Meetup Everywhere: Work Together To Help With The Gulf Oil Spill

With the Gulf of Mexico oil spill growing larger and more unwieldy by the minute, it can be easy to feel powerless in impacting any sort of meaningful change. That's why the Huffington Post has partnered with Meetup Everywhere, an application that allows you find others who also want to get involved and provides a forum for you to work together to help out with the oil spill.

On Tuesday, June 8th, which is World Ocean Day, we'd like to invite you to meet up with other HuffPost Green readers to brainstorm and take action for helping with the oil spill.

Click below to find a Meetup near you:

To get you started, here are some organizations that will help you get involved:

• The Sierra Club is gathering volunteers to help with the cleanup efforts on the Gulf Coast. Sign up online to volunteer and the Sierra Club will help you find the right opportunities for you.

• The Oiled Wildlife Care Network provides information on how to volunteer with wildlife rehabilitation efforts.

• Global Green plans to spend the coming months working to protect injured wildlife and to lobby Congress to enforce tougher regulations on the oil and coal industries. Learn how to volunteer with Global Green..

• Sign up with The National Audubon Society to get trained and volunteer to help local birds.

• The Coalition To Restore Coastal Louisiana is also helping coordinate volunteers. You can register online to volunteer.

Check out HuffPost Impact's full list for more ideas.

Additionally, here are some general ideas on how to address both the oil spill as well as our addiction to oil, which you can discuss further with your group:

• Discuss options on how to set up alternative energy within your community.
• Evaluate feasible ways in which you could stop buying plastics.
• Discuss ways you can cut driving out of your life.
• Find ways to donate human hair and other materials, which are being used to soak up oil. Matter of Trust is a good organization to look in to.
• Find out who is organizing protests in your area, or work with people in your area to organize a protest if a group doesn't already exist.

We'd love to hear what you come up with at your Meetup. Send us a picture of your group and what you come up with so we can share it with the whole HuffPost community.

Report back to us what your Meetup group does in your brainstorming/action session to help with the gulf spill on June 8th. Send us a photo of your group and what you come up with. Your ideas will inspire others!

Meetup On Oil Spill Action June 8th

 

Find a picture, click the participate button, add a title and upload your picture

Comments

[sugiir]

07:21 AM on 06/10/2010

San Francisco public school students voice their concern through art over this devastating oil spill. Articles like this one, which give people a way to get involved will be promoted by this blog.
http://rooftop-oilspillartblog.blogspot.com
Thank you.

[GuiltD]

03:01 AM on 06/10/2010

It's simple. Use hay.

[SaraRose]

01:32 AM on 06/09/2010

Where is everyone posting the results of their meetups?

[John J Sheehan]

10:45 PM on 06/08/2010

Chicago meet-up was rained on, but it didn't dampen our spirits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru9dajP2gCw

[flip89]

12:48 AM on 06/09/2010

More Chicago pictures here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219587&id=789578766&saved#!/album.php?aid=219587&id=789578766
and here:
http://www.examiner.com/x-463-Chicago-Photography-Examiner~y2010m6d8-Gulf-oil-spill-protest-march-in-Chicago

[nexxtep54]

03:54 PM on 06/08/2010

I am not opening a facebook account to communicate with other interested parties in Edmonton , Ab. Any other way to communicate?

[JoeBlough]

01:38 PM on 06/08/2010

Rescinding the Cheney Regulations and voting out Republicans is the only help I can offer at this time.

[dayala]

11:30 AM on 06/08/2010

many of us who could not get down to help with the Katrina cleanup formed groups on the internet.

we helped subsidized and fund folks that wanted to go down and help but didn't have the $$$$ for gas and travel costs, we also kept in contact with those that were down there and they would relay back to us what supplies, equipment, clothing, food, medical, veterinary supplies and anything else they needed but could not get, one person would get equipment ordered, another would tackle food and another would get medical supplies shipped....etc.

we helped set up car/van pools for those that were in close proximity to each other and wanted to go down and help.

maybe huffpo could setup a relief/cleanup page with a place to donate funds for the relief effort.

it's a start...we all need to pitch-in whatever way we can.

[nameunused]

10:27 AM on 06/08/2010

It seems to me that helping entails one of two things. Sending money, or spending money to go down and volunteer. BP will mostly likely shower the agencies with money so they may need manpower more than cash.

Although it might be argued that all those who exposed Obama's inaction also helped because it forced him to get off his behind and take action.

[heavydinsc]

08:57 AM on 06/08/2010

OK, here's a thought. What if we could get a majority of the people we know to stop buying coffee in paper cups (that require petroleum for shipping) with plastic lids (which are manufactured from petroleum)? That would be a minor dent in the consumption of plastic, but an even larger message regarding the idea that we do have choices we can make that will diminish the demand for oil. While we're at it, we can suggest that clerks at stores only offer plastic bags if the customer requests one. This basic change, adopted universally, could begin to make a dent as well.

[mioffe]

10:09 AM on 06/08/2010

Your offer based on wrong reason for climate change.
Properties of water are more powerful than GHG and actually cool the air.

[pliers]

01:14 PM on 06/08/2010

Exactly. Good post. Plastic bags are a great example of the great danger of completely free markets. Let's say a drug store doesn't give you a bag unless you ask; the drug store across the street will then give you two, without you asking, to best the other. The ONLY way to change practices--for the good--is through regulation/legislation. Sorry!!

[RobWarwick]

08:06 AM on 06/08/2010

excellent. I just offered my time to the Coalition To Restore Coastal Louisiana. I would love the opportunity to go down there and help out any way I can.

[mioffe]

03:35 AM on 06/08/2010

We could change our transportation system by creating movement of small cart, moving by road on roads without intersection.
We could change our electricity production by creating small power plants to use as electricity as heat.
We could use wood as source of energy.
All these directions could create 100% of employment (growing forests for wood production, new transportation system, small power plants).
Evaporation of water by forest will help fight climate change by only three countries in the world-USA, Canada, and Mexico).
We must stop supporting of wind, solar cells, nuclear, geothermal sources of energy as disaster not only for economy but also for environment.

We must understand that Kyoto and Copenhagen is wrong direction to fight climate change and based on mistakes that GHG responsible for Global warming.
Properties of water actually cool the atmosphere, despite water vapor is GHG.

THESE DIRECTIONS WILL GIVE MORE JOBS AND LESS TAX FOR ONE PERSON!
Read more: Xlibris.com “Economy and climate change or KGB agent”, January 2010.

[mioffe]

03:34 AM on 06/08/2010

“Drill baby drill” is mostly republican slogan and all newspapers published it.
BP oil spill happens when Democrats are in power.
Where were scientists, environmentalists, and engineers to prevent this tragedy?
It time to stop blaming politicians-they are only politician and knew about science only what scientists will tell.
But they made mistakes and can’t be trusted.

BP responsible for disaster and have experience and money to fix problems, or invite another specialist from any country. It will be mistake to remove them from responsibility.
Everybody who could do this, please send my message for President Obama.

Mr. President:
We must reevaluate how we spend energy?

1. If person with average weight 200 Lb. is moving to job and home on car weighting 4,000 Lb. with efficiency of engine 40%, real efficiency of person movement will be 2%. If we will calculate energy for gasoline production, for heating or cooling car etc. real efficiency of this movement will be less than 1%.
2. In huge power plants we are losing 80% of energy-heat energy in vain.

In globalization economy we must found new directions for our own economy. If these directions could create 100% of employment all problems will be solved.

[snideelf]

02:25 AM on 06/08/2010

Nature will get its revenge when hurricane season starts.

[Carol Green]

01:00 AM on 06/08/2010

all this and now they have found yet, another, oil rig in the gulf spilling oil: http://blog.al.com/live/2010/06/another_gulf_oil_spill_well_ne.html .

can it get any worse than this?

[chris stl]

12:00 AM on 06/08/2010

I'm really saddened by the sorry state of technology used in mitigating the gulf disaster. I do not know whether to laugh or to cry when I see on TV a bunch of people trying to clean up beaches by picking up oil tar, piece by piece by shovels or their bare hands. If this is our solution for cleaning up this mess, it would take several million people and probably over 100 years to clean up our beaches, marshland, estuaries, and the gulf itself.

Where is the modern technology? There are better techniques for scooping dog's poop!

[jctripp]

12:07 AM on 06/08/2010

We chose to believe "they" have the answers. They don't.