On Fossil Fuels...And Human Fossils

Three months into the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico and BP announces they have placed a containment cap over the main well leak, which is finally controlling the major flow of oil, although minor leaks still exist. This is good news, of course, but in no way can it mask the damage that has already been done. Millions of gallons of oil are in the Gulf, much of it in deep water which, compared to shallow spills, causes even greater concern to scientists and environmentalists for a variety of reasons. One obvious reason is the difficulty required in removing oil from deep water. More troubling is how it may affect the marine ecosystem. This system works from the ground up, so to speak, each marine species living off the one which lives below it. If low-level food sources die off, that in turn affects mid-level sources, and so on. It would not only affect the Gulf waters, either. For one thing, the Gulf ecosystem reaches many other systems, like tiny fingers spreading far and wide. Furthermore, while it seems to be static right now, the oil spill could easily channel into the Atlantic at some future date. Once this occurs, it won't be long before the entire marine ecosystem is affected, at some point even crippled. This will, in turn, affect the rest of the environment, including the climate, health, and even the life of many species across the globe - including humans. Which is only fair, considering we are responsible for this mess.

During these past three months, I have watched the news and heard the stories, the wrenching details of people whose livelihoods vanished in an instant, whose beautiful shores turned brackish and thick. They had lived by and worked these waters all their lives, as had so many generations before them, as they had intended to pass down to their own children. Now, BP will not answer their calls or mail them their checks in a reasonable amount of time or, if they do send them a check, the amount is a pittance of their normal summer income.

Then I see the pictures of the Gulf wildlife drenched in oil, pelicans so coated you can hardly see their feathers, songbirds choking and dying before our eyes, dolphins washing ashore, dead on the dingy beach because they were unable to surface and breathe through the thick coat of oil spread for acres upon acres across their waters. And in the bayous skirting the southern coast of New Orleans, where Susan and I spent our honeymoon a decade ago, the oysters are nearly extinct and the luscious pink crabs are floating, belly up, in the poisoned waters.

Tears fall down my cheeks silently. I can't help it. I listen to the vitriol against BP and President Obama. I understand it, too, especially against BP the more I learn about how they have consciously and continuously chosen to cut costs over providing sensible safety measures, and against the past administration(s) and the agents within that administration who chose to deregulate the oil industry and, even further, allowed Big Oil to get away with murder simply by looking the other way. As for the current administration, I am not capable of determining whether eighteen months was enough time to fix such a behemoth of a mess, but certainly President Obama made some mistakes in the beginning of this current fiasco.

But none of that matters, really.

I was driving into town a couple of weeks ago and I stopped to fill my car with gasoline. Up to this point, I had been thinking about writing an essay about the oil crisis. As I was filling up my car, a 4-cylinder Honda Accord, I looked around me at the other customers and their vehicles. There were three extra-large SUVs, two king-cab pick-up trucks, two coupes similar to my car, one motorcycle, and one monstrous, diesel-fueled XL king-cab pick-up truck towing a sizable speedboat (which also required fuel, though presumably it would need to be purchased at the lake.) I got back into my car when I finished, put a CD in, and found the appropriate tune for my mood. A myriad of images of wildlife, birds and fish and mammals brutalized by our greed, flashed before my eyes; I squeezed them shut but the visions remained, and the tears rolled down with them. As I listened to Amy Ray croon, I knew where the blame lies for the giant mess in the Gulf. We can all point our fingers any which way we like, but the truth of the matter is we need to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves:

What do I want to leave to my descendants...

and what will be left for them if we continue with the status quo?

"All the fur and fin will lose again
Cause our better is their worst reckonin'
And our fine-feathered friends
Will sing until they bleed
And how will we replace that symphony?

I've got the blackest boots, the whitest skin
Satisfy my sugar tongue again "

-"Sugar Tongue" ; words/music by Amy Ray; © 2009 Indigo Girls; Reprint by permission.