Commentary: It's been a great romance, but it's time to rethink our relationship with the California coast

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Set us as preferred If you’d like to live near the water along the spectacular California coast at some point in your life, you have a number of options.You can settle in, say, Culver City, which is several miles inland, and wait for rising tides to arrive.Or, if you just can’t wait that long, I saw a listing you might be interested in.It’s in Capitola, near Santa Cruz, right next to the wharf.

The three bedroom, two bath, 1,850-square-foot condo, one of a string of Venetian, pastel beachfront homes, is listed for $3,995,000.“The beach is your backyard, the cool ocean is your pool,” says the promo.Given what’s happening right now along the California coast, you might not have to leave that condo to go for a swim.But UC Santa Cruz oceanographer and geologist Gary Griggs, who has seen the thrashing of that row of homes in previous years, is not going to make an offer.“I’ve got a number of photos,” he said, “that show waves breaking over the top.”Someone will buy the place, eventually, despite the chance of it becoming a fish tank.

California is flush with dumb money and bad judgment, and an insatiable romance with an epic 1,200-mile shoreline.But it’s time to rethink the relationship.Climate & Environment Overwhelmed by El Niño forecasts? An expert explains how a confluence of high tide cycles could peak around Thanksgiving and Christmas along coastal California.Last weekend in Long Beach I said a few words at the 50th anniversary of the California Coastal Act, which has kept our shoreline from looking like Atlantic City or Miami Beach by balancing sensible development with conservation and public access.“The coast is never saved, it’s always being saved,” I said at the 50th, borrowing as I often do from the late Peter Douglas, hammering home the need for constant stewardship, from one genera...