As we stand here, thousands more across the country are calling the White House to be sure the president gets our message loud and clear.

Shell’s drill ships are on their way to our Arctic Ocean right now to launch the most aggressive course of Arctic drilling in history, with no proven plan to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic’s extreme conditions. If President Obama does nothing to stop them, he could have the next Deepwater Horizon disaster on his hands.

With no plan to clean up a spill and inadequate scientific information, we should not be risking our one and only Arctic with aggressive, risky drilling. The risks are huge – at this point, drilling in the Arctic Ocean is tantamount to ‘Mission Impossible.’

The Arctic Ocean is prone to hurricane-force storms, 20-foot swells, sea ice up to 25 feet thick, sub-zero temperatures and months-long darkness.  There is no proven way to clean up an oil spill in these extreme conditions. What’s more, the Arctic has extremely limited infrastructure (there are no roads or deep water ports and only a handful of small airports) and the nearest Coast Guard station is 1,000 miles away.

America’s Arctic coast and waters are home to Alaska’s Inupiat people, polar bears, ice seals, beluga whales, walrus and millions of birds. The Arctic also functions as our planet’s air conditioner.  The Arctic is a region of extremes – extreme beauty, risks and resilience.

President Obama the future of America’s Arctic is in your hands. Together with more than 1 million people I ask you to tell Shell to turn those ships around.”

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At Alaska Wilderness League, we love to use costumes in our outreach and education.  This means Halloween is one of our favorite holidays of the year and we want you to join the fun.  We have two downloadable and printable masks of two of our favorite Arctic Ocean species—the walrus and the polar bear.  In addition, we have our oil spill response haz mat suits that we can send to you- email brian [at] alaskawild [dot] org if you would like suits or you can put them together at your local hardware or home store.
As you trick-or-treat with your children, at Halloween parties, as part of Halloween parades, you can represent the Arctic Ocean with these costumes and educate folks about the threat posed by Shell Oil’s evil plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean.

When people ask about your costume, you can give them these leaflets and ask them to call President Obama and ask that he treat America to a protected Arctic Ocean and not to let Shell Oil trick us with their unproven oil spill response plans.

We would love to see any photos you have of your efforts.  Please email them to liz [at] alaskawild [dot] org.