Osborne, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, said after speaking to BP CEO Tony Hayward, "The prime minister is also clear that we need constructive solutions and that we remember the economic value BP brings to people in Britain and America."
The oil spill and people's response to it confuses me. And at the same time it shows how brilliantly this culture has turned us from citizens - people - to consumers. Just looking at the response to it shows the lies we are being told. I mean chemical dispersants? Plastic bags to put the oil in (and then dump it where? another planet?)? Oil absorbent booms? Plastic protective gloves and clothing? The common thread? ALL these things use oil either as an ingredient (plastic, most chemicals) or in their production and transport to the spill. Bad for the economy? The economy is loving it! All this buying up of oil fighting equipment, all the media flights and trips on boats. Pathetic. Real solutions? Try supporting nature in it's own ability to deal with the spill.
When I see a video on youtube of a US man mocking BP's response to the oil spill and encouraging people to dump their garden "waste" on BP's property to get back at them, the madness is clear. To punish a company that in their NORMAL operations rapes and kills the earth by "dumping" the most valuable product the earth offers us on their property is beyond nonsensical.
I'm waiting for the "Buy American" campaigns telling people to buy their petrol from US companies - because there products are a product of nature (1) that do not kill the earth? Does anyone really think other oil companies are better? One encouraging sign is the couple of "radical environmentalists" talking about oil companies, particularly Shell's destruction of the Niger delta, and comparing it to the Gulf oil spill.
Looking at the quotation above, one can only marvel that Osborne is still a publicly employed official. People might actually believe that? Even if you think in purely economic terms, BP is destroying the economy by vacuuming up "resources" that could be used for "development". Let's not even get into the bit about how they are destroying the planet. You know, that thing that all of us - our children and all other species depend on for LIFE. And then the little sinister leer and knowing wink - bringing economic value (a prime example of an oxymoron) "to people in Britain and America". To clarify, not to Britain and America, but only to people, and by that we mean some people, not all, and by that we mean an infinitesimal portion of the people in the UK and US, and by that we mean the ecocidal maniacs who are destroying everything the rest of us (including the cute and cuddly, big and ugly, inanimate, breathtaking, tiny, new and old) rely on for LIFE.
We don't need a better response to the oil spill, we need a better response to the assault on our planet. We don't need people angry at BP, we need people angry at this culture. We need more Greenpeace, we need more Sea Shepard, we need more MEND, we need more people who refuse to take responsibility for the death of the planet, but begin to dismantle the industrial economy, starting from where it is weakest.
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(1) Oil might be a product from nature, but petrol is certainly not. There is also a reason nature stored the oil underground.
3 comments:
Well, well, there is a lot to comment on. Perhaps the part I agree most with is "There is a reason nature stored the oil underground. And there is no doubt in my mind that we should have woken up to the finite nature of oil a long time ago. Then we wouldnt have got into this insane race for ever more oil. We would have switched to renewables long before the idea of drilling undersea ever took off. In a way it says something for human's ingenuity that it is only now that this has happened, after 40 years of incident-free drilling (well this sort of incident anyway). But someone, somewhere should have said that the cost of an accident is too much to take the risk, however small.
But I dont agree with you about the economy just loving it. This is bound to impact "the economy" hugely. The definition of economy is not clear to me, but the southern states of the USA are going to be hit directly, oil will become more expensive (hopefully), the British economy will suffer, evidently BP supplies a very significant portion of the UK tax base, etc etc. Hopefully this is a wake up call to the politicians but I am not holding my breath. CFT
excuse my ignorance, but why exactly did nature store oil underground, or under ground under water as is also often the case? i have an idea, but i would like to know why both glen and anonymous think this is so relevant here.
and im not making a case for oil use here, but i was under the impression that we were not going to run out of oil anywhere in the near, relevant or even foreseeable future, its just that the cost of extracting it (and by this i don't only mean economic) would become prohibitive
i agree with the glen that the economy is loving it. corporations like BP are hugely economically successful and will continue to be so until the nature of the markets and economies change. and yeah, it would take combined action of citizens rather than slightly less apathetic consumers to make any headway into making the extraction of oil at least economically prohibitive, and ending the raping of the planet.
Well, about the storing oil underground - it was a bit of a throw away remark. I guess what I mean by it is that we would've been better off in every way had we left the oil underground. That says I don't think we should not use anything from nature - trees are there, but using some to make shelter or for firewood isn't a mistake I don't think.
CFT - the economy is loving it because if there hadn't been an oil spill the company that produces oil soaking up booms wouldn't have made a pile of cash, the chemical company wouldn't have been able to sell all that dispersant (including getting rid of their old, past it's use-by-date stock) and come to think of it, BP and the other oil companies wouldn't have been able to make all that money selling the oil to make the oil soaking up booms, the plastic bags to collect oil soaked sand and dead birds in, the chemical dispersant and of course the oil to fly Obama and his entorage there 4 times since the spill started and to power all the boats going around setting the floating oil on fire.
As for the Southern States and the British economy suffering - fantastic. The GDP is just a measure of how quickly we are turning the planet into consumer goods (read: waste, read: waste that isn't usable by ecosystems) anyway, and the quicker that slows down, and ideally stops, the better.
As for this being a wake up call for politicians, Jon Stewart (from the Daily Show) sums it up pretty nicely and shows how the last 8 (yes 8) US presidents have said on TV (can't get much more real than that!) they will move towards energy independence and renewable energy sources. To see the clip go here: http://tinyurl.com/336bn33 and to 6'49".
So James, as for oil, from what I can see, we are on the peak around about now. I do think the peak will impact the industrial economy.
As for your point on the economy - I was thinking more of what I said above...
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