Candlelight Vigil To Mark One Month Since Gulf Disaster Began

Tuesday, May 18, 2010 — The following notice just came in, courtesy of John Demos of the Alaska Wilderness League. Thanks for the notice, John.

On Thursday, May 20, at 8 p.m., in Market Square, Portsmouth, a Candlelight Vigil will be held to mark the passage of one month since the Gulf Of Mexico Oil Disaster began.

With Shell Oil scheduled to drill in Arctic Ocean in less than 40 days, concerned citizens also asking for Arctic timeout.

Thursday, May 20 marks one month since the tragic Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion ignited one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. Local citizens will mark the date with a Candlelight Vigil to honor the lost lives and livelihoods of the Gulf coast and to demonstrate opposition to another environmental disaster in the making in America’s Arctic Ocean, where risky exploratory drilling is set to begin amid swells and sea-ice on July 1.

We support the people who are working tirelessly to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf. The disaster response crews are in our thoughts and prayers. The faster we can stop the flow of oil, the less damage our wildlife and coastal communities will face.

Like the Gulf Coast, America’s Arctic Ocean is a fragile ecosystem that supports abundant, unique wildlife like the beloved polar bear. The Inupiat people have lived off the bounty of this place for thousands of years. Neither the existing technology nor capacity is sufficient to clean up a spill in the Arctic’s harsh environment.

As the disaster in the Gulf has shown us, drilling is a dirty and dangerous business. President Obama must call for a timeout on new offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean and around the nation until we can prevent a drilling disaster from happening in America’s extremely sensitive ecosystems.

1 thought on “Candlelight Vigil To Mark One Month Since Gulf Disaster Began”

  1. The Gulf Catastrophe could have been avoided if the US were growing algae. Algae is renewable, does not affect the food channel and consumes CO2. No explosions, no fires, no deaths and no environmental problems. What’s wrong with that???

    Algae has been researched in US universities for over 35 years. It’s time to move it out of the lab and go into commercial-scale production. Algaepreneurs are starting to build commercial-scale plants throughout the US using all off-the-shelf existing technologies. More algae production plants are coming online. Algae is one solution to get the US off of foreign oil and create new jobs right here in the US. The algae industry is being built today by Americans who all want to get off foreign oil.

    To learn more about the fast-track commercialization of the industry, you may want to check out the National Algae Association.

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