The BP oil spill: another wakeup call

Along with the rest of the country, I am watching yet another environmental disaster caused by dirty energy. I have been extremely worried about the Gulf Coast over the last week ever since a British Petroleum off-shore oil rig exploded and sank. The site is now leaking 42,000 gallons of oil a day. My heart goes out to the families of the missing oil rig workers.

With the Coast Guard's current proposal to burn off the oil spill and release massive amounts of pollutants into our skies, the BP oil rig explosion is a disaster no matter what we do now. All we can hope is that perhaps the amazing Gulf of Mexico shoreline will be spared. Small comfort, I know.

These disasters always have a deep impact on me. However, this one is hurting more than most of them do. Last fall, I took a last-minute solo vacation to the west coast of Florida. While I was there I fell in love with the beauty of the Gulf beaches (sitting on my desk is a shell from Lover’s Key State Park in Florida). It was an amazing place to experience. Here's a picture I took of the beach from a canoe I rented:

I had actually never been in ocean water so warm or on beaches so beautiful. I am a beach girl at heart and those are some of the most amazing beaches I have ever seen. All of the areas around the Gulf of Mexico are teeming with wildlife, warm water, and amazing people. These are people who, frankly, have been through enough with the hurricanes they have already suffered. The devastation will be massive from this new disaster and future ones if the dirty energy industry is allowed to continue drilling in the Gulf: human and wildlife illnesses and deaths; ruined beaches, wetlands and shorelines; and the ruin of many livelihoods.

We have seen so much loss and sacrifice in recent years due to problems in the dirty energy sector. It has been just a few weeks since West Virginia lost 29 coal miners in an explosion. And it has been about a year and a half since Tennessee faced a massive coal ash spill that released 1 billion gallons of toxic sludge on communities. Like an oil spill, it will take a long time to see all the impacts of that tragedy as poison seeps into the ground and air and finds its way into our drinking water and homes. Who knows if and when the area will fully recover? Why do our leaders not see these things and understand that we must move rapidly away from coal and oil toward renewables? A friend of mine on Facebook pointed out a wind spill is far safer than an oil spill.

With these horrible events happening one after another, you would think that our leaders would act quickly to address climate change, prevent ecological disasters, and move toward renewable energy sources. But instead the Senate, in the middle of the Gulf disaster, delayed even introducing a bill on the issue.

This is a reminder, therefore, that the decision makers are not going to act unless we put massive amount of pressure on them to do so. That is why I need you to continue to stand with me and all of us fighting to get action on this issue. I only hope we can avert the next dirty energy disaster.