Apologies to my friend Randy Boyd for this, but I chafe at the hypocritical pounding BP is taking from the media and the public about the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico, for two reasons.

First, this was an accident.  Does anyone really believe BP wanted this to happen?  It’s going to lose billions and billions of dollars out of pocket, and God knows how much more in public goodwill.  No one has more of an interest in getting the leak stopped tout de suite.

Second, its easy to demonize a big oil company, but harder to recognize that BP was out there doing your bidding.  If you pumped gasoline into your car within the past month, then you are part of the reason that this catastrophe occurred.

The few of you who do not drive cars, who exclusively bike, walk, or use public transit, who support raising the gas tax to a level where alternative, non-fossil fuel energies become economically feasible, those few of you can blast away at BP and the rest of the oil companies.

As for everyone else, taisez-vous.  Be honest enough to admit that this awful environmental disaster is a foreseeable, inevitable consequence of your chosen lifestyle.  When you see the disturbing pictures of thick, brown oil covering the Louisiana coast, smothering its vegetation and its aquatic animal life, look very closely and try to find the small glob of oil that, but for the accident, would have found its way into your gas tank.  Try to find the small glob of oil that belongs to you.

The fault’s not just BP’s.  It’s yours and mine, too.

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Categories: Environment, Politics

Tags: alternative energy, BP, hypocrisy, oil spill