Still under it, so I’ll make this brief.
The BP oil spill is shaping up to be one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in the age of greed. Comparisons have been made to the Exxon Valdez and the Santa Barbara spill, but this thing is potentially in a whole different category. For one thing, it isn’t a finite amount of oil leaking from a tanker. This thing is gushing straight from the well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day. Even if they deal with the enormous plume heading towards the coast now, there will be more right behind it.
Also… this is threatening some of the most sensitive, most biodiverse wetland areas in the United States. Perhaps 40% of the nation’s wetlands lie along that coastline, home to god knows how many species of birds, etc. Ecologically speaking it’s the soft underbelly of the nation – the fact that makes drilling in the gulf such a reckless choice. What the hell is this going to mean for this amazingly rich national environmental endowment? Disaster. Fucking disaster.
And this is one well. One bloody well! How many more are there in the Gulf? How many are they contemplating drilling? So much for the confident claims of the oil industry that they have this technology under control. BP has certainly been at the forefront of the spin machine, airing ads (like other oil companies and oil-dominated trade groups) that show typical Americans opining on the necessity for a diversity of energy sources (Ex-stoner college roommate talking about how we’ve got “lots of oil”; middle aged lady saying “we’ve got to find it here.”) You’ve seen ’em. Let me ask you this – did BP spend anywhere near as much on their wellhead safety technology as they did on their image-scrubbing ad campaigns? Doubt it. But even if they did, it evidently wasn’t enough.
For all their hype, they responded to this initially like any other corporation – minimize exposure; commence damage control. They suck just like rest of the oil giants.
luv u,
jp
