What Next?

2 June 2010

'Top Kill' has failed.

'Junk Shot' has failed.

Now they propose to cut off the pipe and drop a funnel over it.

The entity once known as British Petroleum behaves like a rogue cattle thief, ignoring government directives and the muted indignation of the population, who, in their misguided disaffection, are now blaming a president who inherited the patronage-based mess from the oil industry presidency that went before.

Meanwhile, the natural systems, oblivious to the machinations and hand-wringing of the humans above, continue to bleed the toxic goo into the ocean, where BP sinks it with the Orwellian-named dispersant Corexit, and then has the gall to say that it never existed. The public nods dumbly on, abdicating the responsibility of citizenship to the directives of the corporate big brother.

Where is the outrage?

Where is the personal commitment to stop contributing to the problem? Have we all sunk so far into self-indulgence that we can’t even see our complicity?

I’m flying from Houston (capital of the petro-based economy) to Mobile, a city bracing for the onslaught of oil tomorrow. The clouds seen from my window over the Gulf are a surreal red, lit by the evening sun filtered through the pollution above Houston.

Between the hydrocarbons bubbling out of the water into the atmosphere, and those being burned, the Macondo site generates its own weather.

What will it take for people to generate the appropriate outrage and demand sensible action? Dead dolphins floating to the beach? Pristine beaches covered in tar? Plummeting property values?

(BP will probably collect the dolphin carcasses in the night like during the plague, and tell us there were none)

There is a team of dedicated people watching the events unfold, and trying to clarify them for the media and the public beyond the usual sound-bite coverage.

Tom Hutchings, Southwings pilot, is out flying over the horrors of the Macondo site on a daily basis. John Amos and Skytruth are getting current satellite imagery and interpreting it so we have some overview of the progression. Don’t listen to the people that have a vested interest in this issue, listen to those lonely voices with a penchant for the truth.

This is big. Don’t believe otherwise.