“So all the dispersants are gone,”  I ask.

“Yes,” says John from NOAA.

“So, again, at this point it would be a scientific impossibility for them to persist, given their volatile nature?”

“Yes, maybe a few ‘in between compounds’, but yes, pretty much they should be entirely gone.”

Based on simple chemistry, if BP did in fact quit using dispersants as of July 15th (which the company is on the record saying), the compounds have to be gone. I press.

“So, the only way that they could be out there is if BP is doing this on the sly, as some fisherman have argued.”

Crickets. I let it go. With the helicopter noise, they can feign ‘selective hearing.’ But, I’ve already arrived at the answer to my own question. I don’t believe these NOAA folks are spinning me, I believe that they believe what they’re telling me.

I turn the discussion towards a need for independent sources that will corroborate claims about the efficiency of the microbes eating up all this dispersed oil. Nicolle Rutherford, the NOAA biologist, keeps pointing me to Dr. Terry Hazen’s work. I look at it. Sure enough, it says mostly what she insists it will.

But guess who paid for the study? To the tune of $500 million? To be fair, it seems that only industry on earth that would commission a study on oil eating microbes is the oil industry. But it still smells fishy to me. I want something totally independent.

The drone of the helicopter blades and the pressurized air is making me sleepy. We’re now out over the open ocean and the delta mud color is replaced by blue. There isn’t much to see, just a few gentle white caps on the surface of the water. I had expected this ride to be more dramatic, a little more unsteady. It’s so stable it’s kind of boring.

Then, we arrive. And no one announces it. This, to me, is exceptionally bizarre. Eleven men were killed here and there is no elegy, no admission that tragedy struck here, nary a mention. All we’re here to see is “exceptional progress.” The copter stays way, way off the site as we circle it. I’ve got a 300mm lens on a high resolution camera, and still I can’t make out the words on the relief well platforms. Why are we so far away? It bugs me, but the distance is obviously intentional.

Besides the three relief wells, I count 27 other “things” (boats, barges) in the water. I ask the BP guy what all these other boats are doing.

“Oh, these are vessels engaged in facilitating the incident response effort,” he says.

“Can I quote you on that?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says, obviously not picking up on the dripping sarcasm in my voice. Engaged in facilitating the incident response effort. This is the best thing I’ve heard on the trip so far by a factor of ten. Man, seriously? I’m watching the other reporters write this drivel down. Seriously? None of the journos seems to think this is as absurd as I do, save for one guy from The Hartford.  Another asks, where is the Deep Water Horizon?

Back on land, we have a chance to talk to the NOAA folks in a waiting room area. They’re good people. One in the group actually cries because she’s so upset about how poor the messaging has been from NOAA. She believes it is at the root of all the fear and distrust that’s been caused amongst the communities all over the Gulf Coast. Her tears are genuine, but I want to tell her it’s way more complicated than just the failure of her own agency. Nicolle (her name) is not a spin doctor, she’s a doctor doctor, of biology. As such, she’s not necessarily looking to investigate her own agency, and no one working here has gone without media training.

When we first arrived, the NOAA folks showed us samples taken of the ocean at various sites showing that it contained a lower concentration of oil than a comparison sample comprised of a bit of dust off the side of the freeway in the same volume of water. It’s a gimmick that says, “look, the side of the road is more toxic than the Gulf.” Those kinds of gimmicks offend thinking people.

Clarity and truth. It’s what I’ve asked for everywhere I go down here. But the more I learn, the more I believe that clarity, truth and justice are not things we’re going to see in this region for years, maybe decades. Damn it.

Editor’s note: Travel editor Stiv Wilson is reporting exclusively from the Gulf of Mexico this month. Read Part 1 of this story, and all of his dispatches, here.

The post Helicopters over Deepwater Horizon, Part 2 appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’re rushing from Grand Isle, Louisiana to D’iberville, Mississippi where our guide, Pat Heidingsfelder, has set up a town hall style meeting with Gulf Coast shrimpers. It’s an uncanny mix of folks: half are Cajun, the others are from the Vietnamese community. But they all share something in common in this room. They’re angry at the situation in their waters and they feel helpless to do anything about it.

What’s at the crux of this problem is mistrust and confusion. I’m currently investigating the real effects of dispersants, talking with high level folks at NOAA fisheries and reading all that’s being published. Lots of information that’s coming out isn’t from peer-reviewed sources and from my journalistic vantage, can’t be considered credible. Anecdotal evidence is important, but sound science is paramount.

Knee deep in uncertainty, here’s what I know: The truth of the toxicity of the water is remarkably more complex than the media have been portraying and lots of scientists, unqualified to speak to the implications of Corexit 9500 and 9527, are screaming at the top of their lungs on MSNBC. And it’s not helpful.

Rumor turns to fact once it disseminates across a community. Invariably, it gets quoted by journalists looking for juice, and there’s no shortage of ambulance chasers here, journalistic and otherwise. But when that juice gets picked up by the Associated Press and spreads like a game of telephone hotted up on SEO, it’s hard to unpack the truth. Our cynical media outlets don’t care, and people are suffering hard for it. It makes me angry, especially since I’m one who believes that truth is progress.

We’re in town, right at the close of Brown Shrimp season and the opening of White Shrimp season. The fishermen talk about an ocean dead. They talk about getting sick from dispersants. They talk about finding oil in the water when Dr. Bill Walker, head of Marine Natural Resources for Mississippi, says their is no oil in the water. They show videos of finding it three quarters of a mile offshore, in 12 feet of water.

What’s at stake is big. The seafood industry has collapsed in the Gulf because public perception is reality. And the reality is that it’s unsafe. It may very well be. But that’s the point exactly; Walker has declared that fishing season is open, which by definition, means state officials are declaring that it’s safe. It also means BP isn’t on the hook for lost days of work anymore. But if their are no shrimp and there is evidence of oil, these guys can’t sell their product, even if they can find it. Besides, none of them want to sell stuff that will make people sick. When the facilitator asks who is buying right now, only one man raises his hand. It’s for a small buyer. In effect, there is no market. Would you eat Gulf seafood right now?

To add insult to injury, these men are often divided on the issue. In the wake of a massive fisheries collapse, and when the oil was still spewing, several of these guys were hired by BP’s “Vessels of Opportunity” program to assist in the ‘incident response effort’ as BP named it. Half the men in this room have made a bucket full of cash – one netting 200K in just 74 days – by re-purposing their boats for the BP cause. But others haven’t been hired, and they don’t know why. Truck sales are booming from BP money, and truck repossessions are rampant from out of work, un-BP-hired fisherman. The net result, and perhaps one of the most insidious facts I’ve uncovered during my time here, is that this divide destroys this group’s ability to organize and unify. We know what results from a lack of cohesion: muffling.

As the evening progresses, I’m looking at the other members of our delegation, bearing witness, as I photograph everything. I haven’t seen this kind of emotion on people’s faces since watching airplanes fly into the World Trade Center. It’s heart wrenching and I feel dirty, ugly. As the complexities unfold, meaning splinters and darkens.

This is a region in crisis. This is a world gone mad. What’s hardest on the heart is that what people desperately want, above all, is to get back to how things were. But how it was isn’t sustainable. This is a never ending story.

Images: Stiv Wilson

The post Watching Grown Men Cry: Fear and Mistrust in Mississippi appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’m driving from Bayou La Batr down to Gulf Shores, the Miami Beach of southern Alabama. It’s August; tourist season should be in full swing but I see no traffic. The high rise condos, quiet on the beach, stand in stark contrast to the natural landscape. Many of these structures are half-finished and given the economic devastation caused by the spill here, I’d wager some are in the “never to be finished” category. I knew nostalgic stories of a friend’s beach dreams had here; she has served as my text messaging Virgil as I’ve explored the region and this unrelenting hell the people have endured. Part of me is glad she’s not here to see what I’ve seen; it’s better to let her keep her good memories of this place.

Over the radio, NPR is reporting that Alabama will sue BP for an undisclosed amount. It’s the first such statewide lawsuit filed. Governor Riley wants to keep it out of the courts and settle, but Alabama’s attorney general has different ideas and they hint at a political conflict. Like everything happening in the region, confusion and fear reigns, and good policy and science – unlike the oil – is not dispersing.

I walk with our videographer in front of a resort where a few random tourists are occupying the beach. It’s an area where sand has been trucked in to cover the oil. Cabanas and lounge chairs rest on top. The scene is one of post apocalypse in paradise. Just a month ago, there were puddles of oil on this beach.

We ask the cabana boy for a shovel and begin to dig. We dig three feet down to the water line, and stratified throughout is oil. Tarballs. We knew they were here: the wind over the beach smells like an auto parts store. We’re not sure if the water is safe or not, and the signage doesn’t help much: all it says is that the water has been affected by oil and if you come into contact with it, it will not be good. But still, a few children are body surfing as their parents lounge in the sun. The videographer, John Waller, normally a stoic presence, can’t believe what he’s seeing. “What mother would – I can’t believe – I mean seriously!”

Just beyond the beachgoers, there is yet another Incident Command Unit. As we approach, walking the beach where the resorts stop, the tarballs grow by degrees in number. Closing in, we count 12 men working. They have a contraption that resembles a screen door and they are sifting sand for oil, then bagging it in plastic bags to be hauled away. Asking the men where it goes, they don’t have an answer. The ubiquitous “theys” that occupy hierarchy here “take care of it.”

This is far and away the most absurd thing I’ve seen in a three-state tour of oil-affected areas. Imagine sifting millions of cubic feet of sand with a f#@&ing screen door. This is humanity reduced to helplessness. This is pissing in the wind.

Turtle Babies

The Gulf Shores is home to Loggerneck and (less commonly), Kemps Ridley turtle nests. The incubation for turtles is 55-70 days, and their mystical geo-location system (the faculty by which the females navigate back to the place of their nesting to lay eggs of their own) is online by 40 days. Typically, there are around 50 nests a year in the area.

We’re here to meet Mike Reynolds, Turtle Czar, who oversees a volunteer program called Share The Beach that ensures that turtle nests are left undisturbed by humans. But because of the BP oil spill, Reynolds is organizing turtle egg relocation to Cape Canaveral, Florida (after the turtles’ geolocation device has developed), to be hatched in the open Atlantic. Reynolds is concerned about the effect of oil and dispersants in the water on the youngsters and doesn’t believe it’s safe for the Loggernecks to swim in the open gulf. Besides, with what oil remains in the open, ambient water, there could be an issue with the patches of Sargassum, a surface floating weed where hatchlings find food and shelter from predators as they develop. If the Sargassum patches are tainted, it’s bad news for turtles. And given the devastation already wreaked on the population by the spill, Reynolds isn’t taking any chances.

Not 300 feet away, people are swimming in the water while people like Reynolds are relocating turtles for fear of their health. I ask him about this point. He responds with a hint of irony, “Well, I guess, humans aren’t as endangered as turtles are.”

The post TarTurtlebabies and the Myth of Sisyphus in Gulf Shores Alabama appeared first on EcoSalon.

A picture is worth a thousand words. The expression may sound cliche, but in the conservation movement, it couldn’t be more true. In the day and age of quick soundbites and short attention spans, when it comes to promoting a cause, grabbing people’s attention is key. We need more than just hearing about things in order to care; we need to see them, and we need to be moved.

That’s one of the main reasons that pilot Tom Hutchings takes visitors to the Gulf of Mexico up in the air in his Cessna 182, knowing very well the visual power of seeing this environmental catastrophe from above. In the weeks following the Deepwater explosion, oil covered the diverse marsh landscape of the Mississippi Delta, turning a pristine habitat into an alien environment.

Hutchings flies for South Wings, a non-profit with a tagline of “conservation through aviation.” Founded in 1996, the organization is committed to connect conservation groups with pilots, providing flights at no cost.

“Do you get motion sick?” Hutchings ask as he works to take off a back hatch on the Cessna so our videographer can film through it as we fly.

“Not really,” I respond, not completely sure what I’m getting myself into. As I stare into the small cockpit wondering how I am going to cram my legs in, I realize I actually have no idea what I’m about to take on. This is my first aerial photography tour, something that I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the opportunity.

We load into the small plane and make our way down the runway, slowly lifting into the air and leaving the urban landscape of New Orleans behind. “All the waterways that you see that are straight are manmade,” Hutchings points out. And there are a lot of straight waterways. From above it’s pretty clear why levy failure during Hurricane Katrina had such an impact; this city is surrounded by water.

Soon we’re in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, flying over small islands and marshes. These days, there is in fact less oil visible to the human eye. Gone are the days when entire bays were covered in a reflective slick, but the oil’s presence and destruction is still ever present. Marshes are lined with a reddish color, evidence of oil soaked sand. In a couple of places, thin long lines of oil streak the blue water, almost as if painted on. In protected bays, oil collects and doesn’t move. As Hutchings points out, stormy weather blows it in, and there’s no way to get it out.

But it’s not just the destruction that gets to me; it’s the natural beauty. Blue water dotted with bright green marshes. Natural designs created from the various waterways. From the moment that we start flying over this diverse and rich natural landscape, it’s apparent how unique and sensitive it is; to storms, to oil and to people.

“Disaster tourism” is what some people deem projects that take travelers to areas that have seen some kind of catastrophe or devastation. Yet when you travel to a place and see it first hand, you quickly realize how connected you are to that place.

In the Gulf of Mexico, it’s apparent that even being from the Northwest, this is my backyard. It’s hard not to get emotional as I fly over this amazing place, thinking about how I would feel if a similar disaster were to happen to the natural spaces that I call home. Tears well up as I continue snapping photos, trying to capture the scope and colors of what passes below me.

“Did you even think about the Gulf of Mexico before this oil spill?” Hutchings asks me.

I think for a second. I’m embarrassed by my answer: “No, not really.” And it’s true. Besides having looked at it on the map, I realize that I’ve never really given a second thought to this region’s culture, environment and economy. But it’s a region that works its way into all of our lives, from goods that get transported up the Mississippi, to seafood that’s shipped all over the country to jazz music.

I realize that it’s all this that we’re trying to capture in photos and with video. That’s a big order. But it must be done, or we will never contemplate what our everyday actions have on people and regions outside of our immediate circles. And that’s why Hutchings continues to fly, and we have to continue to pay attention.

Aerial Tour from Uncage the Soul Productions on Vimeo.

To check out a full gallery of photos, click here.

This post originally appeared on the project PDX 2 Gulf Coast’s website and has been cross-posted.

The post Seeing the Gulf From Above appeared first on EcoSalon.

This post was written by Rob Reed. He is the founder of MomentFeed, a location-based marketing, strategy, and technology firm.

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing – or almost nothing – but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information a moment is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises – real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information – based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell‘s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

The post 10 Ways Geolocation Is Changing the World appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’ve been watching the growing condemnation of BP from all sides of the political spectrum and it’s making me mad as hell!

Now, don’t get me wrong – BP is no friend of mine. Some days I can’t bear to read the news coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, let alone look at the heart-wrenching images of oil-coated wildlife. It’s about to get worse with Tropical Storm Bonnie likely to spread the oil and migratory birds starting to fly south for winter, many of them via the Gulf.

There is no doubt that BP’s behavior has been appalling. It was evidently lax in its safety standards, it repeatedly attempted to play down the amount of oil gushing from the well, some of the comments by senior executives have been downright thoughtless, and its eagerness to find new places to drill before it’s fixed this problem is nothing short of obscene.

But here’s the truth: BP is no better or worse in its environmental or ethical practices than any other big oil company. Right now, BP is being made a scape-goat and that suits all the other oil companies just fine.

Right-wing darling Sarah Palin of “drill baby, drill” fame has bashed BP as a “foreign company”. Meanwhile President Obama and other government officials insist on calling it British Petroleum, when the company’s official name is BP and has been for more than a decade. Last I checked Britain and the United States were allies and being based in Britain wasn’t a corporate crime. Anyway, BP is a multinational and 39 percent of it is owned by Americans, with six Americans on the board of directors. It’s a slick trick.

Then there’s the whole brouhaha over BP’s latest deal in Libya and whether BP is responsible for the release of the Lockerbie bomber. It’s a fact that the U.S. and Europe don’t see eye to eye over Libya – I’m not about to defend the regime, but public perception of Libya is a whole lot worse in the US than it is across the pond. I don’t think BP has a particularly moral stance vis-à-vis Libya, but then oil companies are not usually known for their moral stances, are they? The Libya affair pales into insignificance next to Shell’s crimes in the Niger Delta. Or should we call it Royal Dutch Shell? Nor is it as dangerous for the world as U.S.-based Exxon Mobil pumping millions of dollars into spurious climate denial research.

Now I don’t really care if people want to say bad things about BP. The public anger is more than justified. What I do care about is that demonizing BP makes it easier for the other oil giants to get away with their evil-doing. They don’t even need to throw their hands up and say “don’t blame us, it’s all BP’s fault,” because we’re doing it for them.

Already, the Obama Administration has been unable to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, after an appeals court judge branded the decision “arbitrary.” Arbitrary? Really? Does the judge truly think the decision was random or capricious? I would call it “sensible” myself. But then Obama did rather back himself into a corner by announcing an expansion to offshore oil drilling right before the BP disaster struck.

As difficult as it may be, we need to remember that Big Oil is the true enemy, not just BP. It’s the oil industry at large that is responsible for the mess in the Niger Delta, the oil pipeline explosion in China earlier last week, and the leaky oil tanker that ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in April.

Off-shore drilling is inherently risky. It’s a miracle of modern engineering and human ingenuity that we’re able to do it at all. And when things go wrong, we’re at the mercy of natural forces and there’s not a whole lot we can do. It’s lunacy to even consider doing it somewhere remote, cold and pristine like the Alaskan wilderness, even if the waters are shallower. I don’t care if it’s not BP at the rig – I don’t trust Shell any more.

Public support for offshore drilling has eroded since the BP oil disaster. No wonder, after seeing shocking evidence of just how badly things can go wrong. What’s astonishing is that it’s still supported by the majority of those polled. And there’s a good chance that allowing BP to take all the blame while other oil companies go scot-free, could mean this trend is reversed and public support for offshore drilling once again continues to rise.

We need to end off-shore drilling for all oil companies, not just point fingers at BP. And if we don’t want to be dependent on foreign oil, well then that seems a good reason to wean ourselves off it altogether. How about we build windmills, invest in electric cars, move to sustainable farming methods and ditch the plastic addiction? Can we do it? Yes, we can!

Image: Fibonacci Blue

The post Scape-Goating BP Lets Big Oil Off Scot-Free appeared first on EcoSalon.

I came across an article today about President Barack Obama encouraging Americans, despite the wake of the oil spill, to visit the Gulf coast. “There’s still a lot of opportunity for visitors to come down here. There are a lot of beaches that have not been affected and will not be affected,” Obama was quoted in June. “If people want to help, the best way to help is to come down here and visit.”

Although Obama is clearly trying to motivate people to continue supporting an arm of the regional economy that’s been hit hard by this oil spill, his encouragement has raised the question over what some call “disaster tourism,” traveling to a disaster area to see what’s going on. Often this kind of tourism has a negative connotation as it implies traveling to a place out of mere curiosity, without the intent of aiding with relief efforts, and in turn, often creating more of a hindrance than help.

But with a situation like the BP oil spill, it IS important to see what’s going on, to experience the culture first-hand and engage with communities that are deeply affected by this disaster. That in no way means hopping on a bus and taking a week to window shop the effects of the disaster, but traveling to the Gulf coast is another way to share with our own communities just what is going on in the region. That’s a key part of traveling to any region that has been severely affected, be it by natural or human induced causes.

When we don’t know and understand a place, it becomes that much easier to make assumptions about it, and the effects of such attitudes are much more widespread than our own social circles. Take Florida for example. According to the em>LA Times, 90 percent of the states’ beaches are still untouched by the BP oil spill. But because of fear, the tourists have pulled away, leaving an economy dependent on visitors wondering just what to do with itself.

“When national media lumps together all four of the Gulf states, that makes it look to the rest of the country as though Florida might be covered in oil,” said Kathy Torian, spokeswoman for Visit Florida.

Which brings us back to the point at hand: can disaster tourism be beneficial? Yes, if it helps people understand the true facts of what is going on in an affected area, helping to connect the dots between infrastructure, economy, culture and beyond. At a very basic level, experiencing a disaster area first hand can aid in helping us understand that often these issues may happen far away from our own homes, but ultimately the effects end up in our own backyard.

Image: minds-eye

The post Can Disaster Tourism Be Beneficial? A Look at the Gulf appeared first on EcoSalon.

Beyond the tragically oil-soaked birds and sea turtles, there’s another animal population feeling the impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill – the area’s pets. Many Louisiana pet owners have been forced to give up their cats and dogs due to a lack of time and money. Whether they’re fishermen or offshore rig workers, much of the population relies on the Gulf for income, and for many, those incomes were cut off abruptly. Sadly, pets are often the first to go when the choice must be made to feed either the family or the dog. Plus, some families had to move, often leaving their animals behind to adhere to no-pet rules at apartment buildings for example.

So what’s happening to all of the abandoned Gulf Coast oil spill pets now?

The Associated Press reported that a BP oil-worker, suddenly slammed with more work than he could handle, dropped off a rust-colored Lab mix named Sasha along with nine one-day-old puppies at St. Bernard Parish Animal Shelter in Violet, LA. Heartbreaking? Yes. But the story is far too common now. In fact, Dean Howard of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals told the AP that coastal parishes saw a spike in the number of family pets dropped off immediately after the spill. And the growing numbers of pets coming in, with few getting adopted, is more than the shelters can handle.

Want to help? You can donate to the Louisiana SPCA, the local organization that has set up a Gulf Coast Companion Relief Program. Along with a grant from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, they’re also supplying food, free vet appointments, spaying, and neutering to area owners in an effort to help them keep their pets. For pets that can’t stay with their owners, the SPCA has been arranging emergency transports to relieve Louisiana shelters. They moved 17 highly adoptable dogs – purebred Labs, Yorkies and Maltese to Maryland, Tennessee and Virginia. The Humane Society of the United States also recently transported 33 dogs up to Maryland.

If you want to adopt a Gulf Coast oil spill pet (even those not classified as highly adoptable yet still totally adorable btw!), the Lousisiana SPCA is constantly adding new shelters to their Gulf Coast Transport program. Check the site for the latest shelters to see if one has been added near you. They’re planning more rescues in the coming weeks including transports to shelters in Florida or Texas. You can also try searching for pets at Louisiana shelters on Petfinder. The St. Bernard Parish Animal Shelter lists many of their adoptable pets online through Petfinder and Petango. Another overwhelmed shelter accepting out-of-state adoptions is the Plaquemines Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) in Belle Chasse, LA. PAWS also showcases their Gulf Coast oil spil cats and dogs on Petango.

Images: superfem, jmborsh, jeffreyw, bnilsen

The post The Forgotten Gulf Oil Spill Victims appeared first on EcoSalon.

Last week I wrote about about my friend Mary Osborne’s trip to the Gulf. Writing it hit me a hard emotionally, as I’m preparing to tour the area with a delegation of people from my hometown of Portland, Oregon in the next few weeks. Right now, we’re doing logistics, fundraisers, etc., readying ourselves for time on the ground interviewing, hearing stories and communing with the gulf residents.

Reading the headlines, we typically hear only about BP crap this, or Obama crap that, but we don’t hear much from the voices being affected; the people who can’t wake up from the nightmare. One journalist, Mac McClelland, a humanitarian writer for Mother Jones has been detailing the crisis in the gulf from an authentic, human perspective – talking to residents and getting involved in the community where this horror is taking place. Her stories are hard to hear at times – finally, this spring, residents were hoping for a big boom in tourism dollars after years of residue from Katrina. Well, we all know what happened.

Oil is both a blessing and a curse for states like Louisiana. The oil and gas industry essentially changed this state from an agrarian society to an industrial player. Oil and gas accounts for some 320,000 jobs in this region, which is no small sum. What statistics like this tell me is that I have to ditch my presumptions, my preconceived notions of what story I want to tell. It’s going to be way more complex than I can imagine, and it’s going to hurt the heart.

The goal is to bring stories back to Portland, and share them with our community. I was in a meeting with our media team, talking to our videographer who was on the fence about going. I’ll be directing a lot of what we focus on, and his simple question to me was, “What is this film about?” I couldn’t answer. That’s the rub exactly. I’ve worked on documentaries before, and typically you go into the whole deal with a treatment or at least a shot list. But we’re going to be Dante searching for Virgil here, and I’m overwhelmed. I have no idea what we’re going to see down there. Sure, we’ll see oil, and we’ll see birds in pain, but what are the cacophony of thought bubbles drifting out from front stoops?  What are the permutations of fisherman who have lost their livelihoods? Their identity? There are so many questions.

I guess I’m going to listen to my heart as we wander and do my best. I’m going to listen for the quiet voices in the room and work on telling their stories. You’ll hear them all on EcoSalon in the coming weeks.

Here is a video from Louisiana resident and TED speaker Casey DeMoss Roberts, talking about the intricate relationship between two very different but interconnected ways of life – shrimp and petroleum.  We’re about to feel this, firsthand. Heavy.

Image: Shrimp Petrofest

The post Shrimp, Petroleum and a Hurricane Named Katrina appeared first on EcoSalon.

In early August, a delegation from my hometown of Portland, Oregon will be journeying to the gulf to witness the tragedy firsthand, engage with locals, and tell their stories for a broader audience. EcoSalon writer, Anna Brones and myself will be on the mission and we’ll be blogging and vlogging the experience daily on EcoSalon. Right now, we’re in the planning phases, but the reality of what we’ll see is beginning to set in.

A friend of mine, pro surfer and model, Mary Osborne, just got back from the gulf on a similar mission. I had the chance to chat with her the other day about her journey and I’m already beginning to feel overwhelmed. Mary was extremely affected and the quiver in her voice as we talked, set me on edge. It’s just so big, and so much is destroyed. 

As she says, “Every minute passing means more beaches are covered in brown oily tar balls. Weather and winds fluctuate in all directions, pushing crude oil into new areas of fresh white sand beaches, covering sea animals, rivers and marshes. Fish are dying; crabs are now toxic, and mammals are slowly being poisoned. Three days ago today, the beach that I spent watching beautiful fireworks explode into the sky, is now spotted with tar, endless miles of boom and BP scouring the beach. The same beach I listened to families cheering and kids running around happily in celebration of our country’s independence is the mirror opposite of the evening of July 4, 2010. The feeling of independence in the southern states has now vanished.”

Utter solemnity. What’s just so difficult to noodle is the scale of the damage. Residents are in a perpetual holding pattern; sad, angry, and scared for the future. Mary chatted with a Gulf Port fisherman she met, Skipper Tom, and he had this to say:

“We don’t know where our future is. People have no clue about the magnitude of this spill and the effects it will have,” said Tom. “My son was going to take over my business in a few years and now I don’t think he can. I wanted to teach my grandson to fish and I don’t even know if that is possible for the future. It’s sad to think we know more about our universe than our oceans. I have over $145,000 in my boat with my credentials. Overnight, I have nothing.”

It is stories like this that she heard everywhere she went; people are trying to keep their chins up, but there is no sense of hope. No sense of progress.

Anna and I are both looking forward to the trip, but we both know its going to be hard on the heart. To all the residents dealing with this nightmare our thoughts are with you and we’ll be there soon to tell your stories. Because you deserve to be heard.

Images: Mary Osborne

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