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BP Oil Spill Damage to Louisiana Wetlands and Wildlife

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Washington, D.C. – A powerful new video featuring the popular song, “Over the Rainbow”, as Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) coastal scientist Angelina Freeman examines the damage to Louisiana wetlands and wildlife from the BP oil disaster, is now posted on YouTube. The video’s narrative track is the performance of “Over the rainbow” that ended the first season finale of the Fox hit TV show, Glee.
 
Produced by Environmental Defense Fund, the video concludes with a link to www.edf.org/cleanenergy that enables viewers to e-mail their U.S. senators “to urge them to learn from this unprecedented disaster and to wisely lead us in a new direction away from fossil fuels toward cleaner energy alternatives.” The video is timely because last night President Obama challenged the U.S. Senate to make passage of clean energy legislation a priority.
 
“This beautiful song and the tragic images from the Gulf Coast oil disaster remind us that we have a choice to leave a better world for our children,” said Environmental Defense Fund Executive Director David Yarnold, who recently did an aerial and boat tour of coastal Louisiana when the video was shot, and blogged about it today. “I wanted anyone and everyone to see what our addiction to oil had done to the Gulf and to contrast that with the sense of hope and possibility that ‘Over the rainbow’ exudes.”
 
“Over the rainbow” is number one on the “Songs of the Century” list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The American Film Institute ranked “Over the Rainbow” the greatest movie song of all time on the list of “American Film Institutes’ 100 Years…100 Songs.”
 
The lyrics to “Over the rainbow” are:
 
Somewhere over the rainbow
 
Way up high
 
There’s a land that I dreamed of
 
Once in a lullaby
 
Somewhere over the rainbow
 
Skies are blue
 
And the dreams that you dare to dream
 
Really do come true ooh ooooh
 
Someday I’ll wish upon a star
 
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me ee ee eeh
 
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
 
High above the chimney tops that’s where you’ll find me oh
 
Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
 
 Birds fly over the rainbow
 
Why, then oh why can’t I?
 
 
Source: EDF