Using a Crisis
Deborah Venable
08/13/10
There
is no doubt that the blowout and resulting leakage of oil from the well in the
Gulf this spring triggered a crisis alert.
Not only did the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, the
loss of eleven human souls, and the immediate oil contamination signal
legitimate concerns, these things set the stage for some of the biggest
political blunders we’ve ever seen.
Unlike the Hurricane Katrina event, with which it was politically
compared, this one was man-made from the get-go.
I
analyzed the situation back in May with this article and presumed that the crisis would be well
used for a while. I also knew that
Mother Nature’s resiliency would far outpace any human actions to handle it,
with God’s usual efficiency. We see now
that this is all true. We also see that
the politicians do not want to give up the crisis.
This
article cites the partial headline as the disaster
that never was
and goes on to marvel at the total mishandling of the oil spill story itself.
We
certainly can’t give the press and media a pass on the part they played to make
the crisis worse. It is still going
on. As the all clear is given for the
people most affected, those in the fishing and tourism industries, now we hear
the cautionary tales of “possible” contamination of the shrimp and fishes and
beautiful beaches riding herd on the natural recovery of these industries. This will compel those most damaged to
continue to expect intervening hand-outs from government via BP coffers to make
them whole instead of buckling down to the task at hand – taking back their own
lives.
Destroying
the economic engine is still the goal of those faithless politicians that do
not want to let go of this crisis. A
lot of damage has already been done – but more needn’t be. The oil is still there in the reservoir and
the people who know how to get it out still need work. Are the media and the politicians going to
allow another well to be drilled there?
We are in the wait and see mode now.
Meanwhile,
where is all the press on this real ecological
disaster
story? While the United States suffers
in the usual and only sometimes unusual summer heat, (we’re pounded with heat
advisories day in and day out) July and August winter south of the equator is
where the real crisis is. Indeed, this
report
notes that Argentina has a colder winter than Antarctica, leading to concerns
about power shortage there.
Interesting.
It
all comes down to power, doesn’t it?
Just one big power crisis – the power fueled by oil and the political
power that seeks to control that and everything else – is used to define us
more and more as a people. In the
natural extremes of weather, we use more power for our comfort and
well-being. But in the climate of
political in fighting, we need less, not more, political power exerted over us
to maintain our economic health. Using
any crisis to seek opposites to these two realities is unconscionable, but we
are not likely to see an end to it. Not
unless we take a page from nature’s playbook and find the resiliency to heal
ourselves.