gulf of mexico

QR Blog Editor 6-19-2013

In an attempt to rebuild the image of the five gulf states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, federal and state officials have joined forces on their journey to replenish the damage from 2010's BP oil-well tragedy. Talks of baseball stadiums, sea walls, and donations to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council are among the many entities who will benefit from President Obama’s Restore Act signed last year. The New York Times reports:

The money will mostly be split among the states and a new entity, the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, composed of state and federal officials. There are already plenty of ideas among the states for spending the cash, including constructing a sea wall around the city jail in Mobile, Ala., and deepening shipping channels. Biloxi, Miss., is using money already given to the state by BP to build a baseball stadium.

Here’s another idea: the states and the council should require that a nickel of every dollar they control be used to buy and protect coastal marshes and wetlands. It is the most important thing they can do to help the gulf survive the next oil spill.

Read more here.

Bryan Farrell 8-08-2011

Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher was sentenced recently to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine for disrupting a federal oil and gas lease auction in 2008 that was later deemed illegal. But don't cry for him. Having met the man, I can confidently say the last thing he wants is pity.

At a speaking engagement earlier this year, someone asked Tim how we could keep him from going to prison. He quickly responded, "I'm not sure keeping me out of prison is a good thing. I'd rather think about having you join me." After all, he didn't do it for himself.

Jim Wallis 3-17-2011

Once again, we are seeing human and environmental tragedy. In Japan, a natural disaster has destroyed all human attempts for control.

Jim Wallis 10-20-2010

It is hard to imagine that it's been six months since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Jennifer Kottler 8-05-2010
In our 24-hour news cycle society, where news and so-called news (sensationalism, by any other name) is thrown at us at lightning speed and in ever-increasing amounts, it can be difficult to distin
Gretel Ehrlich 7-13-2010
A heart has been pierced, four miles of seabed violated, and the aorta is gushing unabated.
We are witnessing a massive despoiling of God's creation that will impact ecosystems for generations. Our response must think that far ahead as well -- to our children and our children's children.
Jeannie Choi 6-18-2010
Here's a little round-up of links from the web you may have missed this week:

Jim Wallis 6-17-2010
This week, in President Barack Obama's Oval Office speech on the oil spill, he used the term "mission." That's the right word.
Commentary on President Obama's response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico says that he has not been tough enough on BP, that he has not shown
Brian McLaren 6-11-2010

Joanna Weiss asks the right question in a recent Boston Globe editorial:

Debra Dean Murphy 6-07-2010

The current crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is being packaged and sold as a story of blame and gross incompetence, and there's plenty of both to go around.

There are times when there are no words. There are times when it seems that there is no hope for humankind, that our blindness to the things that make for peace is willful.
Sheldon Good 6-04-2010
The BP Oil Spill is the worst oil spill in U.S. history, much worse than Exxon Valdez.
Jim Wallis 6-03-2010
I am watching unbelievable pictures tonight of endless swaths of brown oil mixed with the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, of dying wetlands and marshes, of miles of contaminated coastlines, of d
Justin Fung 6-03-2010
"Spill" sounds so innocuous, doesn't it?
Jim Wallis 5-27-2010
The insurgent Tea Party and its Libertarian philosophy is a political phenomenon, not a religious one.
Jim Wallis 5-20-2010

I thought Glenn Beck must have moved on to other things, but the other night, he went back to his attack on social justice churches. This time the issue was climate change.