The past few weeks have been a stark reminder of the perils of our fossil fuel addiction. So much has been written about the Gulf spill and its catastrophic damage to the ecosystems and economies in the wide area that is bound to be affected before this disaster is over. While obviously tragic, there is a great opportunity here for a reframing of the energy and climate debate. Because the Senate bill has been indefinitely postponed, this is a prime chance to demand more support for renewables and eliminate the giveaways to the oil and coal companies that are in the current bill. Barack Obama needs to clearly and strongly lay out to America and the world why the path we are on is so dangerous. He needs to connect the major catastrophies of the past few years and show that the financial industry, coal industry, and oil industry disasters were all a result of a lack of government oversight and regulation.
Limited regulation is necessary in these industries. Without it, we have seen how greed for profit trumps all thoughts of what is good for the public. The government's job is to protect the public from such tyranny. We gave corporations the chance to self-regulate through voluntary safety standards, and as a result we have seen irresponsible sub-prime mortgage lending that led to the biggest economic recession since the Great Depression, we've seen 28 coal miners killed because of negligence to enforce basic safety standards by Massey Corp, and now we're seeing a tragic, thus-far unstoppable underwater volcano of oil erupting.
If BP had complied with the voluntary safety recommendations from the US Minerals Management Service to place a remote-control shut off for the well, the well could be closed by now. For a company who made $5.6 billion in the first quarter of 2010, spending $500,000 on this technology seems like a drop in the bucket, but its absence has now led to a gusher in the Gulf.
No comments:
Post a Comment