BP has become a favored target of protests these days, thanks to the mess the oil giant has made in the Gulf of Mexico. But the employees of one socially conscious cosmetics company are trying to wake Americans to the environmental impacts of oil and gas extraction to our north, in Canada.
The staff of LUSH cosmetics plans a "bare-it-all" protest of the Canadian tar sands development at noon today outside its store at Towson Town Center. The Vancouver-based company markets bath oils, soap and what-not made from organic fruits and vegetables as well as what it calls "safe synthetics." And it's teamed up with various environmental groups to raise awareness about the amount of fossil fuel the United States imports from the tar sands and the toll it's taking on water quality and the boreal forest there.
In a stunt reminiscent of anti-fur protesters, the local LUSH staff plans to wear nothing but oil barrels (mockups, I presume) bearing the slogan, "Time for an Oil Change or We'll Lose It All." If they're outdoors today, they're likely to get a shower in the process, given the rain in the forecast. But then, oil and water don't mix.
To learn more about the issue, check out Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent by Andrew Nikiforuk. (Full disclosure: Nikiforuk's book won the Rachel Carson environment book award last year from the Society of Environmental Journalists, of which I am a board member.)
(Photo by Peter Essick, courtesy of LUSH)