Fortunately, there are more sustainable options becoming available. Ecowarrior, Joe Santley, started the company ReSurf along with support from Lost surfboards to begin recycling surfboards (ask your local surfshop that they begin participating). The ReSurf website explains more about the project and list nearby locations. Greenlight Surfboard Supply makes Bamboo fins and other sustainable surfboard materials.

Country Feeling Surfboards is a company building surfboards out of these sustainable materials. “Country Feeling Surfboards celebrates the nature that surrounds us with surfboards made with environmentally friendly materials:  soy-based  and   sugar-based  foams; deck inlays made from hemp, organic cotton, bamboo and silk; and resin that is catalyzed by the sun.”

What seems like the best option is the resurgence of wooden surfboards. The entire process is sustainable. They’re locally buily, often using local materials, the strong and long lasting. After years and years of use, when it comes time to retire them they’re completely recyclable. The wood can be reused or composted. They’re expensive but if you consider a fiberglass is likely to have a 1/4 the lifetime of a good wooden board and that many wooden boards may last a lifetime then they’re simply good investments.

Grain Surfboards are based in York, Maine and build beautifully crafted, hand shaped wooden boards. Hess Surfboards is based in Ocean Beach, San Francisco and also build hand shaped wooden boards. For the deck and bottom of the board, Hess uses sustainably farmed poplar and red cedar (salvaged from local Victorian homes). For the rails he uses cork and for the fins, bamboo. A small amount of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam. Boards start around $1300. A look through their gallery will be enough to convince you. The Surfer’s Journal has written features on both of them. Timberline Surfboards offers wooden surfboards shaped out of Santa Barbara, CA.

A shark injured a 49-year-old American surfer Saturday, May 24, at Playa Linda in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. The attack is the third in one month in the area with a fatal attack on a Mexican surfer occurring a day earlier 20 minutes north near the beach resort area of Troncones. Adrian Ruiz, a surfer from San Francisco, was killed in an attack in April in Troncones. Authorities have not closed beaches in Zihuatanejo, but people were being advised against swimming.

Bruce Grimes, 49 from Florida, suffered minor injuries in the attack and managed to get to the hospital on his own.

“I felt something brush past me three times, scraping my skin like sandpaper. Then I saw a three-meter (10-foot) shark attacking my right arm,” Bruce Grimes told reporters after leaving the hospital Saturday.

Official blame the new influx of shark in the area on climate change.

“We brought shark specialists to the area and the first thing they said was that [sharks] could be because of cold water currents caused by climate change,” said Guerrero state’s environmental minister, Sabas de la Rosa. [Link to story]

Troncones, Mexico is officially the worst place to surf right now. Unfortunately, after the first attack in April there, local authorities responded by baiting and killing 12 sharks. It’s interesting that they blame climate change for sharp increase in shark attacks (Mexico hasn’t had a fatal shark attack in 30 years before the attack in April). I wrote a post a little while back on scientists linking increased shark attacks on global warming. I’m sure there will be a million theories on it, but it a troubling trend with three fatal attacks in one month.

The shark hunt by local authorities after the last hunt becomes particularly questionable after a recent report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature that more than half of the world’s shark are under threat of extinction.

With all the space-age technology going into surfboards these days (including the collapsible carbon fiber board), you wouldn’t expect the next step in shaping innovation to be cardboard. Mike Sheldrake, a surfer and computer programmer is San Diego, took a novel approach to building a better surfboard: he researched aerospace design and used 3-D computer modeling software to to design a snap-together deck built out of 400 pieces of computer cut corrugated cardboard. He then covered it with fiberglass and epoxy resin. Thanks to a mathematically sound triangular pattern, force is evenly dispersed throughout the board—making it incredibly strong. The design and construction avoid the use of expensive tools, making it cheap and easy to assemble. The result is a cheap, strong design made primarily from sustainable materials and one that’s remarkably beautiful. [Youtube videos below show assembly of the board after jump]

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We’ve blamed pretty much everything else on global warming, why not increased shark attacks? The Guardian UK published an article linking the recent shark attacks to global warming. There’s been an increase on shark attacks in the last couple of years (especially in Florida). US has suffered the worst with 70% of the worldwide sharks attacks in 2007 occurring in US waters. The author suggests more people visiting the coast (due to higher general population), increased seal populations, and warmer sea temps potentially causing sharks into areas they haven’t been in the past. All the evidence seems anecdotal, and the scientists seem to be postulating rather than having any real evidence. Here’s a graph from the International Shark Attack File that shows how much shark attacks have increased in the past century. (more after the jump)

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The jury may still be out for some people about whether global warming is actually occurring, but for many of us it’s pretty obvious. I’m already investing in property in Oregon as the new Costa Rica (give it 200 years). Global warming’s effects on surf and waves isn’t as obvious. Rising sea levels are likely to turn epic surf spots like Pipeline into warm water mush burgers, but there’s some good news for surfers. There’s evidence that global warming is creating more larger storms, which means bigger waves. Seismologists have been able to document the phenomena (link). So next time you ditch your board on a set wave and swim, blame it on global warming not fear.