Below is the latest blast to our supporters in the USA from Bill McKibben--if you're not yet on our email list, click here to sign up!(Oh, and join the "1 Million Strong Against Offshore Drilling" Facebook group here.)
Dear friends,
The oil spreading across the Gulf is a test, pure and simple.
Think of its twisted outline as a Rorschach ink blot for a society--maybe for a whole civilization. Will we respond in ways deep enough to matter? Or will we see nothing wrong in the devastating images of the oil slick, and continue on this path of destruction, danger, and dirty energy?
Forty one years ago, similar pictures of oil-soaked beaches and dying sea-birds off the coast of Santa Barbara, California galvanized the nation and set the stage for the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
But over the years, that environmental fervor faded, and we returned to business as usual--mostly, the business of burning more fossil fuel. In late March, President Obama decided to "drill baby drill", lifting a moratorium on coastal drilling that had its roots in that first spill.
Just a few weeks ago, Obama said "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills." 1
How wrong he was.
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