I have been having dreams about the oil spill. I never see the oil, never touch it in my dreams, but it’s there. Standing on the shores of some southern beach, in Florida or Louisiana or Alabama (I’m not sure), I look out at a distant horizon, at the sea churning there past the waves, and know that there’s a menace, something that seems likely to destroy everything.
My experiences with the Gulf of Mexico are small–a few days spent in Naples, a good spring break but not much to talk about. But this shoreline is very real, very remote, and though I don’t see any black goop, I know it’s coming.
I don’t need to tell you that this is the largest environmental catastrophe in United States history, nor that the oil is wrecking the livelihood of countless fishermen, the tourism industry, that every form of sea life–birds, fish, insects, and sea creatures small and essential–are dying or are going to die. Or that the currents and tides may carry this oil all around the Gulf, swirling the poison around and into the little inlets and bays, and it may even carry out into the Atlantic. It’s a crime. The worst of my lifetime.
A new Facebook page has sprung up, urging us to boycott British Petroleum. A hand drawn sign appeared on the pedestrian bridge over 394 calling for the same. We are starting to learn that BP avoided drilling the wells that could have plugged the leak (something Canada requires and that BP, as of only a couple of months ago tried to repeal), and if they had been in place we might have plugged the thing already. Instead it will take until August at best, December at worst. Like everyone, I’m angry.
Thing is, I’d like to boycott BP. But I don’t know how. Because as Walt Kelly once opined, through his alter-ego Pogo Possum: ”We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Read more →
