Crude Awakening March to the White House

We have been shocked, outraged and deeply saddened by the events since the April 20th oil rig explosion in the Gulf.

Mike has been using every opportunity to spread the word that at this volume of operation, human error guarantees that BP-type spills will happen again. No new regulations will tame this beast. The only thing that will tame it is a reduction in the use of oil itself. If we don’t like massive, economy-wrecking spills, we must begin to transition rapidly to an economy where there’s just a lot less oil to spill.

In the past week, Mike’s been interviewed by Katie Couric, Diane Rehm, and syndicated columnist Clarence Page.

We’re also making sure Va. Governor Bob McDonnell knows that Virginians want Wind, Not Oil (Have you signed the “Wind Not Oil” petition yet?)!

Now we need to make sure the Obama administration hears our concerns and acts upon them.

On Saturday, 350.org supporters in New Orleans will attend a rally where they will call on President Obama to ban offshore drilling and invest in clean energy. They will sign a banner that reads PRESIDENT OBAMA: THIS IS YOUR CRUDE AWAKENING. That banner will be brought to Washington DC, where CCAN will join with 350.org to deliver it at a rally in front of the White House.

Can you join us on Tuesday from 12:30-1:30pm to march from the Interior Department to the White House and deliver the message to President Obama?

RSVP here or visit the Facebook Event Page for more details!

WHAT: Crude Awakening March to the White House

WHEN: Tuesday, May 11 12:30-1:30pm

WHERE: Meet in Triangle Park, across from the Interior Department at 18th & C St. NW

* We will depart Triangle Park at 12:45 sharp! *

This is a unique moment, and we have the opportunity to shape the national story around this terrible disaster. Do we want to just stop any new offshore drilling, or do we want to take one step farther and begin the wholesale transformation to clean, safe energy? How about some of the old “yes, we can,” spirit?

Please join us next Tuesday, and thank you for your commitment and your action.

Wind not Oil!

As the Gulf Coast oil catastrophe quickly grows into one of the largest environmental disasters in United States history, Hampton Roads residents rallied in Virginia Beach today to call for a permanent moratorium on offshore drilling and a renewed focus on developing wind farms off Virginia’s coasts instead.

The Gulf Coast oil spill disaster is a tragic reminder that the price of offshore oil drilling is far too high. A similar spill off Virginia Beach could reach as far south as Cape May and reach into the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay.

Virginia is on track to become the first state on the East Coast to open its shores to offshore oil drilling following Bush-era roll back of moratoriums protecting Atlantic drilling. To demonstrate the risk posed by offshore oil drilling, we staged a mock “oil slick” at Virginia Beach’s oceanfront.

In light of the tremendous safety concerns raised by the Gulf Coast oil spill, the Obama Administration announced Thursday it was suspending hearings on a proposed oil lease sale off Virginia’s coastline. While we are encouraged by this announcement, we urge the Administration to replace the permanent moratorium on offshore oil drilling while re-doubling efforts to develop wind farms off Virginia’s coast instead.

Today’s gathering in Virginia Beach was part of a massive grassroots movement taking place around the country, of communities calling for an end to offshore drilling and the need to move towards a clean energy future. Over 50 protests nationwide are expected this week.

Against a torrent of oil, a trickle of responsibility

Of the many things lacking in the response to the BP spill, responsibility ranks pretty high on the list. From President Obama’s reluctance to reverse his decision to expand offshore drilling, to BP’s shameless attempts to play the innocent victim card, and the far right’s attempts to pin the blame on environmentalists, responsible words and actions have been in short supply. So it’s been refreshing to see at least some public figures attempting to reverse that trend.

In what could be the first inklings of a mounting wave of political push back against the reckless drill-baby-drill mentality, several political leaders from coastal states including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and six US Senators, have spoken out in defense of their states coastlines and common sense by calling on President Obama to reverse his offshore drilling decision.

Among the Senators were Maryland Senators Mikulski and Cardin, who as I noted in an earlier post, wrote a letter to Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman in March calling on the three to keep offshore drilling out of the climate bill they were working on.

That letter was unfortunately ignored, but now that the Senators have a more visible platform from which to trumpet their concerns it’s good to see that they are using it.

Even still, more is needed. Despite recognizing the unacceptable risks posed by a cavalier policy towards offshore drilling, the Senators stopped short of recognizing the unacceptable risks posed by our oil dependence as a whole. Instead they reiterated Obama’s claim “that domestic oil production is an important part of our overall strategy for energy security,” adding that “it must be done responsibly, for the safety of our workers and our environment.”

Responsibility, safety, and energy security are not terms that should be used in the same sentence as the phrase oil production, unless juxtaposed against it. Given the threats of climate change, peak oil, and the thousands of oil-related air pollution deaths that occur every year, it’s hard to see how any policy except a policy to aggressively shift us away from the use of oil, could possibly be considered responsible with respect to the safety of our workers, the general public, our environment or our energy security.

As Grist’s Jonathan Hiskes pointed out last week, there may never be a better opportunity for our political leaders to make this case to the public. We have to demand that they do so. It’s the only responsible thing to do.

Tidwell Talks Oil Spill on the Diane Rehm Show

Coastal Louisiana author and CCAN director Mike Tidwell spoke to Diane Rehm this morning about the oil spill and its impact on the already vulnerable Louisiana coasts. Tidwell’s 2003 best-selling book “Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast” catalogued how the Louisiana wetlands are vulnerable to oil drilling activity as well as the related consequences of climate change.

Mike has reported extensively from the drilling fields of the Gulf of Mexico and can speak directly to the enormous scale and scope of the drilling operation there.

The show also features Jackie Savitz, Pollution Campaign Director and Senior Scientist for Oceana, Stephen Power, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and Rayola Dougher, senior economic adviser for the American Petroleum Institute.

Listen now!

Tragic oil spill = smarter climate bill?

Several weeks before president Obama made the tragic decision to approve expanded offshore drilling, Maryland Senators Cardin and Mikulski joined eight other coastal-state senators on a letter to their colleagues Kerry, Lieberman and Graham pressing the trio to keep expanded offshore drilling out of their now-floundering climate and energy package.

In the letter the Senators warned about the serious threats such drilling posed to their coast lines:

While technological advances have attempted to lower the environmental and economic risks of drilling, experience has shown that no technology is foolproof. Since 1964 offshore operators have had 40 spills of greater than 42,000 gallons