Mike Tidwell, Director
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Mike Tidwell is founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a grassroots nonprofit organizations dedicated to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.. He is also an author and filmmaker who predicted in vivid detail the Katrina hurricane disaster in his 2003 book Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast. His newest book, focusing on Katrina and global warming, is titled The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities. Tidwell’s most recent documentary film, We Are All Smith Islanders, vividly depicts the dangers of global warming Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.
Tidwell has been featured in numerous national media outlets including NBC's Meet the Press, NPR, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
In 2003, Tidwell received the Audubon Naturalist Society's prestigious "Conservation Award." Two years later he received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. A long-time resident of Maryland, Tidwell lives in Takoma Park with his wife Beth and son Sasha.
Blog Posts by Mike Tidwell, Director
The Gazette of Business and Politics
By Mike Tidwell and Jim Strong
Labor unions and environmental groups haven't always seen eye to eye in Maryland. The state's "green" leaders often have seemed more interested in trees than workers. And unions traditionally have focused more on short-term wages than long-term threats like global warming.
Commentary by Mike Tidwell
As a boy, I remember sitting in my family's Ford Pinto in a four-hour long gas line during the Arab oil embargo of 1973. My dad told me then, with complete confidence, that oil would be a bad memory when I grew up. Our cars would run on something, he said, but not on this black liquid from countries that don't like us.
Commentary by Mike Tidwell
I went to the White House and got arrested last week because I don't like hurricanes -- and I really didn't like Irene. The storm knocked out power to my Takoma Park home from Sunday to Monday and it took off the top of my chimney.
The U.S. Peace Corps marked its 50th anniversary in late September with festivities all across the nation’s capital. Former employees like Bill Moyers and Chris Matthews hosted elegant parties as the storied agency took a celebratory bow.
And with good reason. Founded by John F. Kennedy in the idealistic sixties, the Peace Corps has lived on to send more than 200,000 Americans overseas to help feed, clothe, and better educate the poorest of the poor in 139 countries.
But as a former Peace Corps volunteer myself, having lived in a mud-hut village for two years in the Congo, I find it hard to celebrate right now. That’s because our current charismatic and youthful president – Barack Obama – is threatening to undo much of the good work achieved by the Peace Corps over the past half century.
It’s not widely appreciated, but here’s the undeniable fact: Energy policies embraced by the Obama White House are bringing direct harm to every poor village on the face of the planet, from the highlands of Papua New Guinea to the rainforests of South America to the arid plains of Obama’s own ancestral Kenya. And the biggest threat of all is yet to come. It’s an international “tar sands oil pipeline” from Canada to America which, if approved by the Obama Administration, will affect all nations, but especially the impoverished of the world.
If you want to know just how determined activists are to stop the proposed tar sands oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, listen to this:
Last Saturday morning, August 20th, more than 50 activists were arrested in front of the White House. They were handcuffed, stuffed into blistering-hot paddy wagons, and informed that they would spend two nights in a crowded, harsh DC jail. The U.S. Park Police
To call attention to this fact--to demand strong climate legislation that reduces carbon emissions and promotes clean energy--to call for getting dirty energy money out of politics, a broad coalition of 19 national, regional and state organizations (see list below) issued a call a couple of days ago for local "Congress: You've Got Oil on Your Hands" events around the country on July 20th. The coalition urges that actions be held in front of the offices of members of the Senate or the House who have taken a large amount of money from Big Oil or who have refused to support strong action on climate. More info on Big Oil campaign contributions can be found at http://www.followtheoilmoney.org. MoveOn.org is setting up a website operation where local organizers can register their events and get more information.
Given the continuing ecological and economic disaster unfolding in the gulf, and because the U.S. Senate will be debating and voting on offshore drilling/energy/climate legislation this month or early in August, it is right-on-time that these actions are happening. This is the time to really step up grassroots pressure on the U.S. Senate!!
| Photo Album Photo Credit: Jeffrey Dubinsky, Gulf Restoration Network |
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| Photo of oil invading Louisiana wetlands as seen from the air. |
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| Tidwell flies over the oil disaster site with Aaron Viles of the Gulf Restoration Network |
| More pictures from Tidwell's Gulf Coast trip>> |
I just got back from a four-day tour of the Louisiana coastline. I flew over the oil catastrophe in a small plane. I toured the oily marshes in fishing boats. And I walked the beaches myself, smelling what people here say is a mix of oil and "agent orange," their name for the toxic chemical dispersant BP is spraying on the oil. Watch this short video. I went to Louisiana to see for myself just what's at stake for Maryland and Virginia. Unless we re-instate a permanent ban on all new offshore drilling in the mid-Atlantic, this could be us. Thankfully, due to the activism of people like you, President Obama last week cancelled a plan to sell drilling leases just 50 miles off the Virginia coastline. That's a good start. But it's not a done deal. Please sign this petition for a permanent offshore ban. And donate to CCAN to help us keep up this critical fight. Based on my trip to Louisiana, I can tell you we'll never be safe with oil. Never. It's wrecking our climate, of course, and there's no way to permanently eliminate human error and equipment failure through regulation. As long as we have thousands and thousands of drilling rigs off our shores, there will be another spill. I visited innocent Louisiana fishing families now being wiped out by the spill. Many of them weep openly as they talk. They describe spending their whole lives fishing only to be told last week that they'll get a $10,000 fine if they drop a single net or line in the water. One fisherman said, "BP thinks they can repay us with money. But they've taken away something no money can repay. They've taken away our way of life." If a similar blowout occurred off the coast of Virginia, we'd have oil from Virginia Beach to Cape May, NJ. And it would be innocent Virginia watermen crying. Innocent Maryland hotel owners and dockworkers crying. Please donate to CCAN to help us make sure this never happens. Offshore wind power in Virginia and Maryland is the better path, of course. Using only a small portion of the coast, windmills in Virginia alone could provide enough electricity to power 3.6 million electric cars [pdf] forever. That's with practically zero pollution even if, god forbid, a hurricane blew through and knocked down some or all the windmills. It's clean energy. We are all victims of climate change, of course. But the Louisiana families I visited last week are the victims, right now, of one the ugliest addictions within the climate crisis. It's our responsibility to make sure their suffering is not in vain.
CCAN director Mike Tidwell gets a firsthand
look of the BP oil disaster during a flyover May 27th.
I've come here on a three-day tour to see for myself just what's at stake for states like Virginia and Maryland if any plan for new offshore drilling moves forward in the mid-Atlantic region. Thankfully, due to the activism of people like you, President Obama last week announced the cancellation of a plan to sell drilling leases in an area just 50 miles off the Virginia coastline. That's a good start. But it's not a done deal. The cancellation could just be temporary.
Photo of oil invading Louisiana wetlands as seen
from air by CCAN director Mike Tidwell on a May 27th
tour of the disaster zone.
Based on my trip to Louisiana this week, here's why we need a permanent ban on all new offshore drilling everywhere in America: We will never be safe with oil. Never. Besides the fact that it's wrecking our climate, there's no way to permanently regulate away human error and equipment failure. As long as we have thousands and thousands of drilling rigs off our shores, our shores will sooner or later see another spill. Oil is a destructive fuel on every level.
Here's the human level. I've spent three full days now visiting and interviewing innocent Louisiana fishing families who are now being wiped out by the spill. Many of them weep openly as they talk. They describe spending their whole lives fishing here only to be told in May 2010 that they'll get a $10,000 fine if they drop a single net or line in the water.
CCAN director Mike Tidwell flies over the Louisiana
oil disaster site May 27th with Aaron Viles of
the Gulf Restoration Network.
Fear and anger run rampant here. No one knows when the oil disaster will end. Will the Gulf be biologically dead by the time this is over? Will a proud 200-year fishing culture be doomed? People cry a lot over those questions here. Grown men in their 70s cry. Working mothers in their 20s cry.
If a similar blowout occurred off the coast of Virginia, we'd have oil from Virginia Beach to Cape May, NJ. And it would be innocent Virginia watermen crying. Innocent motel owners and dockworkers crying. Virginia offshore wind power, conversely, using a small portion of the coast, could provide enough electricity to power 3.6 million electric cars forever. With practically zero pollution even if, god forbid, a hurricane blew through and knocked down some or all the windmills. It's clean energy.
Yesterday I spent time with a Cajun woman named Phyllis Melancon of Leeville, Louisiana. Standing next to her idle shrimp boat, here nets hanging dry for the first time anyone can remember in the month of May, she said, "BP thinks they can repay us with money. But they've take away something no money can repay. They've taken away our way of life. Our life on the water. Now all we have are dry nets and a big emptiness inside."
We are all victims of climate change all over the world, of course. But these are the victims, right now, of one of our more obscene addictions within the climate crisis. It's our responsibility to make sure the suffering down here is not in vain.
Photo Credit: Jeffrey Dubinsky, Gulf Restoration Network