About that pesky oil “spill”...
So. I find it completely outrageous and absurd that oil has been gushing into the Gulf for more than a month. If you haven’t seen the oil “gushing” into the ocean, here is a video – does it not make you mad that this has been allowed to happen for 30something days? (Here is BP’s live stream)
Now, by no stretch of the imagination am I a treehugger, for one – I do have a huge gas-guzzling minivan and I do love it. Admittedly I would love it a whole lot more if it ran on biodiesel, but I do what I can for now – I never idle the van, I commute by train when I can, I try never to use drive-thrus… I do the little things that I can. I do wish, however, that our economy was not so dependent on a limited natural resource whose extraction and processing causes such widespread ecological destruction.
Although I do not particularly like oil and gas companies, I don’t want to see all of them out of business – until the day we are all powered by corn oil, we kinda need them around – I find their lack of ethics and environmental concern to be irritating, to say the least. It’s not enough that these companies support football games and other youth activities, as their “community involvement”, whilst it is important, I would like to see community recycle centers, I would like to see wildlife reserves, I would like to see them give much much more money to the people, not the government or political campaigns. I want to see money that goes directly to schools, hospitals, parks, welfare, and other community-based services.
There are a lot of companies that I’ve stopped regularly shopping at, Walmart for example. And a lot of products that I avoid, bottled water and plastic bags for example. I realize that lack of my small purchases is not going to make a huge difference but if we all become responsible consumers, it will force these huge corporations to become more responsible as well. I don’t want them to be out of business, I don’t want any more people to lose their jobs, but I want corporations to rethink their policies and the way they operate, I want them to operate with ethics, justice, and compassion. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, if we don’t have a thriving, healthy community or a habitable environment, what would be the point of having all that money?
Think about it. Do what you can… stay informed, be responsible.
