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Giving Disaster a Name
What we call the oil spill - and our response to it - can make a difference.
My students generally enjoy discussing current events, but they are noticeably subdued when talk turns to the expanding pool of oil in the Gulf. They want to forget about it - not because they don't care, but because they do. They feel helpless in the face of the immensity of the slick and the inability of BP and the U.S. government to deal with it.
What can we do? For a start, let's name it.
In the first few weeks after the oil started to flow, we got used to hearing it referred to as a "leak." Certainly BP and the government would prefer a term that brings to mind a dripping faucet or a soft tire. A "leak" does not sound like an environmental disaster that has eclipsed the Exxon Valdez spill and whose repercussions probably will be felt for decades.
How about making better use of the language? We came up with the "Great Gulf Oil Disaster of 2010."
Looking back at other man-made disasters, we noticed they tend to be known only by place names. Chernobyl and Bhopal bring back plenty of memories for me, but they mean little to 10th graders; even Three Mile Island carries only vaguely unsettling associations for their generation. It's hard to feel the weight of an event in the disembodied name of a power plant, town, or ship, such as the Valdez.
On the other hand, disasters involving great loss of human life, especially from intentional acts, often carry more descriptive labels. The Katyn massacre and the Rwandan genocide are names that force us to confront the tragedies to some degree. Given the stakes, we should treat man-made environmental disasters with the same respect.
Earlier this year, the class discussed the pioneering American ecologist Aldo Leopold. He understood before most that if we are to survive as a species, we need to develop what he called a "land ethic" - a set of rules governing how we interact with the rest of the planet.
More than 60 years ago, Leopold wrote that human beings were still treating the natural environment as property. As he put it, the relationship "entailed privileges but no obligations." We plowed. We sprayed. We burned. We dug. We drilled. We blasted. We took what we wanted and left the rest.
Leopold believed an environmental ethic was both "an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity."
Let's make sure today's first graders grow up hearing about the Great Gulf Oil Disaster of 2010. By the time they become high school sophomores, they might be that much closer to accepting the necessity of an environmental ethic - not just willing to put their cans and bottles in recycling containers, but to reconceive the way we live on Earth.
The class recently read through the index of the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act of 2001: the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act! The kids immediately realized that by stretching for this acronym, the bill's sponsors had made it harder to vote against.
Since Congress will certainly produce legislation to improve the safety of oil extraction in the wake of the Great Gulf Oil Disaster, we propose they name it the USA PATRIOT Act II: Uniting and Strengthening America in the Process of Attaining Total Release from Insidious Oil Tyranny.
Politicians are always talking about energy independence. Neither side of the aisle should have a problem with calling the effort patriotic.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllI jokingly suggested some weeks ago that this oily maelstrom should be named 'Barry', in mocking reference to Obama and his Corporate lapdog ways.
Nothing has happened to change that opinion.
i think barry has lost it.........look at him on the democracy now video......
he wanted to become president, and he became president.... but then what?
Then they took him in a back room and told him who really runs the government.
Revenge Girl:
Your remark brings to mind the sneaky meeting Obama and Hillary sped off to after the Inauguration...A suspicious hour or two that was reportedly to be at Clinton's Washington Mansion, but many insiders believe it was A Bilderberger function....
The time, place, or purpose have not been publicly accounted for to this day.
Great should not be in the name more like the horrific Gulf oil disaster or the monstrous gulf oil disaster. No mistake about it this is a planetary wide life threatening disaster and needs immediate government receivership of BP, taxes on all oil profits to pay to retrofit the US and turn our military from fighting stupid unwinnable but profitable wars to changing our way of life. The president should- be creating a brain trust of bio-remediators and top engineers of all kinds to solve this.
The time to get off fossil fuels is now and no nuclear either.
We must all be part of this change. Change or die, it really is at that point now, no matter how much the authorities try to tell us otherwise. Clearly they are not authorities on living on earth, just the opposite they are merchants of death. Wake up USA, there is no superman or daddy to rescue you.
ARE YOU LISTENING MR. OBAMA????
It is interesting to listen to the people that were screaming for small government now screaming for Obama to take complete control of the Gulf oil mess. Remember when no one could say anything against the great Bush & Cheney wrecking the country because we were AT WAR!! Even though Congress had never declared war on Iraq it was treasonous to hint that they were wrong. Now we are at WAR with a great disaster caused by a total lack of preparation for this situation, which could have been avoided if our government regulators had been watching. This is the result of putting two oil men in the White House that held secret meetings with big oil to make sure they had everything the way they wanted. Give Obama break for awhile.
the current estimate is 9000 days to empty the pocket.
Deconstructing the language the state uses to quell discontent is good.
I always hated that the Flood of New Orleans and the Gulf, and government mismanaged Catastrophe that ensued, was called "Katrina" as if it was "a Natural" disaster (and a woman!) which caused the problem.
It's important to take the names the state and its propaganda machine make up OUT of our language and replace those with words that are more truthful.
When I was a social worker, funders were forever promoting 'collaboration.' It was the concept du jour. So you would incorporate the word into your grant proposal and your chance of funding skyrocked regardless of merit.
And, as we all know by now, Obomber is nothing if not trendy. He defines trendy. So he's been collaborating like hell with corporations, big insurance and pharma, wall street, the military and all republicans. The public? Not so much. Progressives? Not so much. Environmentalists? Get outta here.
So here's my name for the disaster: The Public/Private Partnership to Pawn/Peddle Paradise. For short, P6. Unfortunately, collaboration starts with a 'c,' but the idea is there.
Then you could move right along to P7. 'Perfidy,' betrayal, especially of a duty or obligation. Like the obligation to protect and defend the people of the United States. Obomber protected the profit base of BP instead.
P6=environmental disaster
P7=how it happened
Then you might have to move on to P8 to discourage these public/private partnerships based on private/profit through public/plunder.
P8=peachment proceedings
Somewhere I read that there has been speculation that this oil field under the gulf contains a volume of oil equal to about one-third that of the water in the gulf. This is way beyond an international emergency. It has the potential to destroy not only the gulf of mexico but also the atlantic ocean. It could be a planet killer.
What happens when one or both of the relief wells being drilled should also blow out?
Why couldn't a large hydraulicly operated vice be built, strong enough to clamp the pipe shut? It could be tested prior to being lowered into place for the operation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_(well_drilling)
A blowout is the uncontrolled release of crude oil and/or natural gas from an oil well after pressure control systems have failed.[1]
Prior to the advent of pressure control equipment in the 1920s, the uncontrolled release of oil and gas from a well while drilling was common and was known as an oil gusher, gusher or wild well.
[...]
From the article:
"More than 60 years ago, Leopold wrote that human beings were still treating the natural environment as property. As he put it, the relationship 'entailed privileges but no obligations.' We plowed. We sprayed. We burned. We dug. We drilled. We blasted. We took what we wanted and left the rest."
We must come to realize that we don't "own" the earth. If the earth "belongs" to us, it is equally true that we "belong" to the earth. We must be judicious in what we take from the earth that sustains us. The natural environment will turn upon us if we fail to recognize, and to honor, the mutuality and reciprocity in our relationship to the earth.
I too think names are important, that's why if you are going to call it anything, and I agree that 'disaster' makes it sound like an earthquake or some other natural event, that you call it by its real name, the Gulf of Mexico. There is another Gulf, often referred to just as The Gulf, rather than the Persian Gulf, which is a very political hot potato in that area, that is on its way to being an even bigger disaster, and it might even be this year too, depending on the Israelis and the US. Of course, saying 'Gulf of Mexico' is longer and doesn't have the same zippy ring to it, but compromising on accuracy for a sound bite isn't my idea of accomplishing the stated goal of making clear to future generations what happened.
It amazes me that people, including the author of this article, can go to the trouble of wanting to clarify the political aspects of language and thought, and then not take the final steps to actually get it right.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.
Arthur Jensen