Hands Join Across the Sand to Stop Offshore Oil Drilling

Thousands of people around the world will join hands against offshore oil drilling this Saturday.
Hands Join Across the Sand to Stop Offshore Oil Drilling
Kristina Skorbach
6/24/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/girls102362884.jpg" alt="Two Girls protest against the BP oil company in front of a BP gas station. Thousands of people around the world will join hands against offshore oil drilling this Saturday in the Hands Across the Sand event with a clear message: 'No to offshore oil drilling, yes to clean energy' (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)" title="Two Girls protest against the BP oil company in front of a BP gas station. Thousands of people around the world will join hands against offshore oil drilling this Saturday in the Hands Across the Sand event with a clear message: 'No to offshore oil drilling, yes to clean energy' (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1818151"/></a>
Two Girls protest against the BP oil company in front of a BP gas station. Thousands of people around the world will join hands against offshore oil drilling this Saturday in the Hands Across the Sand event with a clear message: 'No to offshore oil drilling, yes to clean energy' (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Thousands of people around the world will join hands against offshore oil drilling this Saturday in the Hands Across the Sand event with a clear message: “No to offshore oil drilling, yes to clean energy.”

David Rauschkolb is the founder of the Hands Across the Sand organization, which he started in 2009 after the House of Representatives pulled the bill to ban near-shore drilling.

“It’s time for Americans to come together and send a powerful message to Congress and the president to embrace clean energy and decrease our dependence on offshore oil drilling,” said Rauschkolb.

A smaller scale Hand Across the Sand event took place this February even before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, as Rouschkolb managed to establish a website and reach over 10,000 people who gathered along the coast line of Florida.

“I modified the website to reflect the national concern,” said Rouschkolb in response to a question about how he succeeded in getting across to people in California and other coastal states in the United States.

Rouschkolb is a 48-year-old surfer who lives in Panama City, Florida, and owns three restaurants himself, so to say that the BP oil spill had an affect on his life is to say the least.

He was able to reach out to many Americans across the 50 states including Puerto Rico and D.C., who shared the same concern for this Saturday’s event.

“It’s important for people to be thinking about clean energy. Because of the oil spill, it has shaken the human consciousness,” said Coastal Campaign Specialist for Surfrider, Stefanie Sekich.

After the Gulf of Mexico oil spill however, the concern for clean waters and safe energy resources touched people in countries outside of the United States. Through the Hands Across the Sand website, Rouschkolb began getting responses from Japan and Canada two weeks before the event, as news about the June 26 event spread to all parts of the world with the help of his friends and organizations like Sierra Club and Surfrider, who were interested in Rouschkolb’s mission.

To this day, 31 international countries including Britain, India, Australia, Croatia, Peru, and others will join Americans in an event that, “like a wave of clean energy hopes will cross the globe and finish on the North shore of Kauai, Hawaii,” according to Rouschkolb.

There have already been 90 sites established in California that welcome people to the 11 a.m. event on the beaches, said Sekich, who is also the California state organizer for Hands Across the Sand. “People will gather at 11. The event will start at 12 p.m. and last until 12:15, and that’s it. It’s simple, it’s organic,” said Sekich.

Some 742 sites around the world have already agreed to participate in holding hands while standing on sand, with a clear message that not only the American people are willing to leave their footprints in a line that will symbolize a barrier to offshore drilling. Sponsors like Greenpeace, Audubon, Moveon.org, Friends of the Earth, and many other environmentally aware organizations all support the effort to prevent offshore oil drilling.

“Enough is enough, oil drilling in American waters is folly, especially since this has threatened the whole economy and natural habitat. ... We don’t need to expand more offshore drilling, period,” said Rouschkolb. The oil companies are not the only ones to blame, as it could have happened to anyone, not just BP. The most important action to prevent these accidents from happening again should come from policymakers, according to Rouschkolb.