Greenpeace's team on the Gulf Coast has been taking independent scientists, media teams, and local grassroots organizations out into Barataria Bay, one of the areas hardest hit by the oil disaster, to help assess the full scope of this tragedy and the true cost of our reliance on fossil fuels.  Every day we have been out on the water here, we have been joined by dozens of dolphins, sometimes playing in the distance and sometimes swimming right alongside the Greenpeace boats.

I have spent most of my life living near the ocean, I grew up on the coast of California and also lived on Florida's Gulf Coast. Watching diving pelicans and leaping dolphins has always been a joyful reminder of the wonder of the marine environment, and swimming in the sea gives me a sense of what it means to be a part of this wonderful planet.  But as the oil spreads throughout the Gulf, these have been turned into sad reminders of the immense damage that is being done.

Every time I see a pelican dive for fish here, I wonder how much oil is in the water, and how much is in the fish that it will take back to feed its nesting chicks. Seeing so many dolphins doesn't give us a joyful feeling; the sad reality is that all these dolphins we are seeing here are being pushed up against shore as their habitat is destroyed by millions of gallons of oil, as marine biologist and Greenpeace oceans campaign director John Hocevar explained to the Associated Press on one of our trips.

It gives me a sinking feeling when I think about what it means that seeing dozens of playful dolphins is actually a sign of disaster. It's the same feeling I get when I think about how nice it would be to cool off in the water - but of course the oil on the ocean surface reminds me why we can't. What does it mean when you can't swim in the ocean?

I don’t think anyone entirely knows how to deal with an environmental disaster that just keeps getting worse with no end in sight. Certainly we should stop drilling for oil offshore. But the problem goes deeper than the drill that BP drove into the seabed. Our reliance on fossil fuels like oil and coal isn't just devastating a few ecosystems and local communities, it is driving global warming and acidfying the oceans, threatening the funadmental systems that sustain life on our planet. 

A clean energy revolution could move us away from fossil fuels, but it is going to take more than a speech from the oval office to get us there.  I hope we all take the lessons from the Gulf of Mexico with us as we push for an energy policy that puts people and the planet first and holds polluters accountable for the true cost of dirty and dangerous energy.

Since oil started gushing into the Gulf of Mexico nearly a month ago, BP has been doing everything it can — to protect its profits, image, and reputation. Even as their oil is destroying the Gulf of Mexico’s unique ecosystems and the marine animals and local economies that depend on them, BP has launched a public relations campaign to try and minimize the fallout of this disaster to their bottom line.  But no matter its efforts to rebrand itself or downplay the significance of this disaster, BP, can't hide from this.

BP is certainly trying though. The company withheld video evidence that revealed that much more oil was pumping into the Gulf than the official estimates – perhaps 10 times as much or even more.  And it's executives have been trying to deflect the blame onto someone else at congressional hearings.

They’ve been injecting thousands of gallons of toxic dispersants to keep the oil from reaching the surface, even though no one knows what the effects of this massive experiment will be on fish and other organisms. Independent scientists and Louisiana fisherman understand why — it’s not about cleaning up the oil, it’s about hiding it from public view on the surface, even though spreading it throughout the Gulf could just be exacerbating the damage. Indeed, independent scientists have found that the use of dispersants may be causing the oil to form massive underwater plumes, which could harm sperm whales, bluefin tuna, and other creatures that live in the open ocean.

But don’t bother BP's CEO Tony Hayward with that news, who recently said: “Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact will be very, very modest."

That's not what we're seeing.

We’re pretty skeptical of claims by the oil industry and the government officials who still seem to be doing more to protect polluters than to hold them accountable for the devastation they are causing. That’s why Greenpeace’s team on the Gulf Coast has been bearing witness to the disaster and conducting an independent assessment of the impacts. On board the Greenpeace boat “Billy Greene,” we’ve sought to bring oil spill experts and media to see what is really happening to the Gulf and the Mississippi Delta, no matter what the latest spin from BP.

This is the cost of our reliance on dirty and dangerous energy.

CEOs for some of the world's largest coal companies testified before the House Select Comittee on Energy Independence and Global Warming on April 14th, and it was quite a show.

There was plenty of predictable hype and misniformation about Carbon Capture and Sequestration, as the coal CEOs demanded more taxpayer dollars to pursue the myth of "clean coal" while ignoring all the reasons why CCS is a dangerous distraction from real clean energy solutions.

The real action came when youth activists confronted the coal CEOs with lumps of coal and blackened hands to show everyone in the hearing room that despite the industry's lobbying and propaganda, young people know that coal is dirty, and has no role in our clean energy future.

I hope that the efforts of the youth activists to challenge the coal CEOs with their dangerous and dirty fuel reminded the policymakers in the room and beyond who is behind the efforts to block solutions to climate change, and that young people will not sit quietly while our future is treated as though it were just another bargaining chip between polluter lobbyists and Congress.

The action was also captured by CNN:

 

Another interesting part of the hearing came when Chairman Ed Markey asked Gregory Boyce, the CEO of Peabody Coal, about his company's efforts to block the EPA's ability to protect the public's health and safety by cutting global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act. Congressman Markey pointed out that Peabody Coal explicitly states in their petition,

"Peabody’s petition is based primarily on the release of email and other information from the University of East Anglia (“UEA”) Climatic Research Unit (“CRU”) in November of last year."

Chairman Markey then asked the coal CEOs if their companies will now back away from their efforts to block the EPA's endangerment finding since the British House of Commons cleared the scientists of any wrongdoing.

Of course, the responses from the coal CEOS just reinforced that the efforts of polluting industries to undermine the Clean Air Act is really about protecting their profits at the expense of the planet and public health, and they will continue to use fake scandals to push their polluter agenda.

You can read more about the hearing from the Sierra Club's Bruce Nilles or hear from one of the youth activists about coming face to face with the dirty coal CEOs. 

UPDATE: check out the video of the action and some selections form the hearing

When we launched Polluterharmony, we wanted to be sure that the new online dating service for polluters, lobbyists, and politicians reached those who need it most; all those lonely legislators looking for their very own match.  What better way to reach them than Politico.com?

As it turned out, Polluterharmony has been a hit, quickly becoming the #1 matchmaking site for polluters, industry lobbyists, and politicians! It's great that more public officials have had a chance to learn about this exciting new service, but we want to be sure that it's not just other Senators that know about Senator Murkowski's close relationship with polluter lobbyists.  Her constituents deserve to know too!  So to help get the word out, this week we launched ads on NBC affiliates in Alaska.

Polluterharmony, the new online dating service we launched this week dedicated to matching polluter lobbyists with politicians is making waves. Check out Dylan Ratigan's kudos on MSNBC;

And the video is also getting attention on Capitol Hill, as Anne Mulkerne reports in her NYTimes/Greenwire article:

Sen. Murkowski, Greenpeace Exchange Barbs Over EPA Regulations

Greenpeace and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office are in a battle of words over her effort to block U.S. EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.

An aide to the Alaska Republican condemned Greenpeace yesterday after PolluterWatch, a project of the environmental group, launched a Web site called PolluterHarmony.com, a take-off on the matchmaking site eHarmony.com.

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"If she objects to the scrutiny her conduct has received, she should consider putting her constituents ahead of Washington lobbyists," Davies said. "Until then, we will continue to hold her accountable for her close ties to influence peddlers like Jeffrey Holmstead."

News reports earlier this year revealed that Holmstead, an industry lawyer who served in the George W. Bush administration, advised Murkowski's office on a failed amendment last year to block EPA regulations. Environmentalists have pointed to Holmstead's involvement as a signal that Murkowski is working on behalf of industry interests, but the Alaska senator has said her staff consulted a variety of outside experts, including environmentalists and Republican and Democratic lawmakers, when drafting that amendment.

It's great that more public officials and lobbyists for coal and oil companies might now get a chance to learn about Polluterharmony, so they too might find a match made in Washington. Happy Valentines Weekend!