New Heroes in the Fight Against Big Oil

This article is in YES! Magazine, one of many places where I find valuable information, action, hope, connection, inspiration, and more...

The Hands Across the Sand movement: How one Florida restaurant owner has organized a force against offshore drilling.

by Madeline Ostrander

Catastrophes like the spill in the Gulf expose the destructive side of industries and their environmental impacts. They also create unexpected heroes, ordinary people like Lois Gibbs, propelled into the political arena when industrial waste exposed her community in Love Canal, New York, to cancer-causing chemicals. Three decades after her story forced America to grapple with industries’ toxic legacy, the tar balls that are washing onto Florida’s beaches are galvanizing a new movement, started by Dave Rauschkolb, a surfer and pizza bar owner.

Rauschkolb is not a professional Sierra-Club type and seems offended when asked about his political affiliation. But his business depends on tourism, and he’s incensed that state and federal politicians let the oil industry take a gamble on the safety of drilling in the Gulf Coast. “I am very angry that our predictions to Florida’s legislators that this type of accident could happen fell on deaf ears,” Rauschkolb wrote in a recent op-ed. “We have been telling them for months of our serious concerns.”

His anger has turned him into an activist. Rauschkolb created “Hands Across the Sand,” a series of demonstrations on Saturday, June 26, that call for an end to offshore oil drilling. The events are simple: Show up at 11 A.M. at your local waterfront, and join hands at noon. Demonstrations are happening in all 50 states and more than 30 countries.

Rauschkolb got the idea for Hands last fall when he heard about a bill in the Florida legislature that would have brought offshore drilling within 10 miles of his beloved beaches. He decided to organize what he expected would be a modest local demonstration on the beach, but his message struck a nerve among Floridians. The protest mushroomed into a 10,000-person event on dozens of beaches across the state. Rauschkolb believes that the response helped kill the bill in committee before it reached the floor of the Florida senate.

Now he hopes that news of the BP spill will mobilize enough Americans to force sweeping change—not just a tough response to BP but a transformation of U.S. energy policies.
I called Rauschkolb in Florida to find out what he expected Hands to accomplish.

For the interview and related links, please go here: http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/new-heroes-in-the-fight-against-big-oil?utm_source=wkly20100625&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=titleOstrander

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This is an opportunity for Americans to get it into their consciousness: Oil companies have been poisoning our energy policy and our political process with money and influence for far too long. The oil industry is calling the shots here, and it's time for Americans to take charge of their own energy future instead of allowing the oil companies to continue to dictate what kind of fuels we use. This has nothing to do with politics. It's time that Americans stop thinking like Democrats and Republicans. The news media have got us all bickering at each other. We need to be focused on the industries that are stifling our economic recovery. We need more things in this country that don't divide us. We need more things that bring us together and make us proud to be Americans. ~ Dave Rauschkolb