Carbon Free Girl - A Race Car Driver's Journey to Be Carbon Neutral

May 2, 2010

Hello everyone,

I just boarded my plane for New Orleans. I have never been and I have always wanted to visit, but not for the reasons I am going now. As if New Orleans hasn't been through enough devastation... and now this. While riding on the airport shuttle from parking, I struck up a conversation with the guy sitting across from me. He was on his way to Fort Myers, Florida on business. When I told him I was on my way to New Orleans to assist in the clean up of the oil spill, we began to talk about how devastating this is for our ocean, our economy. An older man sitting next to me said, "Something good will come of this, you know. No more drilling." I responded by saying yes, that was our goal at National Wildlife Federation - to get a strong, clean energy bill out of this disaster - one that doesn't include offshore drilling.

On our short 3 minute ride from the parking lot to the airport, we talked about a lot of things. We talked about how two thirds of the oxygen in our atmosphere comes from phytoplankton in the ocean. What happens when that gets killed off?

When I arrived at the New Orleans airport, there was a lot of security everywhere because President Obama was on his way in Air Force One. I met up with Miles Grant from the National Wildlife Federation and we hit the road for the Venice Marina - where the oil is arriving first. Because of the bad weather and the high winds, the tide was higher than normal which flooded the roads.

When we arrived at the marina, we met up with the Good Morning America crew (who joined us to interview NWF CEO Larry Schweiger) and headed out on a boat to the most southern tip of the delta, where the oil had already arrived. On our way out, where normally there would be a flurry of activity this time of year, we saw shrimp boat after shrimp boat anchored at the dock.

We saw some beautiful wildlife on our way - birds, alligators, fish - and I had a sadness overcome me when I saw them because I wondered if they would survive this mess. We saw a Coast Guard boat with oil residue deposits and were documenting that just as Marine One landed nearby.

As Larry was telling us about all the dead jellyfish he has seen earlier in the day, we saw areas of wetland that had turned brown from the oil. The captain of our boat is a fisherman (like most of the people around here) and he had been to this area just a few days ago and said these reeds were bright green.

On our way home we got caught in a pretty intense storm. The captain of our boat, Allen Moreau, had grown up here and had been a fisherman all his life. He told me he knows this will take many years for the environment to recover, like he needs to find a new career.

I did a short interview with the local FOX News affiliate when I returned from my boat trip:

In other news, here is a breaking story - there has been a large air spill at a wind farm. No threats reported so far. Some claim to enjoy the breeze. story here with photo

Keep it green... and blue... (and free of oil)

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