Click through to the videos in the presentation. Especially BP Spills Coffee. Riotous, no? But there’s truth to every bit of the parody. While BP was too focused on its record-breaking earnings and deflecting blame, it needed to address the reality of what was — and is — a very human tragedy in the eyes and on the active social networks of the public. And BP was way too late to that game.

The U.S. government just approved the first permit for deep-water drilling in the gulf since the disaster and there remains no known fix should history repeat itself. But our consumer culture didn’t get to where it is today out of an abundance of caution. This is where crisis management runs counter to traditional public relations. Organizations cannot wait to get involved on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, they must be proactively engaging and listening to their audiences. Sometimes communication is the only viable regulation.

Unable to attend a CitizenGulf Benefit tonight? You can still donate directly by clicking the icon below. Tag your tweets and photos #CitizenGulf so we can see them here. Thanks for your support.

[inline][script src=”http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js”][/script]
[script]
new TWTR.Widget({
version: 2,
type: ‘search’,
search: ‘citizengulf’,
interval: 6000,
title: ‘#CitizenGulf’,
subject: ”,
width: ‘auto’,
height: 400,
theme: {
shell: {
background: ‘#8ec1da’,
color: ‘#ffffff’
},
tweets: {
background: ‘#ffffff’,
color: ‘#444444’,
links: ‘#1985b5’
}
},
features: {
scrollbar: false,
loop: true,
live: true,
hashtags: true,
timestamp: true,
avatars: true,
toptweets: true,
behavior: ‘default’
}
}).render().start();
[/script][/inline]

PHOTOS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY:

The main DEETS:

The Central Social Aid & Pleasure Club — 1348 14th Street, Santa Monica (former 14 Below space, now fully revamped and reopened)

An 18-minute Katrina documentary will be screened at 8pm, introduced by the (Venice-based) filmmakers.

3 bands will perform! Le Switch, Big Moves, and Hiram Rimmer. Stranger Danger DJ duo will bookend the night’s music to keep us dancing until bar close at 2. Bar opens at 5 for happy hour. Event start is 7:30.

There will be an entire room of art inspired by and depicting the Gulf Coast from Katrina in August 2005 to the present day Oil Spill disaster. Some will be available for a charity auction.

HOW MUCH: Just $10 toward a fund set up specifically for this CitizenGulf National Day of Action. Citizen Effect and Catholic Charities of New Orleans will put forth all of the proceeds from these 20 events toward extending an after school program that was started in New Orleans after Katrina into coastal parishes and provide fifty children with a safe environment that will give participants access to interactive learning opportunities, self-esteem building workshops, therapeutic art activities and other activities and services needed by the children affected by the spill.

There will also be a food truck in The Central’s private lot — Dante Food Truck

All the main details and RSVP at http://citizengulfla.eventbrite.com (shorturl: http://bit.ly/CitGulfLA)

Here is the first in a series of digital mixtapes. I’d love your input and suggestions on upcoming mixes. You can suggest a song very easily:

1. Go to Blip.fm (login or register)
2. Search for a song and click “Blip”
3. Include @gulfbenefit in the text and/or #CitizenGulf

Can’t find it on Blip.fm? You can also tweet a song to us via Grooveshark, Twt.fm, Song.ly, or Tinysong.

For more information on #CitizenGulf Gulf Coast Benefit’s August 25th National Day of Action visit gulfcoastbenefit.com.

Posted via email from Andy Sternberg’s posterous

Mark your calendars! Citizen Effect’s CitizenGulf project will become a National Day of Action on August 25th, in alignment with the week of the fifth anniversary of Katrina. The benefit — to be promoted by Gulf Coast Benefit — seeks to help fishing families find a new, more sustainable future by providing education resources for their children.

You Can Help Many

Catholic Charities of New Orleans is the beneficiary of all CitizenGulf National Day of Action donations. Citizen Effect will send 100% of donations, less credit card fees, directly to Catholic Charities to support education programs for fishing families

There are three things citizens like you can do to help:

1) Attend or host your local event
2) Donate
3) Support Gulf Coast Benefit’s Pepsi Refresh project.

Donations can be given directly through the main CitizenGulf project page.

A Day of Action Means Jazz, Blues, Zydeco, and More

Events will be meet-ups at places that can accommodate the following: People, hurricanes, New Orleans themed music (i.e. jazz, blues, zydeco) and a local green or environmental expert who can say a few things about the oil spill’s impact on the marine environment and the Gulf Coast economies associated with it. Registration will be $10.

Social Media Club has signed on as a CitizenGulf project partner and will help Gulf Coast Benefit promote the CitizenGulf events. Cities that have already signed on to host events include Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and Washington, DC. A full list of cities and details on how to register and participate will be available on the Gulf Coast Benefit web site no later than August 1.

We Are Actively Seeking Event Hosts, Sponsors and Attendees.

We are actively seeking hosts and sponsors to lead official events in many cities, organize Social Media Club local events and host unofficial awareness meetings. Email us for more details.

Gulf Coast Benefit’s Pepsi Refresh project will be our third action, and will be open for voting on August 1. The week of the national day of action, Citizen Effect will also offer CitizenGulf opportunities for individuals to engage in their own citizen grassroots projects throughout the fall to benefit fishing families; education, healthcare, food, etc.

Additional promotion partners for the national day of action include Andy Sternberg, el-studio.com, Live Your Talk, Taylor Davidson and Zoetica. Thank you so much for everything you and our caring supporters have done to support CitizenGulf. The project is now yours!

CNN.com has an excellent photoessay documenting the experiences of the survivors and of some of the 11 killed in the April 20th explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which spawned the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history. Sixty days later, oil continues gushing from the ultra-deep well up to 6 miles beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

But what about the human toll? It’s not just the eleven lives lost in the tragedy and the many suffering as a result.

A huge portion of the Gulf Coast population is in some way connected to the oil industry as a way of life beyond the 20 percent working in the energy industry and those in the oyster and fishing industry affected by the spill. President Obama has called for an end to offshore oil exploration. But what are the alternatives? Many more jobs will be lost as a result of this disaster and the policies that result from it. It’s important that those distressed as a result receive adequate compensation. But it’s equally important that new jobs are created and that a culture that is very much rooted in the offshore oil industry is given the appropriate tools to transition into new ways of life. Where is the funding for clean energy plants and new, green construction in the Gulf? Where is the incentive for companies to establish themselves in the Gulf and commit to new projects that will lead to such employment?

As my dear friend Sloane reminded me yesterday: If you really want to know how the population is affected by the disaster, watch the local news.

In addition to the Facebook chat link provided with the Whitehouse.gov player above, YouTube is soliciting questions for the White House at youtube.com/whitehouse.

“This is the worst environmental disaster of our lifetimes,” the president said in opening a speech that started off sounded eerily like a declaration of a war with no end in sight, as we’re already fighting on two international fronts.

“I’m willing to look at different approaches. The one approach I will not accept is inaction,” Obama said. 18 minutes later, the speech is over and I’m not sure exactly what we CAN do.

Press Secretary Robert Gates later answered questions. Watch that video below:

But according to recent AdWords number crunches, BP is only paying an average of $1.33 per click or roughly $1 million each month (SearchEngineWatch, June 9). Perhaps as low as $1.22 per click.

Why so little? Nobody has been outbidding them in the AdWords marketplace. It’s time for some guerrilla tactics.

Here’s what I propose: Google should donate any revenues above $5 per click for any keyword to funds and charities dedicated to restoring the Gulf and/or to benefit those whose livelihoods have been shattered as a result of the Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill.

Yes, this is a crazy idea and it could throw AdWords of its hinges. So let’s just do it for ONE DAY. Google can’t change the rules for specific keywords but they can change the rules across the board. All it would take is a few noble souls willing to launch a bidding war with BP up to say – $20 per click. And Google’s word that monies will be donated (a great PR move in itself).

Justice is: clicking a search result and having $15 transfer BP to a non-profit Oil Spill fund. With each and every click!

Would millions of clicks accrue? ABSOLUTELY. Tens or hundreds of millions? I don’t know what the record is for most click-throughs from a Google Ad in one day. But I do know that Google has staged similarly engaging (and distracting) campaigns as recently as last month. We wasted nearly 5 million man-hours playing with Google’s PacMan 30th anniversary tribute, according to one report. BP has already wasted at least $50 million on TV ads. Why not make BP put its ad money where it should?

BP Logo mashup via Greenpeace UK‘s Behind the Logo flickr set.

This seems to be one of the broadest and most frustrating takeaways of the crisis resulting from the ongoing Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill.

Under current law (Oil Pollution Act of 1990), a leaseholder for a deepwater port is liable for no more than $75 million per spill plus removal costs. Transocean, owner of the sunken drill ship, is liable for up to $350 million under the same law.

BP reported more than $6 BILLION in PROFIT for the first quarter 2010. That’s $60 million each day. Revenues from 2009 sales totaled $239 BILLION (about the same as Finland’s GDP). BP must pay.

But Obama and the government have only teased the idea of lifting the $75 million cap, much less seizing BP’s assets entirely.

BP claims to have already spent $1 billion on cleanup costs and small bundles of cash to the affected states. but BP itself estimates the total costs to be $6 billion. Then there are the mounting health concerns for humans and animals encountering the dispersants being used, as well as liability for obliterating the sea-based industries of the Gulf. Not to mention lawsuits already filed by the survivors and surviving families of the April 20 blast that led to the gusher. Credit Suisse recently estimated those costs at an additional $14 billion.

These numbers don’t mean very much. What matters is that some organization, public or private, must be left responsible for managing recovery funds. One that is independent of both BP and the U.S. Government. But who?

UPDATE: David Axelrod appeared on Meet the Press this morning and hinted at Obama leaning toward a fund managed by a third party. Another empty signal or the start of something? – Obama will demand BP establish escrow account to handle oil spill claims. Obama may ask for as much as $50 billion to start the fund when he addresses the nation Wednesday. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Photo via Deepwater Horizon Response‘s flickr (taken June 4, 2010, Jefferson Pa., Louisiana).

It’s horrible and embarrassing that we’d give oil companies such extensive liberty so as to contaminate our waters knowing that there was no available technology to avert the inevitable disaster that we are facing right now. Personally I hope to see Obama get serious and put his foot down even more — this is the ultimate cause for concern about climate, energy, and the future.