Blaming Environmentalists For Gulf Gusher Is Goofy
I've seen this crazy analysis before: that environmentalists somehow forced BP to drill in deep water.
BP drilled there because there was money to make. Big time. BP revenues last year were $246 billion and profits were $24 billion.
I don't think BP or any other big oil firm were making plans based on what environmentalists suggested.
I agree that all consumers share in the blame because we all burn petroleum, but singling out the people who have called for caution and standards and oversight to protect nature makes no sense.
3 comments:
We strongly disagree that "consumers are to blame because we burn petroleum" That's just way too Tom Cruise-y for my taste. Like delusional people who try to cure their cancer with the power of their own minds and all that crap.
For a statement like that to be true, we all would have had to have had full comprehension of where the invention and popularization of the automobile would lead us, AND a full and 100% democratic planet-wide decision-making process on whether or not we should proceed with that technology.
However, as it always is, the decisions of that nature are int he hands of a very very few, development and use of the technology is a millionaire-making arrangement, first owned by the wealthy and then marketed to the public by experts.
And it's hardly about The Car. Petroleum-based or enhanced products like plastics etc - all the medical tools, everything - attempts to simplify and demonize "oil" just is childish. Too many still do that (ain't saying you, just..)
Instead the issue is about judicious use of planetary resources, a sense and commitment to the idea that we are all in this together and there is no place to "go" if we fuck it all up.
So it's truly not the use of cars, the plastic tubing in your IV, your squeaky dog toy, or your baby stroller that is "to blame".
It's the greed and voracious behavior of those who first "find" a new resource and then insist on playing by their own rules, becoming little Gods.
"Blaming" people for no longer driving horse wagons and shoveling coal is like blaming miners caught in a a mine collapse. Or a guy for getting his arm ripped off in an industrial accident.
Blame is somewhat proportional to the amount of information any individual had on an issue, but the real determiner of "blame" is
Did this person have any CONTROL in the decision-making process.
Looking back at early automobiles we have good old Henry Ford and his development of various industrial and economic models that are now revered. The sacred cows of commerce. Blame may reside more in that front office or on that assembly line, not on the poor schmucks who saved up to buy their first horseless carriage.
I do not disagree with your political analysis.
And I know that the multinationals, particularly oil companies, are the worst (their active participation in the proven conspiracy to end cities' transit systems, for example).
And, of course, Joe Citizen is not Exxon or BP, and is constantly manipulated by advertising, and shut out by campaign fundraising and deal-making that subsumes the "little people" to the will of corporate power.
But I am mindful of the miles i drive and the energy I burn, despite my own efforts to conserve where I can and do.
Nor do I agree with the idea that we are all to blame. BP is to blame -- just as BP and no one else is to blame for its very poor prior record on safety and the environment.
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