Nothing says more about citizens' loss of faith in government than a website in Santa Rosa, CA called "StoptheGusher", where ordinary citizens have gathered to share ideas, offer suggestions, and rack their brains about what to do about the Gulf Oil Spill.
Almost three months into this crisis, both BP and the White House appear paralyzed. But on StoptheGusher, people spend hours composing long, intricate plans and copying their Congresspeople, proposing concrete underwater containment barriers, and suggesting organic products such as Kenaf, an oil-soaking plant grown in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas that is ground down, refined and marketed as SupremeSorb.
What does this mean? It means people are ready to take matters in their own hands, and that they know social media makes this possible. Social media is a force for good, or potentially a force for trouble. It is more powerful than Republicans, Democrats, and Tea Parties, as we saw after the Iran elections. It has the power to call citizens into the streets.
The founder of Democrasoft,
the company that put up the site, believes the leak is not just some news item that has been through its peak cycle, but is an ongoing global catastrophe that is getting worse by the hour and needs every bit of public attention available. He thinks social networking has a purpose.
Most social media sites originated from the same purposeful desire to change the status quo for the better. Even Mark Zuckerberg, the oft-demonized Facebook founder, has been quoted in David Kirkpatrick's "The Facebook Effect" as saying he would rather change the world than make money.
It's apparent that even if the media moves on to other stories, the people will not forget about the oil spill, and that it makes them more unhappy by the day. Add that to the unhappiness about declining standards of living, massive unemployment, the ballooning of the debt, and the collapse of our education system, and you have a recipe for disaster if the government does not enlist those who want to help in more effective ways. It's not enough to create government web sites like Healthcare.gov that give information. It's time for the government to create sites that respect some of the intelligent and thoughtful suggestions being aggregated on StoptheGusher and put them to work.
How about creating jobs by stopping the gusher?
Follow Francine Hardaway on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hardaway
Mark Olmsted: "You Lie": Myths the Right Tells About the Left
The challenge in regard to mitigating the damages of the BP oil spill centers around how to implement the solutions which have already been created and submitted to BP and USCG.
For a clearer understanding of the issues involved, visit:
http://renergie.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/bp-is-not-the-only-responsible-party/
and
http://donovanlawgroup.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/the-oil-pollution-act-provides-for-the-federalization-of-the-bp-oil-spill/
and
http://donovanlawgroup.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/why-bp-does-not-want-an-accurate-measurement-of-the-gulf-oil-spill/
From my point of view on the world, the only issues that matter are:
• World population/global poverty
• Global climate change
• Carbon based fuel energy (peak oil, the Gulf oil release is a symptom).
All else is just distraction. Working on anything else is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Looking at our political system, expecting anything useful from a politician, a lobbyist or a big business person, or experts is like waiting for Godot.
All meaningful change begins at the individual level. For the individual, focus on doing what can be
done effectively for yourself and your friends/community, and what is best for the world, and don’t be
distracted by things that are beyond your control.
Always vote; pick the least damaging politician or policy, but always vote. Even though government is
totally ineffective on these most important issues, maybe the potential for damage can be minimized.
Also, vote with money. I cast my money votes in this order 1) Co-ops & Credit Unions, 2) Employee
owned businesses, 3) locally owned small businesses, and 4) the “greenest” “large” businesses I can
find. (have to do my homework here)
As the hippies used to say, think globally, act locally.
See What to Do at http://www.aesopinstitute.org The subtitle is now: 350 or Else - the Gulf Geyser and Human Survival.
400 parts per million of carbon has recently been found to be the Arctic Tipping Point, which could conceivably endanger all of humanity. We are presently approaching 390 ppm. The safe limit is 350 ppm. See www.350.org
Ironically, confronting the surprising dimensions of the problem might generate a huge number of jobs.
A very thin film on the surface of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans threatens to raise temperatures toward the catastrophic Tipping Point.
Consider the possibility that a massive mobilization is needed to combat what might be looming if substantial oil is coming from fissures in the sea floor and the leak cannot be capped.
Little known and hard to believe breakthroughs involving radically new energy technologies appear capable of helping to supersede oil much more rapidly than might be easily understood.
See Moving Beyond Oil on the same Aesop Institute website.
Cars and trucks could begin to cost-competitively leave behind gasoline and oil.
We need far more robust and sensible steps to massively attack the problems in the Gulf and prevent as much oil as possible from reaching the Atlantic ocean.
Sustainability and independence from oil is possible. Making it happen rapidly may require a greater effort that was required to respond to the attack on Pearl Harbor.