To: The United States Senate
Senators Kaine and Warner: Don't Drill Our Coasts
Stop siding with oil industry profits over safe coasts and a livable climate by advancing a dangerous drilling plan that puts at risk tourism and fishing industries in Virginia worth over $2.5 billion and 100,000 jobs that depend on a healthy ocean and a cleaner Chesapeake Bay. Instead of the oil-slick beaches that inevitably come with offshore drilling, let's tap into the vast rewards of offshore wind power, which could create 10,000 jobs in Virginia while lessening the threat of rising seas and chronic flooding already plaguing coastal residents—especially in Norfolk and Hampton Roads—as a result of climate change from global warming.
Why is this important?
Extracting and burning more oil will accelerate the devastating consequences of climate change, with rising sea levels, more severe flooding, and superstorms like Sandy and Katrina that global warming breeds. Hampton Roads, the second most vulnerable coastal area next to New Orleans, cries out for clean energy - not more dirty fossil fuel oil - to reduce CO2 emissions, already perilously high at 400 parts per million.