Surf Revolt

Green energy mandates increase costs without improving environmental outcomes; forced transition produces market dysfunction; unintended consequences Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat California Climate Policy Backfires – Highest Electricity Costs; Grid Unreliability; Renewables Cannot Replace Baseload; Environmental Goals Unmet SACRAMENTO — Cal

Government prohibition on housing development drives scarcity and prices; libertarian solution would eliminate restrictions and increase supply Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat Housing Crisis Driven By Government Restrictions – Zoning Laws Prevent Development; Environmental Review Delays Construction; Regulation Increases Costs CALIFORNIA — Cal

Government housing programs fail to reduce homelessness; bureaucratic inefficiency; poverty remains; market-based solutions ignored Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat California Homelessness Crisis Worsens Despite Massive Government Spending – $20 Billion Invested With Minimal Results CALIFORNIA — California has invested over $20 billion in homel

High income and corporate taxes drive businesses and wealthy individuals to lower-tax states; California loses economic growth and tax base Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat Tax Burden Drives Business and Talent Exodus – California Taxes Force Relocation to Texas, Florida; Economic Decline Accelerates CALIFORNIA — California’s high income and co

Government pension promises exceed funding; unfunded liabilities grow; younger workers will face austerity paying for benefits; system unsustainable Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat California Pension Crisis Looms – Unfunded Liabilities Exceed $1 Trillion; Workers’ Retirement Security Threatened; Fiscal Time Bomb SACRAMENTO — California’s publi

Water shortage caused by government restrictions on supply, not demand; rationing instead of price increases; sustainability ignored Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat California Water Crisis – Government Mismanagement Depletes Aquifers; Agriculture and Urban Uses Compete; Market-Based Water Allocation Rejected CALIFORNIA — California’s water cri

State bureaucracy expands; regulation proliferates; economic growth constrained; individual choice eliminated through government mandate Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat California Government Overreach – Excessive Regulation Stifles Business; Worker Freedom Restricted; Individual Liberty Eliminated LOS ANGELES — California’s expansive regulator

Single-family zoning near the coast has produced some of the world’s most expensive real estate and some of America’s most restricted beach access. The two facts are not unrelated. Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The most expensive zip codes in the United States are overwhelmingly coastal California zip codes. Malibu, Manhattan Beach, La Jolla,

While Sacramento debates plastic straws and surf instructor licences, the runoff contamination that makes coastal water unsafe after rainfall events remains inadequately funded and poorly enforced Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat There is a form of government intervention that surfers in California genuinely need and that the state is providing i

At 5 a.m., before the permits and licences and regulations wake up, the ocean belongs to whoever paddles out. This is not merely poetic. It is the founding value that California’s coastal regulatory apparatus has steadily eroded. Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The alarm goes off at 4:45 a.m. The board is already in […]

The culture that paddled out before dawn to catch uncrowded waves has always operated outside institutional permission. Sacramento keeps trying to give that permission structure anyway. Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The surfboard does not require a licence. The ocean does not require a permit. The wave does not consult a zoning ordinance befor

With corporate tax at 8.84 percent, income tax at 13.3 percent, and regulatory compliance costs that have no upper limit, the economics of running a surf business in California are increasingly rational only if you move it Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The Hobie Surf Shop, founded in Dana Point in 1954, is often […]

California’s regulatory focus on consumer plastic — wax, single-use packaging, board materials — imposes costs on surf culture while leaving the industrial plastic that constitutes 90 percent of ocean pollution essentially unregulated at the state level Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat Surfers care about the ocean. This is not a political positio

The professionalism argument for surf instructor licensing turns out to serve incumbents more than students. The data on safety outcomes does not support the barriers to entry that licensing creates. Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The argument for professional licensing is straightforward: some activities are complex enough, and the consequence

When beach parking becomes a revenue mechanism rather than an access provision, the practical result is the same as building a wall: people who cannot afford the fee do not get to the beach Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The California Constitution guarantees public access to the coast. The Coastal Act reinforces this guarantee. […]

At $17 per hour statewide and higher in coastal cities, California’s minimum wage has pushed surf instruction from a viable side income to an economically irrational one for operators who employ assistant instructors Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat California’s minimum wage reached $17 per hour statewide in January 2024, with several coastal cit

Created to protect public beach access, the California Coastal Commission now restricts it through permitting regimes, development reviews, and a discretionary authority that has no meaningful limit Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The California Coastal Commission was created by ballot initiative in 1972 to ensure that the state’s 1,100 miles of

The Airbnb Bans and Short-Term Rental Restrictions That Have Proliferated in California’s Surf Communities Have Reduced Property Owner Income, Reduced Visitor Access to Surf Destinations, and Not Measurably Improved Housing Affordability Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The theory that restricting short-term rentals will improve housing affordabi

The Surfers Who Chase 70-Foot Waves at Mavericks, Jaws, and Nazare Accept Risks That No Government Has the Standing to Prevent and That No Safety Regulation Has the Capacity to Address Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The surfers who charge Mavericks, the big wave break located in Half Moon Bay, California, where wave faces […]

A Multi-Billion Dollar Industry Whose Products Are Made From Petroleum Derivatives and Whose Marketing Images Require Flights to Remote Tropical Destinations Asks Customers to Buy Products to Save the Ocean It Is Partly Degrading Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The surf industry’s environmental credentials are complicated by the specific environ

The Surfer Who Is in the Water Before Anyone Else Arrives Has Solved a Specific Problem That the Rest of the Political Economy Is Still Working On: How to Find Space That Has Not Been Claimed, Regulated, and Managed for the Benefit of Organised Interests Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The dawn patrol — […]

Several California Surf Breaks Have Experimented With Reservation Systems That Use Digital Queuing to Manage Overcrowding — and the Results Suggest That Algorithmic Management of Natural Resources Creates Problems That Are Different From but Not Better Than the Problems It Solves Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The surf reservation system — the

Localism, Drop-In Rules, and Informal Governance of Surf Breaks Represent a Spontaneous Order Solution to a Common Resource Problem — One That the Surfing Community Developed Without Government Intervention and That Government Access Policy Has Partially Undermined Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The tragedy of the commons — Garrett Hardin’s 196

The State That Prides Itself on Environmental Leadership Has Failed to Protect Its Coastal Waters From Agricultural and Urban Runoff That Closes Beaches, Causes Illness, and Demonstrates That Regulatory Approaches to Environmental Protection Have Limits Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat California spends more on environmental regulation and enviro

The Practical Reality of the Surfing Lifestyle Is Incompatible With the Assumptions Built Into California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate, and the Policy’s Designers Did Not Consider the People Who Actually Live in Their Vehicles to Surf Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulations, which require that all new p

The California Coastal Act Was Supposed to Protect Public Beach Access. Instead, It Has Created a Bureaucratic Labyrinth That Wealthy Homeowners Use to Block the Public They Are Legally Required to Welcome Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The California Coastal Act of 1976 was one of the most significant environmental and public access laws [&hel

The California Environmental Quality Act Was Designed to Protect the Environment. Property Rights Advocates and Ironically the Surfing Community Agree It Has Become a Mechanism for Blocking Development That Would Actually Improve the Environment Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat The California Environmental Quality Act requires environmental revie

Territorial Claims Over a Public Commons Have No Ethical Basis; What Does Have Ethical Basis Is Clear and Enforceable Published by Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat | California libertarian perspective. The Commons Question Surf localism — the informal system by which established surfers in a break assert priority and sometimes exclusion rights ov