The Deepwater Horizon Spill

What We Can Do?

Everywhere I go, people are reeling from the tragedy that is ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico. From the eleven dead, the communities of color already torn apart by Hurricane Katrina, the sea turtles and orca whales, the migratory birds with nowhere to go, to the millions of gallons of oil that are still spilling out, the list of suffering goes on and on. How could this have happened? And what can we do about it?

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Everywhere I go, people are reeling from the tragedy that is ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico. From the eleven dead, the communities of color already torn apart by Hurricane Katrina, the sea turtles and orca whales, the migratory birds with nowhere to go, to the millions of gallons of oil that are still spilling out, the list of suffering goes on and on. How could this have happened? And what can we do about it?

This disaster happened because of deregulation and a reckless disregard for safety. For example, BP knew about a device called an "acoustic switch" that could have prevented the disaster. However, BP resisted regulation that would have required this switch, and the government caved.

The government has its share of responsibility too. The government supports oil with direct subsidies, by paying cleanup costs for spills like these, by giving money for roads and highways, and by fighting foreign wars to protect its oil interests. These subsidies hide the true cost of oil, making it harder for us to switch to more sustainable alternatives. The government also has laws that shield oil companies from being accountable.

As terrible as this spill is, it is not the first disaster caused by oil, and it won't be the last. Other disasters over the past fifty years have also spilled hundreds of millions of gallons of oil. And because we can expect offshore drilling to increase in coming years, oil spills will continue -- unless we stop them. And we must. Individually and collectively, this is our responsibility as stewards of the planet.

We have to understand the root causes of the problem before we can find the solution. News commentators who complain about greed are missing the point. It's true that corporations put profits before people and the environment. But why? Are they run by greedy people? If the CEO of BP had been responsible, could this disaster have been averted? No. A CEO who put people before profits would have been fired! The job of a CEO is to maximize profits for the shareholders - no matter what. It's required by law. This is a problem with the whole system. That is to say, this is a problem with capitalism. Capitalism creates the conditions under which our natural resources and our people are exploited.

If we understand the root of the problem, we will know how far we have to go to solve it. Just as the earth has a deep bleed from which oil is spilling out by the millions of gallons, we have a deep bleed in our body politic. We don't need band-aids. We need surgery.

In the short term, we need to hold BP accountable. Because if BP gets away with its actions - if it can brazenly ignore human rights and environmental rights - then other oil companies will be more brazen in the future.

We can hold them accountable by taking away their money. But we can't rely on the government to do it. After the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, the government initially awarded $5 billion in punitive damages, in order to appease an outraged public. But after years of appeals, that amount was quietly reduced to $507.5 million. We were fooled once, but we don't have to be fooled again. The government won't hold oil companies accountable.

But can we target BP's bottom line ourselves? Yes, we can -- through boycotts, consciousness-raising, and organizing. As an example of ways that a community has resisted an oil company, we can look to ongoing grassroots organizing in California against Chevron.

In Richmond, the organization Direct Action to Stop the War has been organizing against expansion of Chevron's refinery. On March 15th 2008, 750 protestors participated in a rally and shut down the only truck entrance to the refinery. The group Communities for a Better Environment and other community groups filed and won a lawsuit requiring an environmental impact statement, which stopped a refinery expansion project.

In the long term, we need a mass movement with the power to prevent these disasters. We need our own media to help us keep informed. We need to build structures to replace our energy infrastructure, such as mass public transit and sustainable forms of energy. And we need community-based organizing to defend against the environmental disasters that happen in our own back yards.

In short, we need a global movement for environmental justice. The good news: communities all over the world are joining together and building it. And we can too.

Sidebar: Environmental Justice in the Northwest
Community Coalition for Environmental Justice http://www.ccej.org/
Community to Community Development http://foodjustice.org/wp/index.php
Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition http://www.duwamishcleanup.org/
True Cost of Chevron http://www.truecostofchevron.com