{"id":2230,"date":"2010-06-16T14:00:40","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T19:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/?p=2230"},"modified":"2010-06-16T14:00:40","modified_gmt":"2010-06-16T19:00:40","slug":"somewhere-over-the-gulf-coast-a-%e2%80%9cglee%e2%80%9d-and-bp-oil-disaster-mashup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2010\/06\/16\/somewhere-over-the-gulf-coast-a-%e2%80%9cglee%e2%80%9d-and-bp-oil-disaster-mashup\/","title":{"rendered":"Somewhere Over the Gulf Coast: A \u201cGlee\u201d and BP Oil Disaster Mashup"},"content":{"rendered":"

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8jPjJPVdR4g<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>From a comfortable distance \u2013 in our classrooms, around our water coolers, through pictures on TV or newspapers \u2013 the BP oil disaster is depressing and horrific.<\/p>\n

But up close where every breath you take fills your mouth, nose, and lungs with the toxic mix of oil and industrial chemicals, where you talk with resilient and proud locals and hear their frustration, anger, and concern, where the disturbing and unforgettable scenes of a precious and fragile ecosystem in crisis are just seared into your mind \u2013 all of it is just so bad, so repugnant, so wrong in the most profound way.<\/p>\n

Two days in the Gulf of Mexico left me enraged \u2013 and deeply resolved. Both the widespread damage and the inadequacy of the response effort exceeded my worst fears.<\/p>\n

Seeing terns and gulls sitting on the oil-soaked booms that were supposed to be protecting their fragile island marshes \u2013 booms that had been blown or washed ashore \u2013 may have been the ultimate symbol of the devastation unfolding in the Gulf.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it was the lone shrimp trawler, aimlessly circling off the coast, dragging a saturated gauze-like boom behind it, accomplishing nearly nothing.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it was the desperation of the fishermen whose livelihoods had been snatched away by BP\u2019s recklessness \u2013 and yet want nothing more than to see the moratorium on drilling lifted so their economies don\u2019t dry up, as well.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d spent a full day on the Gulf and we ended up soaked in oily water and seared by the journey into the heart of ecological darkness.<\/p>\n

By Tuesday night, I was home. My throat burned and my head was foggy and dizzy as I showed my pictures and my flip-camera video to my wife, Fran, and my 13-year-old daughter, Nicole, on the TV in the family room.<\/p>\n

Images of the gooey peanut-butter colored oil and the blackened wetlands flashed by. Pictures of dolphins diving into our oily wake and Brown Pelicans futilely trying to pick oil off their backs popped on the screen. And, out of nowhere, Nicole put on the music from the season finale of Glee<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

With all these horrific images on the screen, she had turned on the show\u2019s final song of the year, \u201cSomewhere Over The Rainbow.\u201d The song, a slow, sweet, ukulele and guitar-driven version, couldn\u2019t have added a deeper sense of tragic irony.<\/p>\n

I choked up. And then that resolve kicked in: I wanted anyone\/everyone to see what our addiction to oil had done to the Gulf and to contrast that with the sense of hope and possibility that \u201cSomewhere\u201d exudes.<\/p>\n

Long story short, last weekend, Peter Rice, Chairman of Fox Networks Entertainment, gave Environmental Defense Fund the green light to use the song. The pictures you\u2019ll see were shot by two incredibly talented EDF staffers, Yuki Kokubo and Patrick Brown \u2013 and a few are mine.<\/p>\n

The inspiration was Nicole\u2019s. This is for her, and for all of our kids \u2013 and theirs to come.<\/p>\n

David Yarnold<\/em><\/a> is executive director of <\/em>Environmental Defense Fund<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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