If we needed one, and apparently we did, the Gulf oil disaster is a sobering reminder that our technological reach often exceeds our grasp. It's also a tragic reminder that when we cut corners, we take huge potential risks.
What hasn't helped much has been the table pounding, foot stamping demands that the federal government DO SOMETHING, as if President Obama or the federal government or British Petroleum had an ace up their sleeve but were reluctant to play it. James Carville comes to mind -- red-faced, eyes popping out of his head, yelling at the camera, demanding that President Obama and the federal government do something; it may have made for good television, but it missed the point.
The question we ought to be coming away with from this ongoing catastrophe is, what are we going to learn from it, and what are we determined to do to prevent its recurrence? And what are we willing to pay?
No doubt more could have been done. The federal government could have sent 42,000 people instead of 22,000 to the Gulf to try to stem the tide. More booms, which didn't seem to do much good, could have been deployed. Sand could have been dredged up to create berms. Any number of things could have been tried. To what effect? And at what cost, especially to an already ravaged environment?
One potential benefit of the Gulf oil spill is to illustrate vividly how we have the ability to start fires that we can't put out. We can punch a hole in the earth that we may not be able to plug. Maybe we ought to be asking ourselves if we ought to be doing something potentially dangerous before we have in hand a remedy if things don't work out as planned.
It turns out that it's a lot easier to blame the president for "not doing enough" than it is to take a good hard look at how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place and how we can prevent a recurrence. However incompetently George W. Bush handled the aftermath of Katrina -- and it was pretty incompetent -- he didn't build the inadequate, poorly constructed system of levees that didn't protect New Orleans, or allow houses to be built in a flood plain, or mess for decades with the flow of the Mississippi in a way that ultimately contributed to the destruction of wetlands that would have helped protect New Orleans.
Barack Obama inherited a corrupt regulatory system designed to facilitate oil exploration and drilling by minimizing restraints on the explorers and drillers, accepting their assurances that they were on top of the process and had adequate safeguards in case the best case scenario turned bad. Oil isn't the only industry where we take the word of the producer when it comes to safety. What about drug testing? What about meat inspection? If we don't want Big Government protecting us, prepare to accept the consequences.
We need to decide where we want to be on the continuum between maximum production and absolute safety. Or between cheap energy and energy independence. Or between cheap imported goods and financial independence. We can't be safer, more self sufficient and more independent if we're unwilling to pay the additional cost.
When this disaster is finally brought under control, is the final word going to be that Obama and the federal government should have done "something" sooner, never mind what that might have been? Or are we going to establish properly tested safeguards for all of the offshore oil platforms-and there are thousands of them- including existing ones already operating? Or are we just going to wait until the next disaster and then start complaining again that the president, the federal government -- somebody -- needs to do something?
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Unless we get a clue and insist that clean energy be produced within our built environment (where the energy is needed), we will be enabling an ecosystem slaughter to rival the Gulf Oil spill - and that all happens when these disastrous boondoggles are BUILT!
Since Big Enviros are taking payoffs from Big Energy to greenwash their activities, including polluting and destroying our wilderness for money, they cannot be trusted to advocate our position, which is that WE want to own the renewable revolution, and we need policies that will allow that to happen cheaply, quickly, cleanly and fairly.
If the govt. would pour all the ARRA grants and loan guarantees they are giving Big Oil aka Big Solar into PACE loans for US, we could all have rooftop solar and efficiency upgrades on our homes and businesses, with no risk to the govt (they take first lien on your property) and no risk to us (we will more than offset the costs of system over the life of the loan), and at NO NET COST TO ANYONE.
That's what they don't want us to know - that WE could easily hit a national 50% RPS just off our own rooftops and Big Energy would get nothing out of it - that's fine with me, how about you?
One would hope that a catastrophe of this scope, would propel us into facing some hard truths and making tough choices where energy and the environment are concerned.
My faith in my fellow citizens to support the right, more environmentally sound, choices is pretty low.
There are a lot of facets to leadership. President Obama does excellently in many, many of them. I support him strongly. However, communicating sincerely to people that you understand and feel their suffering is an important facet of leadership. It takes more than a pro forma appearance. Right now he needs to appear as the strong defender of the American people, their home and their way of life. It's a lot to ask but then the Presidency is a very big job.
When this is all over, we all need to take a long hard look at the way we live. This was a disaster waiting to happen, just like the banking crisis. Everyone having a party, and forgetting that at the end a bill has to be paid.
No man is an island. We have let government provide a much to loose a hand to the big companies, banks, car manufacturer and oil giants; and for what? To satisfy our greed, and their greed. The free market works, but it needs to have regulation that enforces safety and holds the individuals that possess the risks responsible.
To often things go wrong, and then the top guy gets off scot free, to retire with their fat pay offs to their walled mansions, leaving others to clear up the mess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_NjPcDmktk
That pretty much sums up the situation we have created for ourselves over the past 30 years or so. And of course, *no one* among the citizens wants to accept the consequences or their roles in encouraging it. We just want someone to "blame," when so much of the blame rests with us electing people all these years who had little interest in protecting us. Don't be surprised if more such "disasters" in other areas occur because the regulations or the regulators are almost non-existent. And we will scream at the government we have tried to render powerless to "do something," and we will look everywhere for someone to blame except at ourselves.