BP Oil Spill

Hey y'all,

So I know GCI has not done much on the oil spill. And I will offer the following pitiful excuses, from me at least: exams, 3 weeks in China, and intensive Arabic course that's still going on. But I think I've arrived at a comfortable equilibrium in balancing work, GCI stuff, and life chores. Let me present to y'all some project ideas concerning the disaster that GCI is currently considering.

It all started when Guy shot me an e-mail with some basic information and pictures of the spill seeing if we could put this up in some kind of board. Seeing that it was exam week, we were all too busy to take any action before the year ended. And then the year ended.

Since then, the spill has released even more oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, more information has come out over the circumstances surrounding BP's failure in preventing this disaster. And since then, the spill has supposedly been stopped and relief wells are being constructed.

I admit that at this moment, I have not devoted much time to finding out what exactly is going on. But I've been following the major reports, and here is a proposed plan as to what GCI can do in awareness.

In the summer, we'll start with areas with high traffic in the summer only. I'm thinking places like Bartlett, the Reg, and Reynold's Club. What to put there? Each site will have a different sort of demonstration. Some possible demonstrations: a board with graphs, pictures, and text blurbs or flow charts; a physical, tangible representation of the oil spill and the effects of the oil spill; a station to write letters and petitions for our representatives urging them to take action that will prevent such disasters in the future (I'm sure numerous NGOs are currently working on such campaigns).

We already have easels from BotB to set up posters and other attention-grabbing things.

When the year starts, we're going to expand and update on the projects from the summer. But we're also going to shift our focus to ways to actually make an impact (activism). That will take some work and it's something that we did not do much of last year. Still, if we can attract a lot of people very early in the year in working on the environment through GCI/ECO/GAIA, then that is a battle won.

Cool. Feels good to be working again.

Willy