What a successful event! Thousands of people all around the globe joined hands on Saturday in the sand. Whether your beach was loaded with people (1500 in New Jersey! Thousands along the Florida coastline! Europe! Africa!) or if you had a small band of folks along your riverside, Hands Across the Sand sent a message to the world in a peaceful way: People are angry with the Oil Spill and want alternatives to oil NOW.
I know many politicians, businessmen, and armchair commentators say, “Changing our infrastructure and moving to alternative energies will cost too much.”
Really? Our refusal to change, or even begin to change, has now cost us the Gulf of Mexico, among many other anticipated disastrous effects of this spill. Let me repeat that: It has cost us the Gulf of Mexico! Our Florida coastline! Maybe the whole Southeast coast! Maybe the entire state of Florida (if those methane studies are true – I truly hope it does not take wiping out the State of Florida to shift to clean energy). This is far too expensive!
The Hands Across the Sand flickr album is amazing. Thousands of photos from beaches and waterfronts all over the World. Some photoshop/movie master should make a video composite of all the lines. People got creative on Saturday, too. There’s a photo from a woman who had to stay home due to illness, but her kids made a line of Teddy Bears in the back yard! A friend in Arizona put sand from a recent trip to the Gulf and a bottle of water from Biloxi on a blanket in the back yard. It was a day to be inspired, and send a collective message to the people in charge that we want a different future.
We also live in a society riddled with “watchers” who observe reality as if it were on TV or Youtube. Greed survives on apathy, folks. Your silence signifies your acceptance of the status quo. If you want change, you have to speak up, or join a line in the sand, or write your senator. These are EASY little actions. Things will change, and they will change faster if you drop your own agenda and stand up once in a while. It is easier when you bring friends and family along. Get together and take action.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the Hands event. You are artists; you can see the world from a different perspective – a world where change is possible – and you take action to make that change a reality.
Photo at right: Sandra Walter
impromptu North Avenue Beach, Chicago Hands leader
Photo at top by Ken Llio
6.26.10
More Chicago pics here
