The Gulf of Mexico continues to suffer from pollution by crude oil. After they found out that the leak cannot be repaired, they tried sheathing a steel cup over it. The first attempt went foul, because the steel cup was too big. Now they try a smaller one. Nobody knows if this will do any good. At least, now BP is making use of “crowd sourcing”. They announced a “competition of ideas” in the internet.
The media interest, however, has decreased. Otherwise, too, nobody seems to be interested any longer in the oil disaster. This is typical for our modern times. Barrack Obama said BP will have to pay for the damage. Well, the sub-contractor who worked the drilling platform for BP will certainly not be able to pay.
There are conflicting opinions about how high the damage is. Some people want to play it down by saying: five years from the time the leak will be repaired, nature will have healed everything, anyway. Others are more cynical: the real environmental damage is done by all the plastic swimming in the oceans. It is a world-wide phenomenon and will not disappear as fast as the crude oil in the Gulf.
The numbers given in USD or Euros do not look all that grave, either. Some say it will be 3 billion, others 12 billion (choose your currency). Compared with the Greek aid or the HRE and BayernLB, this certainly is negligible. And considering that BP made a profit of 21,157 billion Euros in 2008 and 16.578 billon Euros (Source), it does not sound very exciting, either.
But what happens if (in theory), the damage will cost a lot more and cause the insolvency of BP? Will the Brits then answer for the damage, like the Icelanders for their bank (which the people of Iceland refused to do)? Or will the EU pay if the Brits cannot manage by themselves?
As you can easily see, all these musings are nonsense. They do not do justice to the true damage. Diversity of species, the climate and similar considerations play no role where money is concerned. Eventually, the financial burden will, again, be on our shoulders. We will either pay for the damage with our tax money, or else as consumers through the price.
That is quite just, too. After all, we are the oil-hungry consumers. We were the ones who caused the problem. Our greed for energy and plastic knows no limits, thus pushing Big Business with the oil.
Have you ever calculated how much of your money you spend for (unnecessary) comfort, (inefficient) mobility, (unhealthy) laziness or (irrational) logistical advantages. All these factors cause a gigantic waste of energy and crude oil.
And how little money do our real needs cost. Do we really need all these heated and air-conditioned rooms? Does everything have to be wrapped in plastic? Is it really necessary for us to have access to all commodities at all times in all places? Do we have to optimize and rationalize everything down to the last cent, even if it is logistical nonsense?
Haven’t we produced overkill in lack of judgement? Why don’t we, at least partly, accept the limits of time and space?
The food industry, too, is based on crude oil. Green houses are heated and artificially illuminated; many things we eat reach us after having travelled around the world or after having passed through a long history of logistically linked ice houses or ice cars. Careless as we are, we think there is no alternative and forget that it could well be done differently. And we would not suffer any detrimental effects, either!
Industry and BP do what we want them to do. They act exclusively to our orders. They follow our greed and thus squeeze the last drip of oil out of the earth. And since we pay any price, they naturally do this regardless of the consequences – but only as far as our environment is concerned. They certainly optimize their profits. And their ratio of profit on sales is not bad.
Yet we rail against BP. Because just look what environmental sins they commit. Simultaneously, we rant against the high oil prices on our way to the petrol station. And we would still fill our cars, even if the price were twice as high as it is.
To be sure, there was a little seduction involved. We were told that “stinginess is horny” or that everything is “easy going”.
Unfortunately, neither is correct.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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