Actors Sophia Bush and Austin Nichols do not just hold leading roles on One Tree Hill, but more importantly, in helping the environment as well. The CW stars traveled to the Gulf Coast this week as a part of a powerful quest along with Global Green to bring further awareness on the impact of the B.P. oil spill there.

Bush and Nichols have taken to Twitter to grab the attention of their fans to help them get the word out on the disastrous situation.

“Our goal here is we started Twitter accounts basically for the sole reason to reach as many of our fans as possible, young kids and not so young kids, that don’t know what’s going on”, said Nichols when he and Bush called from New Orleans in the midst of their work there with Global Green. “We’ve had all these messages from Italy, and Brazil ,and Australia, from people saying that they’re not covering this down there and our tweets are the only information they’re getting about the oil spill”, he added.

[Credit: Meriam Bouarrouj]
Examiner.com

There was no uncertainty of Nichols’ and Bush’s frustration and outrage as they spoke about the lack of awareness being brought to the oil spill. Bush says she is appalled by the measures B.P. is taking to keep their actions from reaching the public.

“Out on the beaches are all the people that are contract hired by B.P. that are so scared to talk to us that as soon as we walked over they hid their badges and they asked us to leave. We told them legally we didn’t have to leave. But basically what they do is they threaten you to get off the beach, to turn of your camera, they flash their sheriff lights at you and they make you feel as if you’re going to get arrested”, says Bush. “We had a lawyer with us who immediately started citing legal reasons why we were not allowed to be kicked off the beach and they let up and they were so angry. They know that they’re doing something illegal and they don’t want people to see it”, she says.

Nichols is just as enraged by what he sees as B.P. covering its own tracks. “When we got to the beach we were told it was a crime scene. The four-wheelers came with their red and green lights screaming at us to turn off our cameras. There’s 4,000 miles of coast in Louisiana alone and it’s all a crime scene and B.P. is policing its own crime scene”, he says. “On the beach, there were groups cleaning up and we asked if we could help and they won’t let anybody help”, adds Nichols. “Everyone’s hands are tied. B.P. won’t let anybody do anything. The people cleaning up were afraid to speak to us. It was literally like Grand Isle was occupied. It was really eerie and really scary. When you have this many people just volunteering to help and they’re turned away, it’s just ridiculous.”

Something else Nichols says they found as ridiculous was what he and Bush discovered when they toured the inland waterways where the marshes are located. “We went to a bird sanctuary called Queen Bless Island. There are two systems of barrier boom, and this boom is completely ineffective”, he says. “It’s a few feet deep and the oil just goes under it and over it. It doesn’t do anything to block oil from hitting the shoreline. You see images on TV of these booms and I think they give people a false sense of security. There’s oil all over the shoreline where the bird sanctuary is.”

What Bush and Nichols shared with me of what they have been witnessing and learning about the effects of the oil spill on the Gulf is horrifying to say the least. It’s the reason Bush says B.P. is attempting to prevent awareness. “They don’t want to bring awareness at all because the more that we see and the more that we are witnessed to, the more B.P. is held accountable. B.P. has a monetary number for every gallon of oil that they leak, every bird that they kill, every dolphin, every sea turtle, every animal that dies increases their physical liability, so they don’t want us to see what’s going on”, says Bush.

“We actually spoke to a rescue worker who said that they were out on a Barge, and B.P. is now burning off surface oil saying ‘We’ll set it on fire and that’s how we’re going to get it out of the ocean’. They were burning between two big Barges and these rescue workers were watching turtles swim in between these Barges and asking B.P. to wait so they could take a boat into this water, pull the turtles out before they lit the fire, and B.P. said no. And they burned a sea turtle alive in front of a rescue worker! And that’s because that turtle now can’t count as evidence”, says Bush, clearly infuriated by B.P.’s actions.

“The more people witness a crime the more likely the crime is to be convicted in court. This is true of any crime that can be committed against a human being. And this is a crime. And we are allowing the people who perpetuated the crime to clean up their own crime scene. To destroy evidence that would convict them. And it’s never been done and we’re letting it happen”, she says. “And I am mad as hell!”

What most angers and heartbreaks Bush and Nichols are the ways the families and local businesses have been suffering due to the oil spill. “The most devastating thing is that this entire part of the world is probably going to become a ghost town”, Nichols says. “All these people are going to have to find new ways to support themselves and their families. All these homes are going to be decrepit and empty”, he says on what is becoming of Grand Isle.

There was no question of Bush’s devastation on the diminishing life of the Louisiana coast as she spoke about the impact the oil spill has had on the families. “Locals down here have been in the fishing business for generations. This is their family. This is their tradition. This is their culture. And basically what’s happening down here is a lot of people are comparing to what we did to the Native Americans a long time ago, we are eradicating a culture that might never ever be able to come back and it is devastating”, Bush says with an immense amount of emotion in her voice. “It is so hard to keep from crying when you’re looking at these people who look at you and say ‘What are we supposed to do? This is our life. This is what I do. This is what my father did. This is what my father’s father did. How are we going to feed our kids? We don’t ever buy anything at the grocery store’. Most often when you come down here and a family fixes you a meal, the only thing they’ll have bought is wine because they fish everyday. They grow their own vegetables. This is a self-sustained beautiful community. And it’s not just here. It’s not just outside of New Orleans and the Grand Isle, it’s the gulf coast and I think that’s why we were so appalled at being in Grand Isle yesterday”, she says. “Every single fisherman and woman and child in this town is sitting at home waiting to be told they can do something”.

Nichols agrees the stories they have been hearing from the fishermen who rely on the fish to provide for their families are what are most catastrophic. He shared the story of a local fisherman who is now struggling to feed his family. “He showed us photographs of all the fish he catches to feed his family. He’s been a fisherman for many many years and as of this week he and the other people we spoke to are broke”, he says. “People have received one check, and the first check was meager. A lot of people haven’t gotten anything. People are just heartbroken”.

Heartbroken indeed. Nichols and Bush captured photos of upside down flags being flown at half mass and posted them on their Twitter accounts to show how the locals are putting up symbols of SOS and ‘surrender’. “People down here feel like they’re being attacked so they’re putting up surrender flags, like you guys win”, says Nichols.

“It’s devastating and they may never be able to come back here”, Bush says with great concern. “Best case scenario they’ll be able to re-plant oyster beds in five years, but what are all those people gonna do for five years? They can’t just not work. They’re going to have to leave this place and this place is their life. It’s not right. And they know. That’s the main point, is that these people know that they are committing a crime and they are trying to keep us away.”

“They have military down here on Grand Isle, with big trucks, and military boats every where basically trying to scare people into leaving, ‘oh the military has got it, B.P.’s got it.’ None of these people have it!”, she says.

It is a great thing people like Bush and Nichols are so incredibly passionate about increasing awareness and aid to the disaster. As they believe, the more information they put out, the more can be done to resolve the issue. “We’re going to keep posting and we’re going to keep tweeting”, Bush emphasizes.

Nichols says they will continue their efforts to help anyway they can. “If we can reach anybody, we’re happy with that.” Bush adds the impacts from this oil spill should be the light bulb switch turning on to the country about the importance of being more eco-friendly. “This is a wake up call to our government and our nation to realize that the way that we live and the way that we treat the planet is unacceptable. And we all have to make changes”, Bush stresses.

Changes Nichols says can be made with even the smallest effort. “Any little bit helps. Any little humble contribution is valuable”.

There is no doubt Bush and Nichols’ attempts are valuable and eye-opening. As Bush tells me, they have brought unknown information to even the Gulf’s local news media. “The thing that’s really sad is one of the local reporters from the news outlets here said ‘Oh I’m so glad you guys are here, you know so much more about this’, and I said sir you have got to get the word out. You have got to follow all the major news outlets. You have got to let the people here know what’s really going on.”

Bush and Nichols believe the major solution to this disaster is the further spread of knowledge on it.

“People have to know and people have to be angry”, says Bush. “People have to stand up and shout and scream until the government listens to us.”

To get the government to listen, Bush and Nichols encourage people to sign the ‘Global Green Petition to President Obama’.

For more information about how you can help, check out Global Green’s official website. Follow its president Matthew Peterson on Twitter @Matthew_Peterson.

http://treehillfan.com/bethanynews/gulf-oil-disaster-shocking/ http://treehillfan.com/bethanynews/gulf-oil-disaster-shocking/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:28:29 +0000 Owner http://treehillfan.com/?p=2462

‘One Tree Hill’ stars share their images of the Gulf Coast
CW stars Sophia Bush and Austin Nichols spent June 21and 22 in Grand Isle and New Orleans, La., viewing the impact of the BP oil spill on the Gulf coast, its wildlife and its people.

Here, they share their startling photos and stories with Zap2it in the hopes of raising awareness and encouraging activism.

“This isn’t about celebrities putting their face on the cause,” Bush says. “We need to get together as people, because the numbers matter. We all have to write our congress. We all have to write our Senate. We all have to petition our president. The more of us that get involved in this and the longer that we clamor and scream and stand up for our rights, the faster the change will happen.”

–Carina MacKenzie, Zap2it
zap2it.com

Follow the cut below to see pictures that were personally taken by Sophia and Austin of the devastation.


Sophia Bush: “I’m enraged. I’m not even mad anymore. Coming down here I was angry, and leaving this place tomorrow, I am enraged and shocked that any of what’s going on down here is legal in the first place.”

Sophia Bush: “We’re down on Grand Isle, and there are these giant piles on the beach that are covered in sand. And we asked what was under the sand on these piles — because it can’t just be piles of sand — and they said ‘We’re not allowed to talk about it. We can’t talk about it.’”

Austin Nichols: “There’s a section of beach that’s blocked off by this giant orange boom, and they’re saying that on the other side of it is a crime scene. If we cross over it, then we are violating 14:63, which is criminal trespass. And they’re calling it ‘the hot zone,’ and it’s like — is there an ebola contamination?”

Sophia Bush: “What I find interesting is that if a murder has been committed, you don’t send the murderer in to the crime scene to clean the blood up off the floor, so if this is a crime scene, why is B.P. in there running the show? Why can’t the people who live here and the people who are affected get in and help?”

Sophia Bush: “I asked why we couldn’t go out there and work and take pictures, and the Sheriff said, ‘Well, you know what’s in the water, right?’ And I said, ‘The dispersant?’ And he told me, ‘Everybody out here is telling us that getting hit with that stuff is like getting hit with napalm.’”

Austin Nichols: “I’ve got these photos of this dumpster where they put these giant trash bags that they’re supposed to fill with the oil and debris and whatever else. The workers have plastic bags –”

Sophia Bush: “Plastic bags that are six feet deep. They’d put one shovelful of sand in each of these giant trash bags — sand that looks perfectly clean. We saw a lot of oil this weekend, and there was no oil in that sand.”

Austin Nichols: “They’d put one shovel of sand in each huge bag, then put the bags in a dumpster. We’re thinking that they’re going to say ‘Oh, we’ve got ten thousand bags off of the beach,’ and each bag isn’t even close to full. It’s bulls***.”

Sophia Bush: “You will notice that the dumpster [that they're putting the bags of sand in] is outside the ‘hot zone’ (it’s on our side of the beach booms) and there is NO ONE guarding it, thus they are not collecting hazardous material.”

Sophia Bush: “Everyone is clamoring to volunteer. Everyone is saying we’ll go out on the boats and we’ll go on the beaches and we’ll go pick up oil. BP has told everybody that you’ve got to go through a Hazmat certification course, which they’re not offering, and unless you have a Hazmat suit and the training, you can’t go out on the beach.

“We watched all the contracted workers that BP has hired — none of whom would tell us what companies they work for, that BP has hired, because they’re told that if they share that information they’ll get fired — we watched these guys walking around on the beaches wearing no protective gear other than plastic gloves and rain boots. They’ve been told that if they’re photographed wearing respirators they’ll be fired.”

Sophia Bush: “We went down to the beach yesterday, and the Sheriff, as soon as we started to cross the boom, pulled up on ATVs with lights and sirens blaring and told us that we were not allowed into the — and I quote — ‘hot zone’, and that if we crossed the barriers we would be arrested, and if they forcibly removed us they would have to decontaminate us.”

Sophia Bush: “Really, more than anything, it’s the locals whose ways of life have been stolen from them — they need money now. All of the fisherman, whose livelihood is the ocean, and their families have told us that within the next few days, they’ll have completely run out of money. They have no way to feed their families, to buy groceries, to pay their electricity bills, phone bills, mortgages.”

Austin Nichols: “We went to an island that’s a bird sanctuary, and there are barrier booms around it that are completely ineffective. You can see the oil just spilling over it. The barrier booms that BP has assured us are keeping wildlife safe — they do nothing.”

Sophia Bush: “We are murdering the planet, and you can call me a hippie for saying that, but it’s true.”

Austin Nichols: “All of this is a reminder of the price way pay for being dependent on dirty energy. ”

Sophia Bush: “We had a lawyer talking to us about this yesterday. Part of the way BP’s liability is calculated is by the counted number of gallons that spill, the counted number of dead birds, sea turtles, mammals, everything. So every animal that dies that they prevent us from counting and finding out about is less money that they have to pay out.”

Austin Nichols: “We went to where Jean Baptiste’s old fort was, there’s like a huge slick of oil all over the water, and there were dolphins breaching right by our boat right there. It’s so sad because there’s no way to communicate to these animals to move and go the other way.”

Image courtesy of Sophia Bush and Austin Nichols

]]> http://treehillfan.com/bethanynews/gulf-oil-disaster-shocking/feed/ 0 http://treehillfan.com/jana-kramer/jana-kramer-finds-her-home-in-country-music/ http://treehillfan.com/jana-kramer/jana-kramer-finds-her-home-in-country-music/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:15:08 +0000 Owner http://treehillfan.com/?p=2460

Jana Kramer is used to having fans come from all over to meet her in Wilmington, NC while she is filming her role of Alex Dupre on One Tree Hill. Yet those fans may have to get used to going to Nashville to see her. Last Wednesday night at The Basement, the only standing room available was for Kramer’s show. Some drove from Florida, others flew from New York. No distance kept the fans from coming to see Kramer make her plunge into country music.

On stage Kramer put her acting skills aside and was not playing anyone but herself as she opened to the audience a window into her world. Through her songs Kramer shared her life. It was as if everyone watching her was her best friend. There was no holding back and that is why people come from so far to see her.

With her songs such as “Save Me” and “Let’s Just Be”, Kramer was vulnerable, allowing the fans to truly connect with her personal experiences.

Those experiences are what Kramer writes her songs on, which she delivers with emotional conviction pulling you into the web of her life. The relationship between her lyrics and melody is a perfect match and the fans agree. “I left her show humming the melody to one of her songs, then when I started singing the lyrics, it felt like Jana had taken the words right out of my mouth”, one fan said. “She put in a song what I had been feeling for a long time about the guy that I’m dating”. The song is “The Man You Could Have Been”.

Nashville native Amanda Remo sees Kramer as the perfect addition to her hometown’s Country music grounds. “Jana’s music is so inspiring and yet fun. I can see her songs being played on Country radio.”, says Remo.

There was no question Kramer left everyone at The Basement wanting to hear more of her songs before they even hit Country radio. Fans would not let her leave the stage without performing her fun, catchy, song written about her puppy, Sophie, appropriately titled, “Sophie Dog”. And at the fans request, she sang it for them before saying goodnight.

The 26-year-old Michigan native made sure to further show her appreciation to all those fans that drove and flew hours to see her during a meet and greet that was held immediately after her performance.

Jana Kramer’s true passion for singing and songwriting could easily be seen during her performance. She shared her stories, found her voice, and clearly displayed on stage the joy that music brings to her. Fans who normally go to Wilmington to meet her are going to have to get used to Nashville because it is where Jana Kramer appears to be most at home.

[Credit: Meriam Bouarrouj]
Examiner.com

]]> http://treehillfan.com/jana-kramer/jana-kramer-finds-her-home-in-country-music/feed/ 0 http://treehillfan.com/shownews/a-bit-late-but-good-nonetheless/ http://treehillfan.com/shownews/a-bit-late-but-good-nonetheless/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:10:57 +0000 Owner http://treehillfan.com/?p=2457 According to @SophiaBush on Twitter, filming will resume on July 14th for Season 8 of One Tree Hill!

AND

Season 7 will be released onto DVD on August 17th!

A week ago we told you that Amazon had begun taking pre-orders for One Tree Hill – The Complete 7th Season on DVD, a release which had no street date at the time because Warner had not formally announced it yet. Today, however, the studio made it official and put this 5-disc set on the schedule for August 17th (this is per the studio; note that Amazon’s pre-order listing – accessed at the button link below – currently shows an incorrect date). The cost of $59.98 SRP that we previously reported has been confirmed, for 924 minutes of featured episodes, plus the following bonus material:

Featurette: New to Camp One Tree Hill
Featurette: The Directors’ Debut Part II
Featurette: Spring Break
2 Audio Commentaries
Unaired Scenes
Gag Reel

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