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Gulf Oil Spill: A Symbol of What Fossil Fuels Do to the Earth Every Day, Say Environmentalists
The leading edge of a vast oil slick started to come ashore in Louisiana on Thursday night, a shroud of devastation falling on America's coastline even as the blown-out BP oil well that produced it continues to belch millions of gallons of thick crude into the Gulf of Mexico for a third straight week.
Oil blobs and oil sheen are seen in the waters of Chandeleur Sound, La., Tuesday, May 4, 2010. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) At moments like this, it's hard to see any silver lining here at all.
But it's possible there is one. Many environmentalists say that the
wrenching and omnipresent images of filth and death are at last
providing Americans with visible, visceral and possibly mobilizing
evidence of the effects that fossil fuels are having on our environment
every day.
Rick Steiner is horrified at the damage. A University of Alaska marine specialist, he's watched cleanup efforts ever since the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, and has learned some bitter lessons.
"Government and industry will habitually understate the volume of the spill and the impact, and they will overstate the effectiveness of the cleanup and their response," he said. "There's never been an effective response -- ever -- where more than 10 or 20 percent of the oil is ever recovered from the water. Once the oil is in the water, the damage is done."
And most of the damage remains invisible deep below the surface, including the wide-scale destruction of essential plankton in the area and the wiping out of an entire generation of fish larvae. "This is real toxic stuff," Steiner said.
But the damage that is visible -- the vast and foul oil slick, the dolphins swimming through sludge, the birds coated in oil, the dead fish and sharks and turtles -- is enough to thoroughly disgust anyone paying attention.
And that, Steiner said, makes it a "teachable moment" that "will hopefully serve as a wake-up call that we need to turn to sustainable energy."
After all, that carbon we're seeing poison the Gulf was headed into the planetary ecosystem anyway, through tailpipe emissions.
"That's part of the irony of all this, is it just took a shortcut," Steiner said. "This carbon took a shortcut into the environment from what it normally does, and it's obvious to people what the problem is here."
A much smaller oil spill in Santa Barbara 40 years ago helped mobilize the Earth Day movement, which in turn led to most of the major environmental legislation of the 20th century. The Exxon Valdez disaster, 20 years later, led to tougher (but evidently not tough enough) rules about oil spills.
And now Steiner and fellow environmentalists think this spill provides an opportunity not just to revisit offshore oil drilling, but the whole carbon dynamic.
"This just reminds us, in a powerful way, how dirty the energy we rely on is," said environmental writer Bill McKibben. "If anything good is going to come out of this, it'll be because it focuses our attention -- but more palpably, focuses the president's attention -- on questions of dirty energy,"
McKibben is the founder of the global grassroots climate-change Web site 350.org and his latest book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet is about adjusting to a changed world.
"Our problem is not primarily that there's a stuck valve in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. That's a terrible problem," McKibben told HuffPost. "The bigger problem is that there's a stuck economy based on fossil fuels that the president hasn't really done anything major yet to fix.... The problem is that the whole system is dirty from beginning to end."
The Senate has been cobbling together tepid climate-change bills while President Obama sits on the sidelines, McKibben said. "Now is the moment when he could galvanize the nation. He could say: 'Let's really learn from what's happened in the Gulf. Let's think about the way that we're turning all the oceans of the world acid at a rapid rate by pouring carbon into the atmosphere. Let's think not only about those coal miners in West Virginia, but also about what burning coal is doing to people all over the world.' "
This would, McKibben acknowledges, require a bit of a turnaround. "In this case, Obama three weeks ago told us he wanted a lot more offshore oil drilling, and told us it was safe. He should get up and say 'I was wrong. And in a deeper sense, I was wrong not to be taking on whole hog, as the centerpiece of my presidency, the fight to finally get us really moving off coal and gas and oil.'"
It's a moment of reckoning, McKibben said.
"We'll find out in the next couple of weeks whether he's serious about an energy transformation, or whether he's as corporatist and cautious on this as he appears to be on other things."
Wesley Warren, director of programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, calls the Gulf spill "a watershed moment" much like Santa Barbara 40 years ago or the Exxon Valdez 20 years ago -- events that "really defined energy and environmental policy for a generation," he said.
"Washington needs a response that is as large as this spill is, to deal with our dependence on oil," he told HuffPost. "This is just a symptom of a system that's gone on too long, unchecked, when a change is needed."
It's not just the imagery, it's also the economic toll on fisherman and coastal communities that will make this spill so affecting, he said. "That makes it dramatic in a way that two weeks ago, there was no way to show the American people what was at stake. This is vivid and direct and is the consequence of an overdependence on oil that we could have rid ourselves of 40 years ago or 20 years ago," he said.
"The best thing to do with carbon is to keep it underground where it belongs."
Despite the White House's considerable effort to demonstrate that the administration is responding aggressively to the Gulf spill, there are, as of yet at least, no signs that Obama will seize the moment to advance an anti-carbon agenda.
Indeed, last week, he promised better safeguards for oil drilling going forward, but recommitted himself to domestic oil production.
Is there any chance there will be enough public outrage that Members of Congress will be pressured into voting for legislation that puts a stiff price on carbon going forward? So far there are no overt signs of that, either.
But Damon Moglen, global warming campaign director for Greenpeace USA, told HuffPost that the dynamics of the debate have already changed.
"I think objectively, number one, the proposal that we are going to offer new offshore drilling is dead. It's dead on delivery. I think in addition that there is a tremendous likelihood that we will have a ban or a return to the moratorium on drilling," Moglen said.
"And more broadly, I think this is going to break open the debate on both the climate and energy bills... I think we are going to have the opportunity to talk about a much more ambitious and visionary commitment to clean renewables and efficiency technologies, instead of continued hand-outs and support for the fossil fuels industry.
"The details of that? That'll be played out in the weeks to come."
39 Comments so far
Show AllWarren is correct we could have gotten onto renewables 40 years ago ( despite the uninformed naysayer posters, please research all the ways to store energy and the latest innovations and research), there are so many forms and mechanisms for renewables that a combinaton is a very secure power source.
And plastics are made from other bio sources besides oil.
I am not optimistic about OBomber or Congress doing anything meaningful in a positive sense. So far all we have is a meaningless three week moratorium on permits.
I am deeply suspicious of these dud bombs going off at oppurtune moments, how better to distract attention from corporate crimes?
Oil has several fundamental problems:
First, oil from exotic places centralizes political power, which undermines democracy. Only a huge company can drill in deep water. Power means that it can defeat government safety regulations in the name of more profits. BP was just about to get itself awarded an environmental oil drilling award from the government when the spill happened. BP's power also means that it dared to offer shrimpers jobs in exchange for a no-lawsuit clause. Bunch of uncontrolled crooks!
Second, the easy oil is gone. What's left is the environmental nightmare oil. There's also the oil under somebody else's feet, which requires armies and death squads to extract, which is in its own way an environmental nightmare using depleted uranium shells and defoliant chemicals. Our troops are coming home by the hundreds of thousands with Gulf War Syndrome and it's not going away.
Third, every time our earth takes another ton of carbon out of the ground where it has been for 50 million years, that's another ton of carbon in the atmosphere for maybe 2500 years.
'easy oil is gone' - not necessarily. I'm not sure the argument against fossil fuels will see any support from 'peak oil' theories, and I don't believe it needs it. The other points + global climate change, is more than enough.
for example, with new technology, enormous oil fields may yet lay untapped. The one that caught fire in the gulf may be the biggest or 2nd biggest of all time.
Ahhh! Another Peak Oil Denier!
When the US EIA, the eternal optimist on endless oil supplies, finally admitted a
couple weeks ago that oil supplies had hit not a "peak" but an "undulating plateau"
with global production expected to drop beginning 2011-2015, then I think it is
time to accept the reality of peak oil.
As Hubbert predicted, US Oil production hit its peak in 1970.
If there are mysterious new sources of oil which aren't more and more difficult, expensive and risky to reach like the Deepwater rig a mile below the ocean, drilling
more miles under the ocean floor, then why haven't US oil companies found them?
Why are we importing most of our oil ever since "Peak Oil" hit us in 1970?
Peak Oil IS a key point of the equation because it means the longer we postpone
saving oil by actually running our existing trains, the more expensive it will
become to rebuild our infrastructure.
And once again, if Environmentalists want to be Green - then increase gas taxes and
go back to the days before Reagan when transit operations were federally subsidized.
Since 70% of US oil usage is for transportation of which well over 90% is cars and trucks it is obvious where we can save oil immediately.
Instead of cutting 150 transit systems around the country, keep them running
with frequent service around the clock including weekends.
"We'll find out in the next couple of weeks whether he's serious about an energy transformation, or whether he's as corporatist and cautious on this as he appears to be on other things."
He's not cautious at all. He's just putting on a show to keep a lid on things until the public gets distracted by something else, which won't take long. Then it's back to business as usual.
You can expect a lot of comments defending him by those who want so badly to believe that he is the guy they thought they voted for. That undeserved support only enables him to continue to serve corporate interests.
The larger tragedy is that he had a mandate from the people and the ability to change the trajectory this country is on. Sadly, by out-Bushing Bush, he is accelerating that trajectory of our national decline. And for what? So he can live in a nice house for 4 years and then later get a pile of money from his corporate sponsors? His personal tragedy is that he had an opportunity for true greatness and chose instead to be a pathetic corporate lawn jockey.
With the corpo-fascist state of U.S.A ... same as it was 40 years ago ... same as it will be ... tight-fisted control on our direction(as a country) and freedom(as individuals) we will never see true sustainable, renewable energy independence. The existing solar installations available for individual homeowners are prohibitively expensive. An obstacle to freedom and independence. That alone is one factor. Now there are schemes out there for homeowners to lease systems and pay a fixed rate to the actual owner of the system. Still ... lots of corpo benefit, corpo control and yet no freedom or independence. We are witnessing all these corpo manifested, gargantuan wind power projects and solar arrays ... still tied to an incredibly inefficient monster power grid that will lose more power in the transmission process than what any of it will save ... and still no independence and certainly no freedom. The rumblings of new nuclear power plants continues the corpo-fascist control ... a never ending corpo-welfare scheme that gives these incompetent, deranged, over-sized, immoral, thugs massively expensive and dangerous toys to play with. Where's the common sense? But yet again ... no freedom, no independence for us ... ordinary people. It will all continue to be just a costume change ... but still keeping on with the wealth to the wealthy, the power to the powerful ... leaving us, ordinary people, tied and tired ... no freedom, no independence ... socializing the costs and privatizing the profits.
There are so many possibilities, so many solutions to the problems but those in power want to maintain their power, are going to do everything and anything possible to keep it that way and those with the money aren't about to use it to initiate truly safe, sustainable, renewable energy independence for the people ... no freedom, no independence for us ... just for them.
ORGANIZE!
BOYCOTT!
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE NOW!
ECONOMIC JUSTICE NOW!
SOCIAL JUSTICE NOW!
"The problem is that the whole system is dirty from beginning to end."
This holds true for more than just energy.
Good post, short, sweet and profound!
One of my disappointments of McKibben is that he is careful not to criticize the SYSTEM driving the use of fossil fuels: capitalism ("dirty from beginning to end").
Yeah, and unfortunately, China is emulating us with the intent of succeeding us, and India isnt far behind. The capitalism "virus" is infecting the whole world. If we humans dont change our dead-end adaptation to existence, the whole global-capitalist-industrial system is going to collapse in an extremely destructive way.
The so called western civilization has done more environmental damage to America in the last 100 years than the indigenous people did here in at least the last 10,000 years! And they use to be called savages and would be called terrorists today as they were a threat to big business interests. Just who are the real environmental, savages here? Like someone said: we could give it back to the indigenous peoples of America, but they do not want it back!
I would unfortunately submit that the devastating, disaster of the B.P. oil leak will change nothing. Simply put: because the oil cartels from Halliburton to Exxon have too many $$$ and too much influence in D.C. and the MIC cannot wage wars on green energy. About the only thing the average American can do is boycott B.P. which may not really help much because they are so big and world wide, but it may be a start.
I was thinking the same thing. If we are going to talk about moving beyond oil, the first place to start is to dismantle the super-wasteful and and super-polluting Imperial war machine. How come not one of the people cited in this article mentions this?
All those expensive, invitation-only Wall Street & D.C. toxic shrimp lunches will be forever served up on a bed of crude. They think they can wash it down with a chaser of 'Dawn' dish detergent. I hope they all enjoy swimming in those oil slicks at their beach-front mansions.
Mother Earth is bleeding profusely. All that wealth & not a tourniquet in sight.
Do ya think BP had insurance?
"Mother Earth is bleeding profusely"
Such a poignant statement Lily Otv. What is most sad, these rapacious bastards running big oil don't care. they don't!
Earth, this tiny beautiful sphere and the only known planet in the Cosmos which sustains life and we're ruining it for future generations. All in the name of greed.
No need ta worry, Dancing with the Stars, "American" Idol and the rest of these feckless programs will be on again next week to further dumb down the already dumbed down sheople, keeping them ignorant and apathetic.
'a "teachable moment" that "will hopefully serve as a wake-up call'
Wanna bet? It's just one more of the innumerable daily symptoms of a much more fundamental systemic problem that Americans can never bring themselves to face squarely.
USA Incorporated's capitalist "corporate personhood" takeover and total corruption of "freedom and democracy" itself (and ALL of its essential supporting structures) creates too big a challenge to inculcated exeptionalist patriotism to be fully accepted as the underlying reality by the vast majority.
The few who do see that larger truth are simply dismissed as anti-American. After all, capitalism isn't merely an economic system. It's the unassailable underpinnng of all that defines The American Way. Is it not?
Democratic representation and sovereignty of natural persons be damned! Carry on chasing individual symptoms of its loss.
Fundamentalist capitalism is more than that, it is practically a religion. Funny how fundamentalist capitalism, which is an adolescent mind-set based upon the human egos "right" to ruthlessly exploit everything without limits or restraints, is so heartily embraced by christianity, an adolescent belief-system that claims that its believers have a special place on earth and in the universe.
Religiosity is, in fact, one of those essential supporting structures (along with mass media communications) that are co-opted as integral parts of the complete hostile "corporate personhood" takeover and globalization enterprise.
Most U.S. churches are quite docile, if not downright enthusiastic about the corporate business model. Other religious elements (especially those dumb backward furreners) are somewhat less amenable to and cooperative with the modern day equivalent of the Xian church's aincient deal with Constantine's imperial agenda. Thus the need for militarized intervention in certain cases. And, since the U.S. military was incorporated long ago, it makes an ideal globalization tool for its current owners.
You are describing lukewarm Christianity, a mixture of a hot pretense of good hiding a cold hearted evil intent to be enriched upon your misery.
Notwithstanding, there is 1% of Christians who keep the golden rule:
"Do not use force to overcome evil.
If they strike you on the right cheek,
turn to them also the other."
Matthew 5:39
DOES THAT QUOTE FROM MATTHEW 5:39 SPEAK TO THE PRESENT DAY? Letʻs try it out in both our private & public lives. This is a challenge: I dare each one of us (including the poster). Spirituality is not for the faint-hearted nor for the egoistic. I have personally found out how difficult it can be. But we humans seem demonic with a blazing particle of Light in our hearts, which if followed and PRAYED to could unleash the most powerful step forward that humans have ever experienced!
n.b. You donʻt have to be "Christian". There are a number of equally valid spiritual traditions. The one of YOUR choice will yield results if followed sincerely and with RIGHTEOUS ACTION and everlasting constancy.
This universe has a lot of dust, but it also has remarkable symmetry and beauty.
Here is a idea to help keep the image of slimmy black sticky oil polluting our world stuck in our minds eye.
If you happen to be around as the Oil hits the beachs. Shovel up a pick up load and if you can afford it,
shovel it into a swallow glass cage near a sidewalk.
Hopefully on a piece of land you control. Put up a sign that says
"American Beach after a Oil Spill-Oil is dirty, very dirty, wind is clean, very clean, Do you want to keep on
Drilling Baby drill?"
PURPOSE OF LIFE -- GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS
This is the question raised by all the irreversible done by man:
ISSUE
If the ability to do both good and evil is given to man,
will the ultimate conclusion be total destruction of a
perfect world that has freely given to man?
You like most for example, feel that you deserve more,
actually deserve to self-actualize and be all you can be,
to own all you can own and be a dictator over all who are
on land that you own.
So you have the freedom to both take in an evil way,
and to give in a good way.
Whereas, a few comprehend the reality that this day
of life is more then anyone deserves, so they
have only the freedom to give all they can give,
as they are slaves to good and have a conscience
that will allow them to do only good.
They a slave to good and can do only good, you a free man
with unlimited freedom to take all that your brains and
sex-appeal can muster. And us all together in this end-time
world are about to see the ultimate conclusion of the
grand scheme of things.
Here is a novel idea: what about an action taken at the whore house known as the US congress. Maybe activists can dump a few hundred barrels of oil in the corridors of power and the White House to give them a taste of what they do to Mother Earth every day by their rubber stamping of the industry. Start with Obama's play house, and then Pelosi, Reid, et al (Wall street's best friends) the corporate whores who currently yield power.
But why draw our attention to paid-actor politicians? For if just one million Americans were to each dump a gallon of filthy crude in some office owned by the corporate rich, a screeching halt would be this anarchy called democracy run by the rich.
What a great idea! Make them live in it.
"Environmentalists" are useless. They know that there are cleaner sources of technologies, some of which have been outlawed, but they also know that should those cleaner sources become the norm, they will lose their "business". Until any of this changes, we will continue to snort out all the coal and snort to the last drop/morsel.
I use to notice the bees then the bumble bees then the absence of both. Now the oil and bombs are all I see.
Profit Blue empirePie May 7, 2010
Our stand up drone comic godfather of new world disorder
doubles down on demented Dubaya’s under the desk charade
with suitor fried threats to feed the frenzy of forever war
the even score for more of more.
Did it not occur to you Mr. President;
that the times square scare was a blowback affair?
that the blow in the Gulf is your flow financed flare?
that the global war on terror is what it is not?
that you and your henchman have all been bought?
Have another listen to Martin Luther King O Branded one
or to the paster who married you before we all turn blue;
like toxic tea baggers bottom lining on profit blue.
The article presupposes that Obama is a just a guy who can, by himself, turn this country around. I think, instead, it is overdue for all of us to recognize him as a figurehead carrying out policies of corporate agencies such as the Business Roundtable and the Council of Foreign Relations. The real ruling class has made all of Obama's decisions for him and he may be given a few minor 'plays' that are largely rhetorical. Every piece we read that calls on Obama to do something, or asks him to 'lead' is a failure to admit, recognize, and contend with, the real totalitarian nature of our society. It is run by corporations, by the interlocking boards of directors--that is who decided we would have the 'change' we've gotten. Measure it with a teaspoon and never mistake the spoon for the hand, or the hand for the person, or the person for the agency, or the agency for the association of agencies.
Agreed.
Its Time for Obama to stick to his intuition and knowledge before placating all the political decoys around him such as the "Drill Baby Drill" , "use soft touch with regulation", "War on drugs", "In the name of national Security", "Clean Coal", "Global warming is not because of Man" etc. etc.
Its time for him to become a leader for the people who voted for him, instead of a facilitator. The conservative mode of politics in the White house shows cowardice and is all nonsense. If he continues this , he will be known as the first Black President USA ever elected. Doesn't he want to walk the talk. He can use Signing Order to do good for this world.
As far as stepping on the decoys while he leads, let them bring out Million people march for 4 straight years if they don't like it . Then we can debate the issue.
Eh.
0bama has his sponsors, but he does their bidding. If the Pope takes out a contract on Mother Theresa, the Pope's complicity and position do not make the trigger man or the drop man innocent.
Failure to turn the country would be forgivable, perhaps even admirable, but would look far far different than 0.
Every person has a right to make her own choices.
It is difficult for some people to see the implications their choices have for others.
For better or worse, the BP person/corporation will make choices that effect us all.
Corporations are a nasty person/ computer. Their God/objective is actually called "making the most money possible as quickly as possible
If no life is left when they have all the money?:
---------------------------
Life? what is life? will computer A say to computer O%$O!!)(*.
It is not the kind of thing one 0 can tell to another 1. It is a thing that is inside you or was inside you or can be inside you if you work at it.
so it goes.
But for all you computer A's, just let me remind you that you were not the first lifeforms who asks the ultimate questions, nor will you be the last.
I kind of see this piece as myopic in scope. First off, between the Santa Barbara Oil Spill and the Exxon Valdez, to Deepsea Horizon, there have been several major spills worldwide, many dwarfing all three of these (at least to date)***. The point of this article is geared toward the US and its off shore drilling and feeding optimistic forecasting of potential policy fallout which reinforce a utopia oil-free worldview.
The author and interviewed specialists talk about "watershed" moments even if a more realistic historical perspective would state, this won't be the last major spill. In fact, deepwater, off-shore drilling techniques are most likely the only thing that is going to change here, if , and only if, the evidence proves this was not operator error.
Despite all of this forecasting,
***Deepsea Horizon Spill, (if the gusher is releasing 25,000bbl a day), will need to gush ---with a constant rate of flow (highly unlikely)--- for upwards of 90 days before it exceeds the #3 worst spill, the Atlantic Empresses of 1979 with its estimate 287,000 tonnes.
And that pales in comparison to the #2 worst spill, the Ixtoc I, with its 454,000 -480,000 tonnes. Which, frankly, dumped into the GOM in 1980. People seem to overlook this massive oil spill when reaching into the future about the ramifications of the Deepsea Horizon and offshore drilling in the GOM. I don't know what leaving out this very concrete example of history indicates., but what exactly came of the Ixtoc I spill and GOM operations?
And least we forget, the most recent deepsea rig in the Sea of Timor, and the Montara Oil Spill of August, 2009. It is a tragic example of a potentially similar failure seen in GOM. Releasing up to 30,000 tonnes, it was barely a blip on the news coverage. Commondreams certainly didn't pick it up.
Several spills near or exceeding the size of Exxon Valdez since 1989: Jiyeh Power Station ('06); Prestige ('02 ); MV Seat Empress('96); Erika ('98); Montara ('09); Gulf War ('91); MT Haven ('91)....
I tend toward the Carbon/Satan connection which Adam Whitestone shows in his book.
We are a carbon life form and are simply motivated toward cheep nitrogen/hydrocarbon sources as a power supply. This is the nature of the carbon vehicle we as conscious being use. The carbon came to Earth (Satan fell to Earth) in comets. It is the unseen ruler of men. It has dominion over all the Earth. Who has the power to turn away from him?
Course this Faustian relationship with cheap power has consequences. Oh, one more thing:
Carbon, or the beastial nature of mankind has a number, it is 666: 6 protons, 6 neutrons, 6 electons, or the atomic structure of carbon. Do you think that this is a coincidence that a text written in 200 AD tells us this?
Carbon is the vehicle, as in car, carry, carriage, carboy, carbine, carnival, cardiac, carmine, carnage, carnal, caravel, etc..
So the important thing for every human being is to know that the use of carbon power is very detrimental to your health. It brings weakness, makes you sick and dependent. It also controls you and is the source of the financial control which makes you a slave. It takes you to hell.
There is lots more.
Mother Nature bats last, and it is the bottom of the 9th, two outs and the pitch..... why is america a reactive versus a proactive society? Tick,tick,tick and bye-bye.Wake up now, or enter the post crisis stage,foraging for food,looking for shelter, day by day. If we do not tame the beasts of oil, coal and nuclear, we are doomed.Goodbye gulf of mexico, goodbye mississippi river delta, goodbye all sealife, good-bye us!!!There is a way. Go off grid, elect progressive candidates, get active! No excuses! No time left tick,tick,tick.......Repeat after me " solar,wind and conservation" repeat ...repeat... repeat.....
What a disgrace. I can't believe this. In this day and age, when solar power has been available for more than 30 years. I can't imagine that this would be happening. If we observe plants, which convert the power of the sun to good use, why not follow suit? The technology is there, and has been there, for many years. Lets get off fossil fuels. Time to change.
Once again there are only small acts of peace and conservation that we may participate in to help make a difference.
To all you doubters that see Big Oil as to big and rich to stop.
I say 'do what you can to shift the momentum away from Oil based War to a life style that fosters
Love for the beauty that is always with us. As I talked about below
'Make a Sand Box of beach polluted oil' Every once in a while someone else will have a existential moment of enlightment:
You will then have made a difference; And Guess what? You will sleep well knowing you have helped.
"Life will always find a way"
I find it very depressing reading posts on other news sites; the blame game, conspiracy theories, dragging political parties into this disaster, etc. I live on the gulf coast of Florida and I feel part of the blame falls squarely on my shoulders. I took a quick survey around my house and was appalled to see that 90% of what I own comes from the oil industry!
A teachable moment, a "watershed moment?" No, this is OCEANGATE.
Stand and deliver, President Obama.
To be or not to be ( the GREEN president) that is your question.
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous oil company Fortunes,
Or to take arms against a sea of GULF troubles
and by opposing END THEM.
And so sweet prince of "yes We can,"
To borrow a phrase from Nike, "JUST DO IT!"