Tomorrow's Grassroots Spill Protest Will Be A Huge Global Event

Dave Rauschkolb is a passionate surfer and an owner of three Gulf Coast beachside restaurants in Seaside, Florida. But he cannot say what the beach looks like right now.

“I’ve actually chosen not to go to the beach,” he said. “It’s like how you sometimes don’t want to see a loved one that’s terminally ill. You want to remember them the way they are.”

Tomorrow, on what he calls an emotional roller coaster ride, he will break that vigil. He is the organizer of Hands Across the Sand, a global event that is shaping up to be by far the biggest grassroots response yet to the ongoing oil spill.

On Saturday, people around the world will join hands for 15 minutes to “say no to offshore drilling, and say yes to clean energy.” In a giant wave, each event will take place at noon local time.

Update: Hands Across The Sand went off fantastically on Saturday. Tens of thousands of people participated around the country and around the world. Protesters generated tons of national and local media coverage of their simple message. In Florida, former offshore drilling supporter Gov. Charlie Christ joined the festivities in solidarity.

We blogged about it as it was first shaping up. As of now, Rauschkolb says there are 740 events planned in 510 U.S. cities and 34 countries (an event in Istanbul, Turkey was just added today). All came together within the last 5 weeks when he came up with the plan and enlisted the support of major environmental groups. The idea was based on a similar statewide Florida event he held in February, before the spill, to protest state plans to expose pristine beaches to drilling risks. That event attracted 10,000 people.

This time, Rauschkolb hopes for millions – though he says he has no real way to tell in advance how many will show up tomorrow. The word has spread like wildfire through media reports and a social networking strategy on Facebook (29,000 fans) and other sites, he says. “The bad news is we only had 5.5 weeks. The good news is we only had 5.5 weeks. When you have the sort of period of time, it really puts people into action."

What also spurs people into action is the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig blowout, the oil industry has been desperately been shuffling blame, and lawmakers and government officials have been shouting over each other, all while the entire Gulf Coast economy has suffered.

“We’re sort of in this incredibly destructive discourse about the topic. In this country we are so divided…everyone is placing labels on each other,” Rauschkolb said in an interview.

He believes our need to stop more drilling and transition to clean energy is a nonpartisan issue. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or Republican or whatever. Americans care deeply about their social heritage, and I believe Americans will stand up to the powerful oil industry that has poisoned our political process,” he said.

He is disturbed that the oil interests have been guiding U.S. energy policy for so long. As a result, he says, Americans don’t have access to alternative energy options, such as electric cars to drive to their local Hands Across the Sand event.

"It’s time for that to change. It’s time for leaders to start listening to Americans,” he said. “The metaphor of joining hands goes far beyond what they are going to be doing on the beaches tomorrow. This is a change of consciousness. We’ve got to change our ways, not only as an industry, and not only as a country, but we have to change our ways as individuals,” he said.

Amen to that. Hope to see you at an event tomorrow. I’ll be in Washington, DC. Check your local events here.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Hands Across the Sand