It's been almost two months since I last posted. But it definitely doesn't seem that long! The summer has, unfortunately, flown by and I can't believe that kids are getting ready to head back to school in the next few days (this weekend is North Carolina's tax-free weekend in preparation for the new school year).
And I realized, sadly, that this also means that it has been almost two months since the oil leak in the Gulf (the word "leak" doesn't really do it justice, does it?). It amazes me that it can take some of the brightest minds in the industry over two months to fix a problem, but at least it appears to be fixed.
As my last post suggested, there definitely has been blood. The BP CEO has been ousted (to a certain degree, at least), thousands of people on the Gulf have been affected, lawsuits are pending, the wildlife has been damaged. I just hope that we don't get over-stimulated and over-saturated with the BP news to the point where we just don't care any more. Time is a great healer.
But we need some wounds to still smart so we remember how we got hurt in the first place.
Showing posts with label BP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BP. Show all posts
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
There Will be Blood
I can't help but think of the greed and obsession that Upton Sinclair writes about in "Oil!" as I watch another day go by without any solution to the oil catastrophe in the Gulf. It's almost too much - my stomach hurts and I lose my appetite every time I see another headline about the BP spill - almost enough to make me callous to the whole situation.
But we can't be callous. Not when we're losing thousands of wildlife a day. Not when countless people are volunteering to try to clean up someone else's mess. Not when this catastrophe threatens to become bigger than it already is.
I already boycott Citgo because Chavez is a thug. Now you can add BP to the list of places I won't fill up at.
But herein lies the problem. While the bigger solution is to vote against legislation that calls for offshore drilling, that really implies an independence from oil. So...what do we do? Wind power would be optimal, but as we've seen with the controversy on Cape Cod, it brings its own set of problems. And solar power would be great, but it's costly and may not provide the magnitude of energy we need. It's no secret that we get the biggest bang out of oil...it's the most efficient of all the energy resources we have. But we've got to find another way.
Maybe this, then, is what makes my stomach hurt: that while this disaster makes us re-examine our choices and options, it may not ultimately make an impact on our behavior in the long run.
And that's scary, especially since we know history repeats itself.
But we can't be callous. Not when we're losing thousands of wildlife a day. Not when countless people are volunteering to try to clean up someone else's mess. Not when this catastrophe threatens to become bigger than it already is.
I already boycott Citgo because Chavez is a thug. Now you can add BP to the list of places I won't fill up at.
But herein lies the problem. While the bigger solution is to vote against legislation that calls for offshore drilling, that really implies an independence from oil. So...what do we do? Wind power would be optimal, but as we've seen with the controversy on Cape Cod, it brings its own set of problems. And solar power would be great, but it's costly and may not provide the magnitude of energy we need. It's no secret that we get the biggest bang out of oil...it's the most efficient of all the energy resources we have. But we've got to find another way.
Maybe this, then, is what makes my stomach hurt: that while this disaster makes us re-examine our choices and options, it may not ultimately make an impact on our behavior in the long run.
And that's scary, especially since we know history repeats itself.
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