Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

An Open Letter to the President:

Courtesy: Autobahn Society

(SAN FRANCISCO) - Mr. President, it is time for you and British Petroleum (BP) to come clean with the American public about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which is being described as a catastrophe of biblical proportions in the making. We are hearing too much spin and not enough facts.

The oil spill is threatening to make vast parts of the Gulf into dead zones where animals and plant species will be so contaminated and unsafe that Gulf communities may face the total end of fishing.

Based on new video images showing the unimpeded flow of black oil, it is estimated that 100,000 barrels daily -- not the 20,000 barrels being reported -- are leaking, creating vast underwater oil plumes or concentrations of oil under the sea, whose impacts will take years to understand.

Besides the enormous damage to the Gulf, eight or more hurricanes are predicted.

If one or more hit the Gulf, it means that seawater several hundred feet below the surface of the water could be churned up and then deposited over the South. This seawater, containing oils and radioactive fission products, would magnify the environmental problem hugely by pushing the oil ashore, and spreading it through torrential rains well inland, contaminating vast crops and farmland over a vast area.

At the very least, Mr. President, there should be absolutely, positively no more off-shore drilling until your administration gets its regulatory house in order and a comprehensive energy policy, not one developed behind closed doors, is put in place.

Regrettably, big energy now largely controls our climate's future. Also, all BP oil profits from its off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico should be considered ill-gotten gains and placed in escrow as a down payment to pay damages caused by the oil spill.

And finally, the U.S. must become a full party to the Kyoto Protocol, an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

Like it or not, the Gulf oil spill is fast becoming your Hurricane Katrina. As you have said, "every crisis is an opportunity." It's time to seize the opportunity.