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After the Oil Spill, We Need a Sea Change
The BP oil spill is eerily similar to the Exxon Valdez disaster. President Obama must act before history repeats itself yet again
BP's out-of-control geyser in the Gulf is now the biggest oil spill in US history. Though the Exxon Valdez was a comparatively finite disaster – with the tanker carrying 54m gallons of crude oil – the Deepwater Horizon debacle continues to spew oil like a vindictive beast lodged in the bottom of the sea. While this catastrophe may seem like a singular event, its unfolding parallels the political path carved by the Exxon Valdez oil spill with uncanny similarity. It turns out we're actors in an eerily familiar play. The script was written in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez rammed the rocky reefs, piercing a hole in its hull and disgorging 11m gallons of oil into Alaskan waters.
A careful examination of the Exxon Valdez aftermath reveals a recognizable pattern. Big Oil's initial response is to downplay the ecological damage until contradicted by firsthand reports of environmental horror. The oil company then vows to do whatever it takes to control the spill, with public-relations officials promising to pay for the clean-up costs and all "legitimate" claims. The firm deploys the environmentally dodgy dispersant Corexit and locals voice concern over its toxicity. Groups across the political spectrum express frustration over the lack of a clean-up plan and criticize the president for not asserting leadership. The blame game heats up, fueled by cozy relationships between government and industry.
A key difference is that in the case of the Exxon Valdez a supposedly sloshed sea captain made for a convenient cookie-cutter villain who we could blame – although he was later found not guilty of drunkenly driving the tanker. The denouement in Alaska featured "human error" as the culprit, with Exxon dragging out litigation for nearly two decades. In 2008, with an assist from the US supreme court, Exxon finally settled with claimants for a fraction of the original jury award. With the BP calamity, there's no handy hoodlum who we can blame for the fiasco. Because we have no such go-to target this time, we actually have an opportunity to reconsider the whole Big Oil shebang. Clearly it's the system that's at fault.
Not that BP hasn't acted reprehensibly. BP now means Beyond Pinocchio. It's not so much that BP is lying as it's consistently not telling us the whole truth. For instance, the oil company initially alleged that 1,000 barrels a day were flowing from the ruptured well, before upping the estimate to 5,000 barrels. Now we know it's more like five times that amount, with numerous scientists estimating much higher flow rates after watching video footage of the gusher, footage BP long suppressed using flimsy reasoning. Democratic congressman Ed Markey, chairman of a House energy committee investigating the oil spill, said BP were "either lying or they were incompetent".
But if BP has demonstrated incompetence, it has also shown penny-pinching stinginess. Dating back nearly a year, internal BP records documented safety problems involving the very blowout preventer and well casing that were pivotal in the oil rig explosion. Partly to save money, BP opted for the "best economic case", choosing an oil well casing that was riskier. In other words, plump profit margins trumped public safety. Now BP executives are impersonating global-warming skeptics, denying the presence of underwater oil plumes that academic scientists are viewing with their own eyes. Forget peak oil – this is about peak profit.
President Obama clearly needs a jumpstart. Here's a five-step plan that will help us learn from history rather than mindlessly replicate it.
1. Take over the show. For real. Two weeks after the Exxon Valdez spill President Bush Sr put the federal government in charge. Obama needs to do the same, sparing no expense and funneling all bills directly to BP. A recent poll found a whopping 73% believes BP is doing a "poor" or "very poor" job responding to the crisis. Critics may say the US government couldn't do better than BP, but surely it couldn't do any worse.
2. Create an independent working group to cap the spill and mitigate its repercussions. Obama needs to immediately gather the best and brightest scholars, scientists, and practitioners to engage this national-security emergency. People with ties to the oil industry need not apply. He should form a new-wave brain trust, like John F Kennedy's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, only this working group should toil transparently, offering daily public briefings on its progress.
3. Craft an expedited system for processing claims. This catastrophe is already causing a landslide of litigation. BP says they'll pay for all "legitimate" claims but so did Exxon before its phalanx of lawyers stretched the reparation process into 2008. The administration should also provide legal services for people along the Gulf coast so they don't get hoodwinked into taking short-term payouts while forfeiting the possibility of heftier compensation down the road.
4. Revamp the all-too-cozy relationship between the oil industry and the government's Mineral Management Service. Back in 2009 BP assured the MMS that because of its superior "proven equipment and technology" any oil spill would be contained before harming fish habitats – and apparently MMS officials believed the implausible claim. MMS has never cancelled an oil lease sale based on its own environmental risk assessment. New oversight systems are needed immediately so other massive oil platforms in the Gulf – such as BP's Atlantis, which some allege was set up without complete engineering documents – don't suffer a similar fate.
5. Put forth a real-deal plan for a clean-energy economy. President Obama himself said the BP tragedy "underscores the urgent need … to develop clean, renewable sources of energy". There's a word for spouting virtuous environmental rhetoric that's disconnected from on-the-ground follow-through, and that word is greenwashing (like, say, calling your company "Beyond Petroleum"). If Obama actually wants to create a clean energy economy, then an obvious first step would be to get rid of subsidies for Big Oil and swerve them toward solar and wind projects that could actually use a boost. That's what subsidies are for – to help fledgling industries, not line the pockets of companies turning record profits.
Obama need not fritter away this opportunity to rethink the entire energy system instead of simply tinkering with it. We need a sea change, if you will, and it's hard to imagine a better opportunity than this crisis.
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21 Comments so far
Show AllObama's by far the smoothest of salesmen in the last quartet of figureheads & the talk about developing 'clean, renewable sources of energy' has the unspoken asterisk "in order to profit private companies & investors" -- the tax breaks cancelled for one would simply become transfer funds to other corporations willing to invest 10% in sham research while investing the other 90% in, oh, nuclear plants, more offshore drilling (like the new platform approved on the downlow this week).
We ARE getting a sea change. The oceans of the world will never be the same. We have poisoned the source of life on this planet. 'We' (the race as a whole) had a chance to stop playing greedy games but that chance is gone. Those ruling our species should have been eradicated by the rest of us years ago. They should have been made into food and fertilizer. The onus rested on us, and we failed.
"We have poisoned the source of life on this planet."
That's what I'm thinking, and it's in my mind the second I wake up in the morning, until I fall asleep at night, like the horrid depression you know will only go away when a problem is resolved, only this time there is no resolution. I think about that movie "Waterworld" and how the plot foreshadowed something, but the wrong thing. This morning's news said that the Horizon leak will continue until August. We'll be living in Oilworld once the contamination finishes entering the currents and moving out into the world, and into the estuaries, rivers, lakes and aquifers. We have indeed thumbed our noses at mother nature and spoiled this former paradise of a planet for good. Now we are just waiting to die.
I understand your depression. Indeed, the ontogeny of clinical depression derives from being placed in an impossible and unhappy situation from which one can produce no relief. One loses hope. The light at the end of the tunnel extinguishes, and we're left in the pitch dark.
I do not expect a good century ahead for humans. I don't expect anything good after about 2030, for that matter. But I also do not expect life on Earth to perish. Life is way too resilient, no matter how many species we take with us on our way down. Each of the five global extinction events thus far has been followed by a new wave of evolution.
We're all gonna die, for sure, but not life itself!
MSNBC Feb. 13, 2008:
"Obama Proposes $210 billion for New Jobs."
"The larger $150 billion to create 5 million so called 'green collar jobs' to develop more environmentally friendly energy sources."
I propose that we have a new program called "The War on Poverty," no, let me change that; I want to call it "The Great Society," no, that doesn't sound right; I think I'll call it "Green Jobs for Alternative Energy Sources." Got that?
"1. Take over the show. For real. Two weeks after the Exxon Valdez spill President Bush Sr put the federal government in charge. Obama needs to do the same, sparing no expense and funneling all bills directly to BP."
And MEASURE THE DAMN FLOW.
are people unwilling, or unable, to see the drastic level of change required, or coming?
our very daily existence is both at fault, and at stake...
the moneyed world, the world of ownership and property, must give way to the real world...the living world...
man must put down his tools, and his hubris, and become an animal again...
or die, along with everything else, on his own filth...
interesting times ahead...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...
"Unwilling," to the extent that they are anti-environment, free-market capitalists and mindless consumers... "Unable" in that most people are environmentally ignorant (IMO, it takes at least a college level introductory biology class or equivalent to even join the conversation--meanwhile, a large percentage of the U.S. population denies evolution and/or climate change).
"our ... daily existence is both at fault, and at stake."
Concise and true! The train is coming and we're tied to the tracks. It's going to be a mess...
"IMO, it takes at least a college level introductory biology class or equivalent to even join the conversation..." - Your going to be waiting a long time then my friend.
All one requires is care, common sense and a lack of selfishness. Unfortunately, just as hard if not harder to come by. One does not require a biology class to understand the damage caused by the oil gushing into the gulf, one just has to care.
People don't care Eddie, that is the problem. You could have the best biology based education in the world, but if you don't care, it's meaningless.
You can teach someone biology but you can't teach them to care.
Points well made. Thank you.
Yesterday, Democracy Now! reported Obummer as saying, "Untold damage is being done to the environment, damage that could last for decades. We owe all those who have been harmed, as well as future generations, a full and vigorous accounting of the events that led what has now become the worst oil spill in US history. Only then can we be assured that deepwater drilling can take place safely."
Did y'all get that last part? "Only then can we be assured that deepwater drilling can take place safely."
A "full accounting" is all that stands between the present moment and more business as usual. By this time next year, after a "full accounting" has blamed a few "bad apples" or a few egregious mistakes, the oil industry will be deemed fit to operate safely anywhere it wants to, without oversight, and it will be "drill, baby, drill" all over again. No one in our government--NO ONE--has any intention of changing that.
Sure, we need change. We've needed to change the way we treat the environment since way before I was born (and I'm not young anymore). Don't get your hopes up. It ain't gonna happen.
I wouldn't work for Exxon or BP even if they were the last places for employment on the planet.
The US government has aided and abetted corporate criminals to the extent that the citizens of the US (as well as all life on earth) are in imminent danger.
Of death.
Extinction.
Unmitigated darkness.
The focus on "terrorism" such as the attempted NYC wannabe car bombers is a distraction.
The threat is from out-of-control corporate criminals.
Insurance executives.
Oil executives.
Their federal enablers.
They come from the top echelon of society, not the bottom.
They wear wingtips not sandals.
And they are not inept or bungling. They murder thousands, consistently and with extreme precision.
These are the terrorists that threaten the planet.
We need a strategy to STOP them.
The NYT had an article today that spoke of lost jobs and revenue now and in the foreseeable future. You could substitute oil for poppies, Afghanistan for the Gulf, and it would read the same.
Why are all these articles mistaking this tragedy as a spill when it is actually a major leak from down under? As far as the 5-step plan is concerned, it is a pipe dream.
The author of this article is obviously under the impression that the government is independent of the corporate sector rather than an extension of it. No Republican and very few Democrats would actually stand up to Big Oil, Wall Street or the MIC regardless of the tragedy. On the contrary, these politicians are elected so that they can facilitate these companies in good times or bad.
Renewable energy developement, an end to our dependency on oil, an end to the illegal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan or making banks accountable are simply not on the agenda of any Administration, Congress or the Supreme Court. We're not going to see a Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich elected in our lifetime becasue the majority of Americans won't even recognize their names as our MSM reinforces their anonymity.
My advice to anyone living on the Gulf of Mexico is to sell your property ASAP and move to the vicinity of the Great Lakes. Big Oil has made sure that your entire region will be sacrificed for sake of record profits. Once fishing is declared dead, the beaches are soiled in thick oil and investment dries up along the coast, Big Oil will have no one standing in their way to ratchet up production. No one bitches afterall when we drill in the middle of deserts for black gold and the forcast for the Gulf Coast appears to be "a desert wasteland" for many years to come.
the answer is quite simple.
The earth and all resources and life on or in it is sacred.
the problem is also equally as simple.
The only thing sacred in america is money.
capitalist economic activity == destruction of the earth.
One of the most frustrating aspects of this president is to constantly see potential unrealized. When his back is against the wall he can articulate brilliantly an understanding of the problem and for whatever anyone may say that is a refreshing break from his predecessor. He seems, however, incapable of operating in any other way but in crisis mode. When the crisis is over we see him hit the reset button and it's back to (oil) business as usual, as it is with all of us. While this surely is a failure of leadership, at the same time much of the problem goes back to our expectations as Americans. Over the last century we've grown fat and happy on cheap oil and now we can't live without it. This oil coats and permeates everything about the way we live from how we produce our food and get it from farm to dinner plate to how we build our cities.
Obama, and the rest of us, must see that this crisis extends beyond just this one spill. It's late and we have made our bed --with oil and, for the next 2-1/2 years at least, with Obama. Leadership will not start with this president, or, for that matter, anyone else who might occupy that office. It's up to us, as progressives, to keep Obama (and his successors) in crisis mode for the duration to demonstrate the continued leadership that we need. The challenge of that leadership must be to convince the great mass of Americans that we must start to pay full price for the energy we use. If gasoline were to suddenly cost $8 per gallon, how long would it take for our economy to retool for a post oil age? Now go tell the corporate clones, the climate change deniers and the tea partiers to put that in their cup and drink it!
It's a tall order, But it must be done. If we can't feel the pain that we are inflicting on the earth, how will we be able to heal it?
Sorry wkgreen but not all of us share your description. Yes, the electorate is cornfed but that does not give Obama any special privileges to abdicate RESPONSIBILITY either. Let us be honest. We citizens can be perfect and yet still get screwed by criminals such as Dubya and Barry misleading and selling us out while rewarding corporate irresponsibility. Nothing can substitute for good leadership.
I'm not suggesting special privileges for Obama. On the contrary, we must hold his feet to the fire and keep them there. History is not written on this president; it's our obligation to help him write it. Obama's crimes, more so than GWB's, are in the nature of acquiescence to a status quo that goes back to Reagan (at least)that we the people continually rubber stamp but that must be stopped. As for the citizenry of this country, we are far far from perfect and we get the leadership that we deserve, GWB included. We're all complicit.
We can no longer afford to take the easy way out and then simply whine that our leaders are all terrible therefore we are screwed and there is nothing to be done. That's as cheap as the gas that we fill our tanks with. Likewise we don't have the luxury to put our faith in the next election cycle in that special someone who we think has got The Answer. It's guaranteed that they most decidedly will not. We got ourselves into this together we must get ourselves out of it together and it’s very late. We have an opportunity now with this disaster to make a radical change in course.
Obama never had the trademark on hope and change. We make our own.