On August 25th, 16 cities around the world will be swarming the streets by bike to demand an end to environmental injustice and bring the issue of climate change front and center. Rising Tide North America, a network of radical climate campaigners (including relief workers from Louisiana to New England) is working with Critical Mass, an international movement celebrating bike culture, around the continent to draw attention to the movement for climate justice and the important relationship between the oil industry, climate change, catastrophic storms, and environmental racism.

August 25th marks the one-year anniversary of when tropical storm Katrina was upgraded to hurricane strength and came ashore on the coast of Florida, starting its destructive path along the Gulf Coast. In the weeks that followed, America was abruptly reminded of some painful truths about our society. Those left behind to weather the storm revealed the classist and racist underpinnings of American culture, while the severity of the storm itself and the toxic petrochemical spills laid bare the environmental consequences of our oil-based industrial lifestyle. These two realities combined created one of the most dramatic examples of environmental racism and climate injustice in the world today. (For those not familiar with the term "environmental racism" please visit http://www.ejnet.org/ej).

What transpired in New Orleans ties together many issues in both the environmental and social justice movements, with the largest knot in the noose being the oil industry. Being the home to over 100 petrochemical plants, Louisiana's coast was the victim of three environmental catastrophes at the hands of big oil. The most obvious was the rapid strengthening of the storm over a warming Gulf of Mexico. A recent study shows that during last year's hurricane season, sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic were .9 degrees C (1.6 degrees F) above average and that the warming waters fueled hurricane intensity (American Geophysical Union, June 2006). However, the disaster that we watched unfold on our televisions was but the latest and most dramatic in a series of race and class-based environmental crisis in the Gulf Coast.

Long before Katrina hit, the stage was being set for this disaster as Louisiana's wetlands-the natural first line of defense against such storms- were being destroyed to accommodate the oil industry's infrastructure. 80% of the wetlands lost in the continental US over the past few decades are in Louisiana, and more than half of this has been to make room for oil canals. When the storm hit, such drastic altercations to the environment accentuated the storms damage. Take for example, the 600-foot-wide Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) canal that cuts through a dense swamp. On August 29th, rising tides burst the MRGO in St. Bernard Parish, inundating the community and killing more than 100 people. A Louisiana State University study shows that the MRGO alone made the storm 20% higher and two to three times faster in the surrounding areas. In addition to increasing the physical damage of the storm, the strike on the oil industry's infrastructure provoked a simultaneous oil and chemical dump of immense proportions. More than eight million gallons of crude oil were spilled into dozens of areas around southern Louisiana. Combined with the leakage from dozens of chemical refineries and Superfund sites, the flood waters became laden with neurotoxins, corrosives and carcinogenic chemicals such as ammonia, formaldehyde and cyanide.

Not that these chemicals were new to people's lives in Louisiana. The third disaster visited on these communities by the oil industry has been much more enduring. Due to constant toxic exposure to petrochemicals and their waste, much of the area affected by Katrina has been labeled by human right advocates as "Cancer Alley." The human population in the area suffers the highest cancer rates in the US, as well as extreme levels of poverty, resulting in a disproportionate number of deaths and diseases associated with toxic exposure. The people in these communities are predominantly people of color; people who experience on a daily level the effects of centuries of ongoing racism, slavery, and forced relocations.

It must be made clear that Hurricane Katrina and the historic environmental degradation in the Gulf Coast are not just passing events, but part of a long term crisis that is building on the horizon. As ocean pH starts to drop and temperatures rise, will Katrina serve as the model for how we deal with climate change? Katrina was a stark example of how the disproportionate impacts of our society's lifestyle (as the US is the leader of fossil fuel related CO2 emissions) fall upon people of color and the poor. Exxon-Mobile toped $10 billion dollars in profit while people in New Orleans and in the surrounding areas still struggle to clean out toxic mud from their homes. It is unmistakably the wealthy elites of the oil family who profit from our reliance on fossil fuels and the most vulnerable in our society who suffer the consequences.

Disaster, catastrophe, tragedy; Hurricane Katrina was many horrible things but it is but a warning of what is to come if we do not change our fossil fuel addiction. Both social and environmental issues will be affected. In the wake of the storm we have the chance to unite and take action to stop climate change and climate injustice. Will we act as those in the affluent suburb of Gretna did at the Crescent City Bridge and turn back fleeing storm refugees at gun point? Or will we come together and demand that such an event never be repeated?

Critical Mass is a celebration of bike culture and a meaningful alternative to car culture and greenhouse gas generating fossil fuels. Structureless and organic, it is a means of taking direct action against climate change and a way to remind people of the enormous power we have to create a holistic cultural change toward suitability and empowerment. Let's take to the streets on August 25th and take the first step in uniting as a continent for climate justice!

For Los Angeles Critical Mass Listings visit:

http://www.cicle.org/cm/criticalmass.html

For more information visit:

http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/katrina/

or email katrina (at ) risingtidenorthamerica.org.