The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill that killed 11 and threatens to annihilate the coastal economy of the southeastern U.S. is a good reason to question authority.
It has caused me to abandon my faith in our government’s ability to regulate big oil and lead us to an alternative energy future. I’ve been disheartened by the web of legislative loopholes and industry deregulation which has opened the door to potentially criminal negligence by the oil industry.
As oil continues to hemorrhage into the Gulf, it is now up to individuals, grassroots organizations and communities to demand that the U.S. government criminally prosecute those responsible for this disaster and amend the policies that have resulted in unregulated, out of control coastal drilling.
It’s also time to make this a major pocketbook issue, a moment when all of us should divest ourselves of oil stocks.
Let’s be clear, BP and other companies drilling in the Gulf (and determined to drill on all of our coasts), are not drilling because it will add a few months of fuel to our current supply, but for the bloated profits those companies will earn – a significant amount of which end up in the election coffers of both parties.
Yes, it’s been a great time for the oil companies. BP alone made almost $6 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year. And to protect those profits, BP spent $16 million in 2009 to influence Capitol Hill lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, says Newsweek.
But now the Gulf disaster has ripped the filthy bandage off the festering wound of our oil-based economy, exposing it for what it truly is – bullying by a corrupt industry.
This spill was easily preventable had government done its job, and had BP been a responsible company and put reasonable safeguards in place, such as a $500,000 emergency remote-control shutoff switch that two other oil producing nations, Norway and Brazil, require, says The Wall Street Journal.
Instead, BP cut corners to save a buck, and is now doing senseless violence to the environment, our economy, and life on the battered Gulf coast.
It is now up to ordinary people to do what government has failed to do – to stand up to the bullies at BP and other fossil fuel companies and demand they be deprived of their privileged place at the bargaining table, and be stripped of the billions in subsidies and tax relief that keeps the playing field tilted precipitously against alternative energy.
Instead of subsidizing oil production, we should tax every barrel to recoup the costs of stationing U.S. troops on foreign soil to protect private oil derricks, pipelines and tankers.
It is also time for people to work locally to transition our towns, cities, counties and states away from an oil-based economy to a “restorative economy,” an economy dedicated to core values of human and environmental health and safety, cultural and biological diversity, and care for commonly held natural resources.
A restorative economy embraces alternative locally based energy, is less extractive and less violent. One need only look at the utter lack of danger presented by a wind farm or solar array, compared to the horrific events in the Gulf, to see the difference.
As importantly, we must place blame for this disaster squarely on the shoulders of big oil. It is not enough to parade the BP board of directors through a congressional hearing.
As an environmental activist who has gathered the corpses of oiled birds, and seen firsthand ecosystems wrecked by oil company negligence, I wonder if it’s high time we paraded those executives in a “perp walk” before the blinding lights of TV news cameras.
We must put our elected and appointed officials on notice that this is the beginning of the end for fossil fuels. It is time we rejected the morally bankrupt arguments of an industry that is destroying not only our environmental and economic future, but the democratic process.
Vote with your wallet and purse. Sell mutual funds that include fossil fuel securities.
Tell charitable foundations, your churches, and higher education institutions to divest portfolios of oil stocks. Invest in alternative energy companies instead.
This amounts to an investment in yourself, your community, the environment, and your children’s future. cs
Andrew Willner was Executive Director and Baykeeper at NY/NJ Baykeeper for nineteen years, retiring in 2008. Copyright Blue Ridge Press.
This article appears in May 12-18, 2010.
Environmentalists are lunatics. Do you ride your bike everywhere you go? How about your parents?
When you need groceries and goods, do you grow them or buy locally produced ones on the very farms they are made? Everything better be hand picked and made with solar/wind/water power!!!
Oil doesn’t have a replacement and until it does, it is lunacy to ditch the stuff.
And if you promote lunacy, it makes you a lunatic.
Andrew Willner’s reaction is the same song and dance heard any time there is an oil related disaster, no matter how large. That being said, I have a few questions/comments that seem to have been overlooked by Mr. Willner’s diatribe.
1. Could you please site which loopholes and legislative de-regulations that allowed this particular incident to happen. Apparently, there are multiple infractions that led to a lack of safegueards that could have prevented this incident. And, because our government watchdogs “allowed” it to happen, we’re now entering conspiracy territory.
2. What is the average profit margin for oil companies such as BP or Exxon Mobil? Willner sites BP 1st quarter (2010) profits to be almost $6 billion. But what does it cost to explore, drill, refine, ship, pay employees and share holders. At the end of the day, the average profit margin is about 10%. Now, if you want to talk gouging, the fed takes around 18% per gallon of gas sold; and then the states get their cut, too, and all for doing nothing.
3. Has our governemnt really been bullied by Big Oil? I can’t recall a time when our Congressional leaders have been called to appear before a board of oil executives in order to answer questions regarding their business practices or whether or not their screwing our citizenry for profits.
4. Meanwhile, as big as our leaders talk about transitioning into “green” technologies, they know alternative sources are years if not decades from being viable as oil substitutes. And ideas such as Pickens Plan will continue to use “cleaner” fossil fuels (natural gas), which will still require exploration, drilling, etc.
5. It seems to me that Mr. Willner is not just anti-oil, but anti-anything that isn’t a green technology. So are we suppose to quit cold turkey? Will we get rid of coal and nuclear power, too? What will happen to our economy while we are waiting for wind and solar power to become the dominant power sources?
6. And, finally, a little closer to home: where will our local solar stations and wind turbine farms be located?
The reactionary, divest from oil, argument is old and in this case offers a lot of pie-in-the-sky ideas, but doesn’t offer much in the way of how. Mr. Willner seems to think that by killing big oil and investing in green techs, that somehow our good intentions will translate into sustainability. We’ve heard it before.