Why We Need to Take Responsibility For the Oil Spill
By Will McCorkle
We see the pictures from the Gulf of Mexico, and they are sad and disturbing. Wildlife is being destroyed, and nature is being ravaged. It is easy at this time to place blame on one person or one organization. Naturally, the one easiest to hate is BP, and BP definitely has a large responsibility to take for the oil spill. Others would blame the lack of regulation that we saw expand under Reagan through the last Bush administration, and there is certainly merit in this. Other people would like to blame the current administration for a poor response to the situation. Whether that anger is justified is still up for debate.
However, perhaps we should start looking at our own lives. The amount of gasoline we consumer in the United States is probably best labeled obscene. The gas remains relatively cheap (compared to most of the world), the cars remain big, and the emphasis on alternatives remains lackluster. We have an addiction for oil that can only be relinquished with more drilling, including dangerous efforts, and a poor foreign policy and increased conflict in the Middle East which allows us to continue having access to this oil. We also haven’t seemed to have made this a priority in our political decision making. Ultimately, the politicians will respond to the voice of the people. If we could make our voice louder and say that this is simply not acceptable, things would begin changing at a lot faster rate than they are now.
We all know that our current use of oil is not sustainable. Even if we can find more reserves of the coast of Alaska and strike a deal with another Middle Eastern nation, in the end, there is not sufficient supply and we certainly cannot risk the environmental destruction which will be inevitable. Maybe this oil spill can be a wakeup call to the nation that a serious change needs to be made both on a personal level and on a societal level. I know personally that I don’t think about my own consumption enough until events like this occur that sober me to the reality of the world we live in. We can assign blame, but in the end that is not going to cause change. Only when we personalize what has happened and let it prompt us to change our own actions and those of the society will we be able to make a difference in the environment and prevent horrendous events like this from happening again.
This article was written by William McCorkle. He writes a blog on progressive social action and the search to find the true essence of the Christian faith at http://www.essencerestored.com. If you are interested in contacting the author, you may contact him at wdmccorkle@gmail.com.
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