Great news! Our polar bear friend got word late in the day that the Senate has decided not to consider an offshore drilling bill anytime soon. What made 'em change their minds, I wonder...?  Was it the bad news about the oil rigs? Or the Department of Interior scandal? Or the fact that fixing our teetering economy may be more worth Congress’s time than catering to the whims of the oil industry? Our bear seems to think he had something to do with it. And who are we to tell him different?

But, in any event, after 3 days standing in the hot, hot sun — which is no small feat for a polar bear — he seems to have concluded that his job is done for now. He’s headed off for parts unknown and a well-earned rest. After all that time together, we’ll kind of miss him. But the moratorium is still in peril, so who knows, maybe we'll see him again...

Yet another beautiful sunrise over the Capitol greeted our steadfast polar bear and his support team this morning as the bear entered Day 3 of his vigil in front of Congress. At 8:00 a.m., our early morning crew got a fresh infusion of company and energy when the dayshift arrived with donuts, bananas, new games to play, and just someone new to talk to. The bear was, as ever, friendly but reserved. Very much the strong, silent type.

The morning also brought news: the US Minerals Management Service revealed that 49 offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico were destroyed by Hurricane Ike. Even a week after the storm, most of the remaining 3,800 oil rigs already in the Gulf remain shut down — by which we mean, of course, that they aren’t producing oil. If you recall, most offshore oil rigs in the Gulf were shut down way back in August before Hurricane Gustav (remember Hurricane Gustav? Time flies doesn’t it.) That’s three weeks and counting that more than 90% of our country's oil production has been offline as a result of hurricanes.  

It’s ironic but important news as the Senate considers the nation’s energy future, because hurricanes have been getting more frequent over the last decade. The best science tells us that storms like Gustav and Ike have been getting more intense, almost certainly as a result of global warming. Which leads to a very important question that Congress has seemed reluctant to consider:  

If a single hurricane can destroy dozens of offshore oil rigs — or more than a hundred, in the case of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — and virtually shut down energy production across 600,000 square miles of ocean; and if both the number and intensity of hurricanes is increasing; and if the best science tells us these storms will get even worse as a result of global warming; then how, exactly, does building more offshore oil rigs increase our energy security?  

The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t. Opening more of our oceans to oil drilling won’t make us more secure, just more dependent on oil, and more vulnerable to the next big storm. And the next one after that. And the one after that. We can’t solve either global warming or the energy crisis by drilling more, but only by using less. We agree with the bear, the world needs more ice, not more oil.

The last few days have brought out lots of other people who agree as well — as evidenced by all the “I’m with the Bear” photos accumulating on the website. Our coolest group of visitors so far today has been a bunch of military photographers on assignment for a class at a local military installation. They were all snapping away happily at the bear, and had lots of great comments about it. None of them wanted their own picture taken because it might cause them trouble with the military brass. Still, it was great to meet them all.

What’s been even better is all the people who stop by having already heard about the homeless bears. For instance, a guy who had just arrived yesterday from California told us his professor had talked about in an art class. Another guy had read about it in his hometown paper in Australia. It’s been great to see word of this spread so widely, and generate so much excitement. And so much awareness of the polar bears and their plight.

To read more, view photos and video, follow the entire story on the blogs, and view our Twitter feed, which our activists were updating in real time during the protest, click here!

We have created a Flash slideshow featuring some good shots of the global warming refugee polar bear street art installations we rolled out this past week. (Embed code is below the slideshow.)

Check it out:




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John McCain consistently and falsely says that offshore oil drilling is safe, and that drill rigs have withstood Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike without any significant damage or oil spills.  The facts tell a very different story.

Most recently, Hurricane Ike barreled through the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Minerals Management Service, as of September 15, 2008, 28 of the 3,800 offshore oil and gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico had been destroyed, and several other platforms were significantly damaged. On September 16, the oil drilling company Rowan announced one of its drill rigs was missing, and that it had likely capsized and sunk due to Hurricane Ike.  

Yet on September 17 McCain stated he’d visited an oil rig in the Gulf, it survived the hurricane, it was safe and sound, and fish were swimming all around it. Clearly McCain visited a rig that escaped damage, but it’s a tremendous disservice to spin this visit in a way that leads people to believe there was no damage.

It’s not the first time McCain lied about the impact of hurricanes on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In June, McCain said, “As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston.” Yet the US Coast Guard reported that there were over 9 million gallons of oil released from six major and five medium spills (for comparison’s sake, the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil), and the Minerals Management service reported that Hurricane Rita destroyed 46 platforms and damaged 20 others, while Hurricane Rita destroyed 69 platforms and damaged 32 others.

Not so insignificant, is it?

Now, to be fair, the 9 million gallons spilled as a result of Katrina and Rita were not spilled from offshore rigs. The oil was spilled from onshore tanks and pipelines that failed or ruptured. However, it’s not possible to drill offshore in the Gulf without an extensive network of tanks, pipelines, refineries and other infrastructure. Just as it’s not possible to talk about hurricane damage to oil industry infrastructure without including onshore damage.

More offshore oil drilling will only lead to more oil spills, pollution and global warming. And global warming is the very thing that supercharges storms like Katrina, Rita and Ike, which in turn causes major oil spills and extensive damage to oil industry infrastructure. It’s a vicious cycle that any Senator should approach with true solutions to global warming and this country’s energy crisis: energy efficiency so that we get more out of every drop of oil, and a new vision for US energy that relies on renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind and phases out addiction to oil.