How narrow we are ….
If the Nigerian Delta is a polluted swamp and marsh from oil spills that is fine with us North Americans, as long as we get our millions of barrels of oil.
If the Ecuadorian jungle is a polluted swamp from oil spills that is of no concern. Keep the barrels flowing into our “way of life.”
All corners of the globe, and miners die, cancers flourish, water vanishes, all for products that are “essential” to “our way of life,” with oil at the top of the list.
But things become slightly clearer, less distant, when the environment and humans are affected closer to home: British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico.
Fishermen lose their jobs.
Beaches turn black with tar balls.
Birds are coated brown and black.
Marshes have oil film.
Oil workers lose their jobs, lives, too.
Again, so narrow when afar, but now … when close to home the cost of oil is apparent.
With time zones multiplied distant it is blurred.
Suddenly, proponents of no or small government want help, expensive help, from federal and state governments, with a heavy use of the Army, Navy and Coast Guard.
Narrow, narrow, then shockingly wider.
When the 20 to 30-million barrels of oil daily are flowing into United States, Mexican, Canadian, Central American and Caribbean ports, how wonderful.
Do not ask about African spills, Asian deaths, Persian Gulf and Red Sea leaks, ruin, health issues; just keep that oil coming.
Drive a block.
Never car pool.
Add a third, maybe a fourth car,
Get the AC even colder.
Use those clothes dryers.
Ever plastic, with its oil base, impossible to move without plastics, large and small, from wee knobs in cars to big pieces of those cars.
North America, and the rest of the World, need to reduce oil consumption, and fast, and develop a concern for the environmental and human costs of its production, and then begin to see just what we mean by “way of life.”
We – that is most Americans and even a majority of the rest of North American – have a very high “way of life,” often luxurious. The Sudan and a hundred and more countries don’t.
Crazed wars should force us to seek new paths. We can not find those routes.
Gushing oil should do the same. We can not find those routes, either.
But in both instances the immediate trumps: winning that untenable war; capping that one well, illusory, as the war moves to another war, and the well when capped has a brother or sister well gush freely, on and on.
Oh, those oil globs, angry water men, disappointed beach goers, rinsed birds, coated marsh grasses, with virtually no leader in North America and most of the rest of the World with the nerve to ask, “How much is enough? What parts of ‘our way of life’ are truly worth keeping? Do future generations and the planet in say a half century matter?”
Prepare for a summer of beach pictures – “Closed due to oil spill.”
Prepare for more pictures of angry fishermen and oil workers – “We need our jobs!”
Don’t expect to see billboards in the affluent world asking – “How much is enough?”
Don’t expect any to blare – “Is short comfort worth the price?”
Edgardo Response:
Very spot on, this is something that I think most people here don’t know about. No need to go into too much detail here, about the current level of cupidity, stupidity, arrogance, and I believe strong evidence of conspiracy in making the terrible situation of the gulf oil spill into a monumentally, historical catastrophe. This has been well covered even in the lame stream media. And much more so in the alternative investigative journals like InfoWars.com. One local note: The Rio Grande Valley Kenaf producers contacted both BP and the government about producing kenaf oil skimmers for the spill. Kenaf is totally bio degradable and very absorbent, but of course big oil and big government rejected it out of hand. This was on one of the local Rio Grande Valley network news channels. One of my points here is that alternative energy sources and low capitol, environmentally friendly products and energy sources that can not be monopolized or easily controlled are either ignored, demonized or rejected. Ridiculous, dangerous, even absurd schemes that cut out the little guy are always the winner. Kenaf for example is easy to grow, uses little fertilizer or pesticide has a very high yield of fiber, is completely bio-degradable and does look a little like Cannabis Sattiva, or marijuana. Hmmmmmn! Some good demonization is possible here….Hemp also has many of the same great qualities as kenaf. Super environmentally friendly as well. It does happen to belong to the cannabis sativa family, though non psycho-active. There is a debate about how much fiber can be produced comparatively to kenaf, but hemp has many, many other uses as well. Ethanol production using hemp and other plants, locally produced, serving small areas, with no transportation costs thrown in would probably render half-billion dollar oil platforms drilling a mile or more beneath the surface superfluous and uneconomical. It may happen, but the oil cartels won’t go down without a fight. And they fight dirty.
Mining, or for short, any kind of mineral or natural source extraction, is beyond all others, the premier source of wealth for the filthy wealthy of the world. From diamonds to oil, and many other resources, the key to a business that makes money transmorgrifying into one that creates great, enduring riches is control of the supply. As most people know, diamonds are only semi-precious stones, it’s only artificial supply limits and monopoly that gives them their value. So too with oil. Now to control the oil supply the last thing you need is free, democratic, independent countries charting their own course and not yours, the oil oligarchies. What you need are dictators and corrupt elites running the countries that have the resources. Make a few families fabulously wealthy, get their people hopelessly in debt to your world banks, where even if they want to get out you have the power to implode their economy, and your set. You control supply and you extract the goods (oil, gold, rare earth, titanium, uranium, whatever) fast, cheap, and dirty. Yeah, workers may die, spills can happen every week; lead can leach into the brains of the workers and the children till they grow up to not even know what happened to them. But that’s the way it is. Meantime, we’re safe from kenaf, hemp and ethanol.
Hopefully some solutions in part II.
We solicit solutions from across the spectrum
