You have heard them. “If you drive a car back and forth to work every day than you should have expected this sort of thing to happen.” Or, “As long as you depend on oil, there are going to be accidents like this.”
Well, no and no. Leaving out the fact that my shop and my home office are located right here on 829 Pacific and a tank of gas in my Camry usually lasts all month, I also have certain expectations from my giant, prosperous oil companies.
The first is that they don’t make mistakes. I know this sounds unrealistic. But let’s consider that these are some of the richest companies in the world. Who we all pay for their product at the pump and many other ways. So the expectation is there (why else would there be so much regulation) that they not fuck up.
But even I know they are going to fuck up. They know they are going to fuck up. Everybody knows they are going to fuck up.
So, here is another expectation. When there is a fuck up, have some sort of contingency plan that will help reduce the amount of damage it does. I’m not an expert, I’m just a victim. Not a victim like the eleven men who died and not a victim like those in fishing industry, but I am certainly on their side. And to a lesser extent, I am a victim too. Again.
But hey, I should have expected it. I am just as guilty. That’s bullshit actually. These companies are in the most lucrative business in the world. They should have some sort of plan better than, “Let’s scoop it up with some booms or, “I know, we will lower a house on it and suck it up through the top.” Or, “We can drill a relief well that will take a month or so.”
In the meantime, South Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, an entire region of a country, will just wait around being victimized.
I guess all the regulations (and there were many) just weren’t enough. And I am sure, any more that will be imposed after this incident will only serve to drive the cost of oil up and up. Perhaps that’s a good thing.
I’ve seen that argument feebly expressed, and it’s just bollocks. It’s like someone contaminated the water supply and then whined “Well, since you drink water, you’re culpable…”
Is it possible that both factors are relevant? Of course the oil industry shares the largest blame. But the US is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels. (China is about to move ahead to put the US at No. 2 for the first time in the Oil Economy.) But to be an apologist for Americans’ personal consumption is also not a good thing either. Keep in mind that more than ever before American not only consume a lion’s share of the global energy resources, but they also invest in capital gains more than ever before. Anyone who has oil interests in their portfolios (including mutual funds) is investing in this very system you decry. I am glad that you can go a month on a tank of gas, but that’s not a per-capita average. The average driver logs about 15,000 miles a year. When I owned a car (2 years in the past 13) I put 7,000 per year, including 2,800 miles on two long-distance drives. People should be more aware of their consumption rates. They should also be less interested in using money to make money in whatever is profitable, but to invest responsibly, even if the returns will be lower.