Here is a recent email I received after the Hurricane. Thinking about this hurricane for me brings up a lot of thoughts many of them environmentally related - water quality, how are they going to rebuild the city, how this state of emergency is affecting hte economy only speaks to me of how integrally we are tied to oil, to our infrastructure. It makes me wonder about things like how it might be when oil runs out, which from what I hear is only a matter of time. I thought I would throw the question and the original thought-provoking email forwarded to me out there to you all to comment on and see what you think. The email does a lot of finger pointing at Big Oil. i prefer to look at it more in terms of the fact that we are all to blame for choosing this type of energy as what continually fuels our economy. That gives us more say in the final outcome as well. But anyways, add a comment! Share your thoughts and any websites that you think are relevant towards helping with the Hurricane effort! To do so remember, you must log in first and get a FREE account with The Dirt! (directions given in the HELP/FAQ section)

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From: The Shalom Center                        
Reply-To: tsc (at) democracyinaction.org                                            

Subject: Katrina  was NOT a 'Natural' Catastrophe: Going 'Beyond Oil' is the   
only Cure
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:25:24 -0500 (CDT)

Katrina became a catastrophe rather than a problem because human actions are heating our planet.

When it started, Katrina was a moderate storm. But the waters of the Gulf have been heated by the effects of CO2 emissions, and hot water powers the most destructive storms.

For years I have been saying that the label "global warming" induces
unconscious apathy even among those who understand it is happening, because    
"warmth" is what we associate with love and compassion. I have used "global scorching" instead. This week we have seen New Orleans ruined and the Gulf Coast shattered because we have scorched our planet.

Why is this happening? -- The addictive use of oil and coal is to blame. The US especially has become an oiloholic nation.

We must move beyond oil, as The Shalom Center has been urging and planning.    
Click here
http://www.phillybeyondoil.org

for information on the Philly Beyond Oil conference on September 18 that we    
brought into

And click here to help The Shalom Center move forward beyond this
conference.

https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=3273                          

See below for more details.

CONTENTS:
1. Oiloholic addiction & its cure
2. "Beyond Oil" project
3. Spiritual roots of Beyond Oil: Torah of the earth
4. Supporting the Shalom Center project

1. Oiloholic Addiction & its Cure

Not only are we addicted to a dangerous substance that in carefully limited use could be helpful, as tobacco, alcohol, even heroin and cocaine, can be.

Not only are we "hooked" on mainlining oil into our social veins even though we are vaguely conscious that in the long run it could kill us.

Even worse ^? We are being controlled by drug pushers, drug lords, in the form of the Big Oil companies, just as Big Tobacco not only poisoned us and addicted us but claimed it was not even happening.
Big Oil has paid to buy politicians who claim the science of
Scorching and Climate Crisis is doubtful, even when the overwhelming
proportion of the world's scientists say the case is proved.

Trace the perversity of this week's events:                                    

By choking our planetary lungs with more and more CO2, Oil powers global       
scorching.

Global scorching powers Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina not only drowns New Orleans but disrupts Oil production.

The disruption pushes Oil prices even higher, and the Oil companies may well   
make larger profits off smaller supplies.                                      

They use their super-profits to buy politicians who refuse to limit the use    
of oil and gasoline, and instead vote to feed still greater subsidies to Big Oil.
And that speds up global scorching.
A PERFECT STORM OF CORPORATE PROFITS.

Parts of the Mississippi and Louisiana National Guards, which should be home ready to deal with the catastrophe, are instead dying and killing in Iraq -- fighting a war that was built on the raging hunger to control the supplies of the most "strategic" -- addictive-- substance in the world ^? Oil.
>From this perverse spiral most of us suffer, and no one benefits ^? except Big Oil.

Big Oil is forcing an asthma epidemic down our children's throats and noses.   

Big Oil is propagating outbreaks of cancer.

Big Oil has corrupted our democratic politics, has bought governments and      
rented armies and smashed labor unions in Nigeria, Burma, Ecuador, Colombia and tried to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

Big Oil is shattering the lives of indigenous communities in Alaska, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

IS IT HOPELESS? NO!!

THERE IS PLENTY WE CAN DO.

Of course, the immediate saving of lives in the Gulf Coast is the most urgent need.

But if we let it go at that, we are condemning to death a thousand people a few years from now, from what will be a worse Katrina ten thousand when summer in Europe or the Great Plains again becomes unbearable and thousands die as they did in 2004 in Europe hundreds of thousands as global scorching turns fertile land into desert.
2. "Beyond Oil" For the last two years, The Shalom Center has been developing, urging, and beginning to carry out a project called "Beyond Oil." It shows how we can      
focus the Jewish and multireligious communities on helping America grow Beyond Oil. Beyond the addiction to Oil that imprisons almost all of us.
Working on a shoestring, we have been able to birth a "Philly Beyond Oil" teach-in and conference that will meet on Sunday, September 18.

For information on it, and to register and attend, click here:

http://www.phillybeyondoil.org                                                 

WE WELCOME NOT ONLY ALL PHILADELPHIANS BUT EVERYONE TO COME.                   

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