Efforts to minimize the damage from the huge oil spill from a rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico are under way, but wildlife conservation groups say the oil could pose a disaster for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coastal areas.
How can you help? A number of organizations are recruiting volunteers.
A cursory perusal suggests this is a solid list of organizations.
Trippin
I love Obama, but this is a disaster and he has really botched this.
Poopyman
Agreed about the list. As much as I find objectionable at CNN, this article is right on. I hope they’re airing contacts for these orgs throughout the day. (Hopeful, but not expectant.)
Albatrossity
Good luck with doing anything while BP controls the coast. My daughters, who have extensive bird-handling experience, went through the BP hazmat web training here, traveled to Louisiana and went through the mandated training there, and then were stymied everywhere they tried to volunteer. They spent a week in Louisiana and never got close to doing anything useful with regard to beach cleanup, wildlife rehab, or any of the billion things that volunteers could be doing. From what they learned, there could be thousands of volunteers down there, some trained and some waiting to be trained, who simply cannot find a way to get anything useful done.
The coast is locked down, and BP (with the assistance of the Coast Guard and the local gendarmes) has the keys.
Maude
This is great. People want to help and don’t know how.
feebog
Louisiana, Alabama and Florida are doomed. Mississippi is perfectly safe, Haley Barbour said so.
Just Some Fuckhead
Thinking about driving down there to help. I’ve got plenty of extra room in my Humvee H1 if anyone wants to go.
cleek
i think we could all help a lot if we paid for the cleanup so BP didn’t have to foot the entire bill.
who’s with me?!
superfly
Why should anyone have to volunteer?
15 million people are out of work, I would think that a decent number of them wouldn’t mind getting a pay check and doing some good for a few months or more.
Jeffro
I think I’d rather spend my time harassing my elected representatives to get on top of reckless corporations/industries, honestly.
I’m sure the BPs of the world would like nothing better than to have tens of thousands of progressive-minded folks exhausting themselves cleaning up beaches than calling, faxing, and e-mailing Congress.
Arclite
Is the LDS on the list? They were so quick to help out during Katrina…
Joseph Nobles
This is the thing.
People want to help. People want to feel like they are given the opportunity to do something. Where has that been in the present conversation?
On Towel Day, I got the bright idea to try and start a mini-give-athon. Get it? Towels and cleaning up the Gulf? So I searched around trying to find a way to reliably donate to the effort. After a couple of hours, I gave up.
You can’t even run down to the Red Cross and donate blood to this disaster. People feel helpless and there’s no recognizable way to relieve that feeling and see that something is being done. So Obama gets the shaft for not doing anything, even though you and I know that he’s probably spending the bulk of any day dealing with this crisis. When people feel helpless in the face of disaster, they lash out at authority figures.
This should be a lesson for any political head out there: when disaster strikes, publicize ways that anyone can help. Perhaps I just didn’t see it, and shame on me for that. But this list is a great help, and thanks.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Trippin: I totally agree. The Obama government needs to stop drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and hand that job over to oil companies like BP, Shell, Haliburton and Exxon who at least know what they are doing and would never cause a disaster. We ordinary citizens in turn need to do our part by buying more Hummers to help these intrepid companies turn a modest profit.
neil
Donate? This isn’t a hurricane or an earthquake, this is somebody’s fault–somebody way, way richer than me. Let them pay for it.
bago
Aww. This thread is so lonely. My excuse? I’ve got a cold and am hung up in Seattle talking to cranky computers.