Saturday 12 March 2011

Toxic Oil - Toxic Thinking - The BP Oil Spill and Our Humanity

By Douglas Boyd-Robinson
How many times have you pushed yourself to exhaustion toward an elusive goal, tried to speed things up, took one step further than you planned, and thus reached beyond a point the little voice inside said was wise?
For myself, I can count all too many times! For BP, once would be maybe enough!
But can we really blame BP?  Isn't it more our human nature to go beyond boundaries to achieve something we consider exceptional?
What is BP, or any business, if not reflective of our own values? Without our valuing mega-business and petroleum production, BP would not exist.
IN fact, no petroleum company would exist, and now - most likely - the Middle East would be a classless society - all poor - without some other monopoly resource. What good would that achieve?  Would violence lessen? - Terrorism wane?  Would all be happy if all were hungry?
We in the US are certainly not happy when fuel is scarce and expensive. Is that why the Gulf is fouled?
"Be careful what you wish for!" turns neatly into "Be careful what you reach for - - drill for!"
Try as we might, we cannot act without consequences - and even seeming inaction is, in effect, action and has its consequences. As we have no omelets without first cracking eggs, we have no oil without drilling - or killing whales - or poking or prodding at some other part of our environment.
We strive to find balance between environmental concern and energy production, but one person's view of balance is excess for another.  The dispute rages on even now, while oil begins to soak gulf marshes.
Oil is cheap energy people say.  How really cheap is this?
Which is more toxic - our thinking or the oil?
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Douglas Boyd-Robinson lives in Great Falls Montana where he works as a Vision Rehabilitation Therapist, Life Coach, community activist and writer.
You can find his blog site at http://dbrsinger.wordpress.com.
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