Three Lessons We Still Haven't Learned 20 Years After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
It's hard to argue that there's a more lasting and clear example of the destructive force that unchecked corporate greed has on our environment and communities than the Exxon Valdez oil spill that devastated Alaska's Prince William Sound 20 years ago today. Then, like now, we are hopelessly addicted to carbon-based fuels. Oil and coal have exposed our Achilles heel to the Fates, and we tempt them every day that we do not aggressively transition to low-energy lives and sustainable fuel sources. We don't need a power-shift in this civilization as much as we need a power-down.
Take a 10 minute break today, on the anniversary of one of the most tragic--and still unresolved--environmental disasters of our modern energy age, from Twittering, emailing, blogging, IM'ing, Facebooking, and other forms of frantic networking (except in case of emergency) to reflect on the three lessons that we may already intellectually know as individuals, but as a civilization we have yet to learn -- and consider applying them to more recent, larger environmental disasters.
1. Big Energy Means Big Energy Corporations.
The video below was shot just four days after the Exxon Valdez dumped between 11 and 38 million gallons of crude oil into the formerly pristine waters of Prince William Sound. The high school gym where this was filmed is packed with the fishermen and women who are just beginning to realize that their lives and livelihoods have been destroyed. Listen to the Exxon representative explain that this oil spill is "a bit of good luck" for the community.
Corporations with allegiance only to profits will never have allegiance to communities. To rid the world of energy corporations that terrorize our communities and natural world, we must stop giving them business by decentralizing our power supply, forming community power co-ops, and taking back control of our fuel sources.
Dr. Riki Ott, Exxon Valdez survivor, marine toxicologist, fisherma'am, and author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, urges us all to invest in local power.
2. Corporations Will Not Clean Up After Themselves.
It will always be cheaper for the profiteering oil companies or coal power plants to move away from the environments they destroy rather than stick around and clean them up. Exxon cleaned up approximately 3% of the oil that spilled into Prince William Sound. Ninety-three percent of the oil that spilled that day is still polluting the beaches. In a more recent example, as the Huffington Post has done a great job reporting, the Tennessee Valley Authority has chosen Exxon's path of avoidance and denial in the case of the coal sludge spill. And they don't quite understand that money alone can't fix what they've done.
The following video was taken this year by Dr. Riki Ott. It shows a simple experiment wherein she walks to a beach on the Sound, digs a hole, and pours in fresh, clean water.
3. We Must Build Our Own Future
Riki Ott, and thousands others, have spent every day of their lives since March 24th, 1989 fighting for justice from the Exxon Corporation. The court case that Exxon waged against the people whose lives it shattered raged for nearly 20 years, and was ultimately decided in the US Supreme Court. When it was all said and done in the end, Exxon got away with a slap on the wrist and billions of dollars in record profits. Justice delayed is justice denied.
We cannot depend on emerging technologies to save us, because no one technology can. We cannot depend on the US Government to save the world, because it's proven itself to be slow and too easily swayed by big energy dollars. (Yes, there is new hope, but we must not wait to see if this new shimmering light is, in fact, our path to sustainability.) We must do this by ourselves. The technologies exist. Now. Today. Communities are committing themselves to sustainability. It will require that some of us begin our lives as volunteers, as organizers, as leaders. The transition to a sustainable culture is the biggest challenge we face as a civilization, and what could be more exciting than that?
As Riki Ott explains in her book, and in the movie Black Wave: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez, she realized on the day of the spill that, as a marine toxicologist standing in Cordova, Alaska on the day of the spill, that she knew enough to make a difference. She knew that launching into this fight was a lifelong commitment, so she said to herself, "I know enough to make a difference. Do I care enough?" Twenty years later, we know her answer.
Please, on this solemn anniversary, take a moment of silence to reflect on the end of oil, coal, and other carbon-based fuels. Where do you fit in? Do you care enough?
The Black Wave movie trailer:
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Remember PALIN could not name a supreme court case!
Congress must BE SERIOUS about Green Energy!
We can NOT afford to PAY OIL COMPANY PROFITS and our Enemies while hurting our Planet and fighting wars to meet our OIL NEEDS!
1. We can NOT afford to poison ourselves and the earth for the sake of OIL Company Profits!
2. We can NOT fight Wars to eventually extract Oil from foreign countries for the sake of OIL Profits!
3. We can NOT afford to ignore the progress in solar, wind, and thermal energy for the sake of OIL Profits!
4. We can NOT afford to ignore hybrid electric cars to save 66% of our transportation fuel cost for the sake of OIL Profits!
5. We Must be leaders in New Technology and become a manufacturing exporter of that technology to build wealth!
Remember the Republican convention? It was all "drill here, drill now", "drill,drill,drill", and" drill, baby, drill".
They kept saying over and over that off coast drilling was completely safe, that drilling in the ANWR would only affect a tiny area, and that hurricane Katrina didn't cause any oil spills.
Lies, all of it was lies! Don't believe it when they say that the free market is the cure for everything. The "free market" doesn't support cleaning up oil spills, because there is no profit in it. More lies!
It was my understanding that Exxon itself has never payed a dime for anything other than legal fees so far, what is the truth?
The truth is stranger than fiction. If someone wrote a novel with all the facts of this matter, the book would not be taken seriously - no one could believe that such a terrible man-made disaster could be treated so incompetently and cavalierly by the world's richest corporation.
The fact that Exxon Oil Spill Litigation Class Action Lawsuit was trumped by the U.S. Supreme Court making a decision on maximum allowable damages (which is something that Congress is supposed to do), means to me that fishermen were sc****d again. Fishermen received 10% of what they should have gotten. There is no way that can pay for the loss of livelihood, not to mention the complete loss of habitat.
Plus Exxon is still fighting paying the interest on the measly award. Total BS.
Nationalize the Oil Industry and all major Energy....!
Until we do, we will remain a 19th century nation, and Americans will become ever more poor...!
Shameful to let the resources go to wealthy foreign powers for pennies on the dollar.
Stop the rape of the world -Nationalize resources as it succors the future for our children.
Anyone who wants to understand the whole story needs to read Greg Palast, "All The Democracy Money Can Buy." It's fascinating reading.
Turns out the reason the Exxon Valdez ran aground had nothing to do with a drunk captain (perhaps he was, but he was off-duty and asleep) and everything to do with a local radar system that had been turned off as it was "too expensive to operate," and oil containment equipment stored inside a bay, which was frozen solid.
The captain is always responsible, no matter who is at the helm.
Awesome article: clear, concise, conscious.
I'm spending my day in mourning over the AT1s - the Alaska Transient killer whales - who lost a 1/3rd of their population the year of the spill, who now number only 7, and who haven't had a baby since. (The PCBs released into Prince William Sound look chemically like estrogen, but of course don't act like estrogen, and so the whales's bodies are fooled into thinking that they don't need to produce estrogen - so no babies.)
Their lovely, unique calls soon will be silenced forever. May they all rest in peace.
I certainly hope you're wrong about the whales. What a shame.
This isn't personal opinion, google it for yourself and read the peer reviewed literature.
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