Last weekend in Sarasota County,
folks came together at Englewood Beach. And they were not an isolated group; they joined thousands around the world to speak out against dirty energy industries.
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran into a reef in Prince William Sound. The resulting oil spill devastated the nearby town and ecosystem. Just twenty one years later during the Deep Horizon spill, BP took a page from Exxon's playbook. They dramatically underestimated the size of the spill, downplaying all aspects. And they capped liability right at the beginining.
The underlying crisis, it seems, is a crisis of democracy. Corporations have become so powerful that our government isn’t able to regulate them sufficiently to keep such disasters from occuring. And when such inevitable accidents do happen, government is unable to hold these corporations accountable.
But people are speaking out.
Hands Across the Sand formed in 2010 in response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It has grown into an international movement. Every year, people come together to join hands, forming symbolic barriers against spilled oil and to stand against the impacts of other forms of extreme energy.
