We Won’t Be Fooled By Big Oil’s Promotion of Drilling To Our Communities
By Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš
Last month, the American Petroleum Institute (API), largest U.S. oil and gas lobby group, launched the “Explore Offshore” campaign targeting Black and Latinx communities in the Southeast region of the country. The idea is to build support for offshore drilling because of the energy source and the jobs that the industry produces. In promoting this campaign, the API has partnered with Black and Latinx business groups to help sell this idea that drilling is good for us.
We know the truth about climate change and why this is not the way forward. A majority of Black and Latinx voters oppose offshore oil drilling. We have good reason for doing this — our communities are among those most impacted by climate change.
In the Southeast region, there have been a series of extremely strong hurricanes over the past two decades that are being exacerbated by climate change. Puerto Rico is barely recovering from the devastating Hurricane Maria that hit the island last year. The island now has a weakened infrastructure, and there were over 4,600 deaths.
Our communities are more likely to live near polluting power plants that impact the quality of the air we breath. In my home state of California, 44% of Latinxs live in communities with poor air quality compared to about a quarter of non-Latinxs. This means that we are more likely to suffer asthma and other illnesses caused by pollution.
We live with and see the consequences of relying on fossil fuels on a daily basis. Our grassroots communities will reject this latest move by the API. Not only is this “Explore Offshore” campaign reckless, it doesn’t take into consideration our health and our desires to have more renewable energy and green jobs. We know that there are good jobs in renewable energy, but our leaders need to invest in these technologies and alternative energy sources.
API is using an old tactic, promoting dirty energy and dirty jobs in hopes that we will be scared to go along with offshore oil drilling because we our communities have fewer resources. We won’t be fooled into sacrificing our health for dirty jobs in an industry that is not sustainable.