Boy am I glad this week is over. Barring my usual crazy work schedule, I was mauled by a flue virus that rendered my brain useless and turned my sinuses into a mucus production factory. So the news this week appeared worse than ever as I was experiencing flue induced cold sweats....
This out of control oil well in the Gulf of Mexico really got my dander up and resurfaced some terrible memories like bloated floating cadavers in the spring.
When I was 19 and in California on a quest to find the hippie way of life, I experienced first hand the effects of minor oil spills on wildlife. By pure coincidence whilst hitchhiking in Berkeley, I was befriended by an oriental of the same age with very long hair named Donald who played the steel guitar and drove a fake wood panel station wagon always accompanied by his faithful black lab, raspberry. A typical Californian...(lol) Through some friends, Donald found us a place to stay that turned out to be a bird hospital in Berkeley, The Bird Rescue Center. Housed on top of a donated two story warehouse were recuperating birds, mostly water fowl, in huge water basins, rescued from offshore spills. The poor frightened oil soaked birds had to be sedated first and their plumage was gently cleaned in the hope they would survive this ordeal. Some of them did not overcome the shock and it was the saddest thing and a real eye opener to see them slowly die of unnatural causes.
The disaster also brought back memories of one of the darkest moments in environmental fights. Ken Saro Wiwa attracted international attention to the plight of the Ogoni people in Nigeria.
Shell Oil, with the complicity of the military government run by general Sani Abacha, had been unscrupulously exploiting the Niger Delta's rich oil reserves for 37 years decimating the environment and the livelihood of the poor Ogoni people. I saw images of this devastation and it made me sick to my stomach at the time. Saro Wiwa, a poet, was unjustly convicted of treason and was hung with eight of his comrades in November 1995 by the military regime.
You can read the communique from Green Peace here...http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/ken/murder.html
It didn't happen in anyone's backyard so no big fuss was made about this and that too made me sick to my stomach as well.
Call it the domino effect, the butterfly effect ,who gives a shit.Today, I feel the whole planet is our backyard. So much is riding on how this thing will play out. Already, some people are questioning the whole idea of offshore drilling in light of BP's inability to cap the runaway well. Maybe some good will come out of it. And how did BP they get a license to operate such a platform without having submitted a worse case scenario plan..? Apparently inspectors from the Minerals Management Service accepted meals and tickets to sporting events such as the Chick-fil-a-Peach Bowl game.
Personally, I would cap the hole with debris made of arrogant oil execs, corrupt agency regulators, Hummer owners and the ubiquitous Sarah Palin with her '' Drill baby, drill '' campaign slogan. Polluting a body of water of that size because of willful negligence, should be considered a crime against humanity and as such, should be punishable by at the very least, severe prison sentences to send a loud and clear message. What do you say Mr. Obama..? Are you pissed enough to show you've got the cojones to do the right thing..? We'll see...
Footnote: The picture of three ominous looking silos on the waterfront I took one morning reminded me of the fragility between industrialization and nature and how we always seem to be a stone's throw away from disaster.
Apparently this is not the first time BP finds itself in a row.
http://www.alternet.org/story/147045/why_isn't_bp_under_criminal_investigation?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet
No comments:
Post a Comment