Crude Memory

BP announced today it has begun to pump concrete down the gut of it's damaged oil well in an attempt to create a more permanent-semi-permanent-partial-capping...or some similar double-speak. There is room at this point to be optimistic, that is in terms of putting an end to the toxic goo-ooze that started three months ago.

Experts (whoever they might be) are also claiming that at least three-quarters of the oil that flowed into the gulf has either been recovered or dissipated courtesy of BP's secret formula they refer to as 'chemical dispersants.' Something tells me it ain't Dawn dish liquid.

So now what?

It seems to me that optimism is likely to be confined to ending the oil flow, but when it comes to the long-term environmental damage there is good reason to be cynical. The only winner in ending this disaster will be BP oil. I'm almost certain that once they have fulfilled their minimum responsibility, that is shutting down their crude-spewing well, they'll be catching the first flight out of Louisiana.

"Oh, but they should be held accountable," you say.

Sure, but how do you enforce sanctions against an oil giant who can clog up the courts with lawyers for the rest of time...or at least until all the oil runs out?

Have any of us who sat horrified at the devastation of an entire ecosystem learned anything? Does it still makes sense to rely on oil as an energy source? If you're like me, you probably feel more frustrated and helpless than before this crisis began.

As a society we seem to have a short memory when it comes to environmental disasters. Researchers studying the effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill have estimated that the ecosystem may require an additional 30 years to recover. The Niagara river and escarpment, once home to the infamous Love Canal community, is a zone where decades of uncontrolled emissions of toxic pollutants into the water system. In fact much of the Great Lakes water system has been polluted by nearly a century of biological and chemical effluent. Who is paying for that clean-up, and more importantly, how much of this neglect continues today?

BP is just one of many culprits in a long and sad history of profit-driven environmental contempt. Something needs to change before the corporate whitewash spins the gulf oil spill disaster into a gutless marketing campaign. It may not sound like much, but maybe the most fundamental change we can make is to remember. It's rarely easy to forgive, but it's certainly not difficult to forget. Keeping this issue front of mind can go a long way to governing the choices we make as consumers and as voters.

At the very least (with apologies to Roger Daltrey) we won't get fooled again.