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Vampire Planet: The Case for Letting Malibu Flood

A coastline erodes as sea levels rise. Long Beach, California. Photo by Joshua Frank.

This week in the Anthropocene

The first major swell of the year pummeled Southern California this week, and onlookers flocked to Balboa Peninsula in ritzy Newport Beach to watch adrenaline junkies attack the Wedge – a mutant wave that ricochets off a rock jetty, forming a steep, heavy wall of water that accelerates and breaks chaotically. Only the bravest (craziest?) dare to face it down.

A wild storm system, nearly the size of the United States, took shape in the central South Pacific last week and hurled massive wave energy toward California and Baja, Mexico. It was the perfect setup to awaken the sleeping Wedge and the lore and danger that accompany the deadly break. As the big swell arrived on Tuesday, lifeguards were already rescuing daredevils from the rough waters.

However, amid all the excitement, er, stoke, as we surfers call it, lies a coastline that continues to be chewed up by high tides, large swells, and rising seas. The Wedge, for example, is slowly encroaching on multimillion-dollar beachfront property, forcing the City of Newport to bulldoze mounds of sand onto the beach in hopes of fending off erosion. It’s a relentless problem that is set to worsen in the years ahead as climate breakdown continues.

Of course, it’s not only this stretch of the Orange County coast that’s in danger of having its beaches swallowed by the ocean. In Long Beach, where I live, sand is continually brought in to protect pricey homes along the city’s peninsula from flooding as the ocean expands as the icebergs melt. It’s a conundrum plaguing much of California.

Malibu, Dana Point, San Francisco, Seal Beach, and many other coastal cities are experiencing severe erosion, prompting them to adopt novel approaches, often trucking in sand as........

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