Short Film Part of Campaign to Stop Drilling on Padre Island National Seashore.
Greenpeace has produced its first ever clay animation short, entitled ?Kill the Drill?, which will premiere on its web site www.greenpeaceusa.org on June 11, 2003. The 30-second animation illustrates the destructive impacts of drilling on Padre Island National Seashore and on the Kemp?s Ridley sea turtle. Unsuspecting turtles find themselves at the wrong end of a 18-wheeler truck carrying drilling supplies driven by another famous Texan?President George W. Bush. Padre Island National Seashore is yet another example of how the Bush Administration is opening up public lands to oil and gas drilling, development and other corporate exploitation.
With its unique eco-system of more than 130,000 acres of white sandy beaches and marshy grasslands, Padre Island is one of the few undeveloped barrier islands in the world as well as one of the last of America?s vanishing barrier islands. Home to 11 endangered species, including the beloved Kemp?s Ridley, -- the smallest and most endangered sea turtle in the world -- Padre Island was designated a National Seashore in 1962 to ensure its protection from development and oil and gas drilling. However, more than 40 years after the United States declared this Texas beach a national treasure, the Bush Administration has sold Padre Island to companies like BNP for oil and gas exploration. As early as this summer, Padre Island will become the site of oil and gas rigs, 18-wheeler trucks and environmental degradation.
Greenpeace is calling on the American public to take back their beaches and on the United States government to protect public lands from drilling and corporate interests. Drilling is unsafe and unnecessary, citizens have a right to pristine beaches and the United States needs to invest in clean energy and keep the drill off of our beaches.
?Kill the Drill? was created and produced entirely by Greenpeace staff members and can be downloaded from www.greenpeaceusa.org. Also visit www.greenpeaceusa.org for more information on Padre National Seashore and the Bush Administration?s recent environmental erosions and to take online action to protect U.S. public lands.
