Oil In The Gulf

Let’s make sure we hold British Petroleum accountable for all the despicable things they’ve said & done since this disaster started: 

They lied about how much oil was escaping, and hid camera views of the actual leak as long as possible.

They said oil would not reach any shoreline.

They described the environmental impact as minimal.

They’re stalling the claims process as we speak.

They’ve taken legal action to reduce the fine they’ll be assessed based upon how much oil leaks out – IE, getting a federal law changed after it’s been broken.

The dispersant they're using is designed to simply remove the oil from the surface and drive it deeper... where it can’t be seen.  It’s not an environmental remedy, it’s a marketing tool.  It’s also toxic to anyone breathing its fumes.

And they’re spending millions on advertising to fix their PR image. 

Did you know that some of the $20 billion dollar fund set aside for claims will be accessible by BP gas station owners to compensate for lost revenue?  Nice of BP to set aside money for BP.  

People seem to be starving for some truth about who’s responsible for this, so here’s a little bit.  As long as we remain silently complicit in oil companies’ atrocities across our landscape, nothing will change.  As long as Americans accept the petroleum economy with no insistence that green energies are developed and implemented, nothing will change.  As long as Americans use their dollars to participate in the petroleum economy, nothing will change.  As long as Americans wait for even greater catastrophes to occur before insisting upon change, nothing will change.  Nothing will change until every last drop of oil has been extracted from below the surface. 

We are all responsible for this disaster by participating in the petroleum economy.   

What’s it going to take?  The Greenland ice shelf sliding into the Atlantic?  Massive methane-hydrate releases from ocean floors that send toxic plumes into the atmosphere?  More water supplies & wells being poisoned by petroleum extraction?  Wild polar bears extinct?  Miami & the Florida Keys swamped?  Snow caps on our highest mountain ranges permanently melted?  Water refugees overrunning our allies in Europe and Asia?  Where exactly will we draw the line with out-of-control petroleum burning and carbon redistribution? 

Ya know, when oil was discovered, it was seen as a cheap, easy energy source.  Someone saw it leaking out of the ground, lit it on fire, and said ‘Wow, it burns & it’s free.  Let’s go.”  Well how easy is it to extract oil from miles under the ocean surface?  Or to extract from shale?  Not only is it not easy, but oil companies are starting to extract from places where their return on investment is only a fraction of what it’s been in the past, shale extraction being at the top of that list.  They are growing more and more desperate to find ways to continue petroleum extraction instead of changing their business models before it’s too late.   

And of course I cannot leave this alone without smacking every last one of you that scream for less government and less regulation.  Correct, quality government oversight and enforcement of existing rules & laws governing oil drilling would have prevented this disaster.  But no.  For whatever reasons, our federal government’s agency of oversight of oil companies, the MMS, followed a path of corruption that is simply embarrassing to recount.  Literally in bed with each other! 

America has become expert at doing things we shouldn’t be able to do.  Loans to people who should not have been allowed to get loans for homes worth more than they could afford.  Projects for infrastructure passed without enough dollars to maintain them for the future.  Extracting oil without insuring a plan for a worse-case scenario is funded, ready, and fully implementable in case it’s needed.  This disaster is just a symptom of a much, much deeper problem with our society. 

But who cares, right?  As long as we have cheap energy and the sun rises tomorrow, who really gives a damn?  “Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.”

Every single president since Nixon has preached about getting America off of foreign oil and on to cleaner, renewable energy sources.  I say we won’t do it.  We won’t do it because we’re lazy.  We’re the laziest nation on the planet, and we don’t care who knows it.  Because when we run out, we’ll just go take it from somebody else.  And when there’s no more to take, we’ll eat our young.  If and when we do harness solar or wind efficiently, we’ll bitch and moan about how great it was when burning stuff was king, and we didn’t have to worry about low power options, or when the sun shines, or when the breeze blows. 

It is as if we cannot be bothered with rules.  “Too busy moving forward, sorry, set those rules aside.  Can’t budget to have the gear that insures the mine’s air is clean, sorry, let the workers deal with it.  Just trust the oil companies that they’ll take care of safety because if something goes REALLY wrong, it’ll be disastrous for them.”  What was it Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship said about safety regs before his workers were killed?   

"If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e. - build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal..." "This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills." 

Profit first, safety later.  Sound familiar? 

It is shocking and unacceptable to me that BP will still be alive & kicking after this fiasco is capped & there’s nothing but cleanup being done.  That’s how much money and power this single oil company has.  It was costing BP $500,000 a DAY to rent & operate Deep Water Horizon, they have a nearly immeasurable amount of liquid cash as a company.  They will have inflicted the worse environmental disaster in American history, and still be able to walk away functioning as a company. 

If we don’t have any toleration for enforcement of laws and rules designed to keep us safe, maybe we don’t deserve a pristine environment or seafood from The Gulf.  If we’re too weak to insist that people and companies can actually afford all the costs of doing their business correctly and living their lives efficiently, then maybe we all deserve to fail miserably.  If we’re too stupid to see the wisdom of living reasonably within our means and capabilities, then maybe we’re doomed. 

Quite simply, we are setting a very bad example for the rest of the world.