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If you're starting to feel the drain of hearing about the oil spill and you're losing perspective on the size of the problem (don't worry, we completely understant - we can only hack so much bad news at a time), Take Part is showing a video series that will refresh your empathy and sense of urgency.
From Take Part:
Two years ago, Jon Bowermaster, a renowned oceans expert, journalist, filmmaker and National Geographic explorer, traveled to southern Louisiana with a film crew to document the interconnectedness of people and the plentiful bodies of water that surround them for the documentary SoLa: Louisiana Water Stories. What they didn't expect was that, just as they were wrapping production, a massive explosion on an oil rig 50 miles south of Louisiana's coastline would change everything.Jon and crew went back to southern Louisiana once again to visit the people they had interviewed for the film, this time with a new focus: the spill.
Check out two excerpted videos from Take Part:
Gulf Stories - Part 2 - Wilma Subra from TakePart on Vimeo.
Gulf Stories - Part 4 - Ivor van Heerden from TakePart on Vimeo.
“That this way of life, that these Gulf Coast communities may not exist anymore, that this life as we know it is finished. My own sons, who are now young men, are really concerned about their own future. Is Baton Rouge going to be lakefront property in their lifetimes? Is the seafood going to be healthy? Are there even going to be any fishermen left in Louisiana? We smile, but it is a little bit like whistling through a graveyard here," states Marylee Orr, the founder of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
"This is absolutely the last thing we need, being the most important part of the year in Louisiana ecologically. Our wetlands are already in such sad shape and now we’ve got hurricane season approaching. It’s the growing season for the grasses and wetland plants that suck energy out of the surge, which help protect us from storms. And of course this is the time of year when the birds are breeding and the fish larvae are starting to enter the bays and estuaries," says Ivor van Heerden, an environmentalist, marine scientist, and former deputy director of Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center.
Take Part has ways you can help out, from directly volunteering to donating much-needed funds.
Of course, other than helping in the clean-up effort, one of the biggest impacts you can make is changing your lifestyle to get off oil. Simple things include:
- Consume fewer products overall (most everything requires oil to manufacture)
- Quit the plastic habit (It takes oil to make plastic)
- Bike to work (Cycling uses a tiiiiiiiiny fraction of the oil cars require)
- Eat locally (It takes oil to farm, transport, and process big agriculture foods)
- Buy green power (All it takes is one quick call to your utility company)
Even small steps away from oil means less drilling, and therefore less risk to our precious ecosystems and the flora and fauna - including humans - that depend upon their health.
What can you do today to turn away from big oil? What can you do today to help mitigate the damage being done to our southeast coastlines?
More on the Gulf Oil Spill
Complete Coverage of the Spill from TreeHugger and Planet Green
Gulf Oil Spill - Amazing and Devastating Photos
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: The What, When and Where [UPDATED]
