Oil spill who to blame

The beaches in Alabama are as white as sugar, wide, and very beautiful. The chemical makeup of the sand on the beaches is quartz. To think of what is happening to the beaches makes us very sad and apprehensive. But what is happening to the sea turtles, our beloved pelicans that are so ugly but soar so gracefully, and all the seabirds really breaks our hearts.

Then there is the human element. From the agony of the loved ones who had family members who perished with the devastation on the oil rig to the oil rig workers, from the roughnecks to the roustabouts, from the members of the management team of BP who were inflicted with terrible injuries to the many small business owners who will never recover from the effects of this catastrophe, from the property owners who depend on the income from individual condominiums to make financial ends meet to many others, the list goes on and on. This accident will go down in history as the worst ecological and environmental episode ever!

The primary responsibility for all of this death and destruction falls in the lap of a good company from one of our staunchest allies, Great Britain. There are other companies that are complicit, if that is the right word, but BP is the primary company of responsibility. The other companies are Transoceanic Exploration, Halliburton and some smaller suppliers. The U.S. government has, and continues to show, disdain for the efforts and lack of urgency BP has exhibited. Based on the recognized magnitude of the problem, the financial implications for BP, and the public relations nightmare created by this cataclysmic occurrence, how can anyone think that BP is not doing everything in its power, with the best technology available, to bring this man made rupture in the Gulf’s subsurface to finalization?

It is true that deepwater oil exploration technology is suspect, as evidenced by today’s events. But the oil companies are drilling in areas of such incredible depths that technology is being created as they go. The oilrig that exploded was capped at 5,290 feet, and the drill was another 17,000 feet below that. But since so many of the areas where oil is abundant and easily recoverable in the United States have been eliminated from oil exploration that the only place left is the oceans surrounding our country. Other nations of the world are drilling in the Gulf, and foreign exploration will continue.

Many people have blamed the Obama administration for its meek response to the problem. Others have talked about the restrictive demand of the environmentalists as being a component of the problem, and all have talked about the overall intransigence of British Petroleum. The critics are all right in their thinking, and I don’t have enough space to discuss each charge. But one thing is clear from the governmental standpoint. Politics pervades our entire life. We can’t even escape it when we have a national catastrophic event such as this.

Obama has talked about “kicking ass,” and the politicians have already initiated a criminal investigation. There will be time for all this political posturing once the situation is under control, and it will be. Now is the time for all parties to focus on stopping this calamity and trying to kick the ass of the only party in this drama that can stop it is really stupid.

The millions upon millions of gallons of oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf of Mexico every day is a crude reminder of the many ways humans are fouling the planet. As forests are cleared, cities and suburbs paved and expanded, as the air and sea warm and become increasingly polluted with cancer-causing chemicals and garbage, and with species dropping like flies, the planet’s health is being challenged in ways that have not occurred in its entire 4.5-billion-year existence.