So picture this: it’s about 2 P.M. and you have just woken up after an epic night of clubbing at Pure Pacha. Feeling rather dazed, just a watery holographic picture of the past night hovering over your beaten up brain, there’s nothing you’d rather do than soak your abused feet in the crystalline Balearic seawater of Cala D’Hort. Once you have managed to get there, ignoring the heavy fog inside your head, you stumble upon the sand and flop down on the F*** Me I’m Famous towel you bought at one of those crappy tourist shops. Seconds after registering the majestic Es Vedra rock-island rising up out of the Mediterranean like a warning, your heavy eyelids drop shut, and you let your feet splash around in the surf. Ah, what bliss. But as you’re drifting off into your comfortable holiday dreaming, there’s an odd sensation. The water has attained a certain viscosity, as if you’ve stuck your feet into a tub of molasses. As the realization of this off-ness becomes strong enough to rouse you from your daydream, you hear dismayed screams. Something’s souring your summer reverie. You open your eyes, only to discover your feet have turned black. The entire surf has. A thick ribbon of shiny black goo lines the coastline of this once pristine beach.

Is this a future scenario for the Balearic archipelago? The people of Alianza Mar Blava think so. With an exposition on the 24th of January at P/Art Ibiza they once again wanted to draw attention to the plans for building an oil rig in the stretch of Mediterranean that separates Valencia from the Balearic Islands.

A performance by Maria Claudia Heidemann, ethereal as a porcelain doll, dancing on stilts as if she was born with them, opened the art show. She gently swayed to the sounds of whales and dolphins, two of the many sea creatures put in jeopardy by all the steps that are involved in the search for oil. Following Heidemann was a speech by Flor D’Agnollo of Alianza Mar Blava, castigating the politicians for allowing Cairn Energy to go ahead with their test drilling, and urging the government to look for sustainable energy instead of desperately holding onto fossil fuels.

When D’Agnollo concluded her speech, we discovered that the black plastic garbage bag on the floor contained a human being. Amanda Cardona Orloff was rolling around in it, eerily resembling oil washing on waves. When she freed herself, she was the oil-smeared sea personified. Pacha DJ Beatriz Martinez, better known as B Jones,  treated the visitors to the sounds of her track ‘Ibiza says no’, which can be bought online and the proceedings of which will go to Alianza Mar Blava.

So what’s the deal? Cairn Energy, a company that has also been drilling in the arctic, is responsible for this ludicrous plan. Ludicrous, first of all because the Mediterranean is an all but closed-off basin. In the case of an accident causing oil leakage, the oil is stuck like a goldfish in a fishbowl. Another reason why any plan to find new oil wells is ridiculous, is the availability of massive amounts of solar energy, especially in a place like the Balearic Islands. Sure, we still have to find a way to store all this sun energy, but it might be wise for companies to dedicate their time investigating how to do that instead of where to find what’s left of the dwindling amount of fossil fuels. Anyone but the oil companies themselves can come up with tons of reasons why this would be preferable, but one of them is the detrimental effects all stages of oil exploitation have on marine life. Part of the damage has already been done, since the seismic testing involves extremely loud noise amounting to a level of 250 dB. This is twice as loud as when you would be standing next to an airplane taking off. Marine scientist Matthew Huelsenbeck, who was interviewed by National Geographic regarding the same procedure in the Arctic, tried to explain the effect on marine animals, and put it this way: “Imagine dynamite going off in your living room or in your backyard every ten seconds for days to weeks at a time”. The Balearic sea is a habitat for both dolphins and whales, and this noise alone kills them off or disorients them from their seasonal routes.

Most of the islanders are fiercely opposed to the plans. But taking a stand against oil extraction presents a dilemma, especially for the people of Ibiza, who travel back and forth to the island by planes or ferries that run on kerosine or diesel, and who depend heavily on the tourists that do the same. No one wants oil to wash up on the gorgeous beaches of Ibiza, but everyone still needs it. They need it to make the plane and their awesome jetski fly, to enable their 4×4 to take on those sloping rocky roads and to fuel generators that supply electricity at those secret parties.

Read more: http://alianzamarblava.org/es/

To buy the track ‘Ibiza Says No’ by B Jones: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ibiza-says-no-feat.-aaron/id895769933?l=es

National Geographic article on the effects of seismic tests on marine animals: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/02/140228-atlantic-seismic-whales-mammals/