How to React to the BP Oil Spill
June 17, 2010 9 Comments
from The Faster Times - www.thefastertimes.com
I’ve encountered a considerable amount of desperation as people struggle to react appropriately to the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The disaster is so huge and pervasive that it’s impossible to figure out where an individual can take action outside of some physical presence at the spill site cleaning beaches or scrubbing animals.
One common, understandable response has been to boycott BP. The most popular Boycott BP Facebook group has over 600,000 people in it already, and there are several other similarly named groups with tens of thousands of members each. Unfortunately, this response – while, perhaps, emotionally satisfying – is not necessarily effective.
This blog post on the topic summarizes the boycott problem pretty well:
If you don’t give your money to BP, who are you going to give it to? Exxon, who dumped a bunch of oil on Alaska during the Valdez oil spill and still hasn’t finished paying for all the damages? Texaco/Chevron, who are accused of dumping toxic waste into the Ecuadorian rainforests? Citgo, whose profits prop up a Venezuelan dictator? Shell, who are accused of supporting human rights abuses and of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta (40% of the US’s oil imports come from Nigeria, where more oil is spilled by the likes of Shell and ExxonMobil every year than has been spilled at BP’s Deepwater Horizon)?
Moving your money from one oil company to another doesn’t really do much to affect the voracious appetite we have for oil that drives companies like BP to make risky and reckless decisions about where to drill. Blame BP all you want – and you should – for lax safety systems, but they wouldn’t be there in the first place if it weren’t for our demand for gas, and our demand that it stay cheap.
So, if you want to act in a way that really has an impact, there are two main things I would recommend:
Drive less: This is the obvious one, the harder one, and the one that has the most impact. The more you can stay off the road, or replace oil-powered trips with human-powered ones, the more real impact you have on reducing our dependence on oil. Not only that, but driving less has additional positive benefits that a boycott, even a successful one, wouldn’t; you’re polluting less, helping keep the air in the Roanoke and the New River Valleys clean. You’re contributing to the conservation of our amazing green space – less driving means fewer roads, less sprawl, fewer parking lots, and more parks, trees, greenways, and other greenspace. You’re reducing your carbon footprint, and you’re probably going to get physically healthier at the same time – if you’re feeling particularly aggressive towards BP, work out that aggression on your bicycle commute. Plan your trips more carefully, consider the alternatives, work with your neighbors and employer to figure out ways to get cars off the road, and talk to us about how we can help.
Go Local: Perhaps not so obvious as driving less, but still important. The energy required to get goods from one side of the country to another is incredible and a significant component of the country’s transportation fuel consumption. Shopping locally is not only good for fresher food and more local employment opportunities, it means that the stuff you’re buying didn’t travel nearly as far to get here. Bicycling to the local farmer’s market and filling your basket with fruits and veggies is a double-punch to BP’s gut; neither you nor the food you’re buying took much oil to get to the market. If you want to go crazy, plant a a garden end replace at least some of what you would have bought with goodies from your own back yard.
The oil spill is likely a insurmountable catastrophe that we’ll be dealing with for years to come, but it exists only because we have not suppressed or gluttonous hunger for the stuff now floating on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Unless we curb that gluttony, unless we take a fundamentally different approach to our transportation and buying habits, this will certainly not be the last disaster we’ll see.
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Pingback: Streetsblog.net » Better Than Boycotting BP: Getting Out of the Car
To quote my reply to a streetsblog network article that referenced this article:
“Articles like this, with phrases such as “replace oil-powered trips with human-powered ones”, are well-meaning but incredibly unhelpful.
In fact, painting a picture of a world in which the only option for ceasing to use cars is cycling is going to do nothing for a good deal of car users. Cycling is often not an option, because of various factors, such as present physical fitness, absence of safe cycling facilities where they live, the need to travel long distances or the need to travel. If you present such a world, you risk a lot of people ceasing to consider not using their cars right there.
Actually, there is another option- mass transit. That could be capable of attracting many car users for which cycling isn’t suitable. Its use can hugely reduce oil dependence where it’s electrified, but even diesel trains and buses are far more efficient than cars.
Cycling and mass transit aren’t “one-or-the-other” alternatives; they can compliment each other. For example, they can greatly extend the number of people within reach of transit (see, for example: http://www.humantransit.org/2010/04/can-we-all-cycle-the-last-mile.html ), and can help promote high-density, walkable development around its stops and stations. Bicycles and Transit, taken together, can provide a realistic alternative to car ownership.
As such, that realistic alternative ought to be publicised as a whole, rather than with the production of material that makes enthusiastic cyclists feel good, but doesn’t persuade the car commuter who would like to cycle to the shops, but doesn’t know how he’ll make it down the six-lane road to the neighboring city with his briefcase.”
Zoltan,
You are absolutely right. The original sentence read in full, “The more you can stay off the road, or replace oil-powered trips with human-powered ones,” which was intended to cover a range of options but maybe wasn’t clear in that regard. Of course, cycling isn’t an option for everyone, and there are large sections of our region for which it isn’t a safe possibility. Then again, there are also large swaths of our region not served at all by transit, so cycling may be the only non-driving option some folks have for trips to the store, school, etc., if not for longer work commutes.
Of course, it would be better if there were more options available to citizens in our region (well, in any region, really), but for folks looking to act right now advocating for transit in the future doesn’t help them act in a satisfying way at the moment. It is true, though, that in planning for and implementing a broader arrange of sustainable transportation modes and accommodations, it is probably the case that better and more mass transit would convert the travel habits of more people than better and more bike accommodations.
Everything about your fifth paragraph I absolutely agree with – no one mode is going to solve the problem, because no one mode is suitable for every trip or every individual.
This post was intended to offer some guidance for folks who were feeling a need to act immediately in some way with the options available to them now. Perhaps more importantly, though, is that governments – federal, state, and local – need to use this opportunity to drastically redefine and replan for the way our cities our built and the way we move about within them; without that, events like the Deepwater Horizon are almost inevitable as our need for oil grows and access to it grows increasingly limited. I hope, too, that citizen dissatisfaction with BP may translate to consumer action on oil consumption, vehicle selection, political action, etc. that will make the market for alternative fuel vehicles and public investment in historically under-appreciated sustainable modes much more attractive.
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Some interesting tactics on how to respond to BP. Thanks for the post!
GO GREEN, not BLACK.
Don’t ‘hate’ BP. If you are hell bent on blaming someone blame yourself, capitalism and greed. Unless you’re carbon neutral – or living in a mud hut somewhere remote and living off berries, perhaps you should consider that all of us- in one way or another are driving demand as consumers. By creating demand for energy – we are driving these businesses to produce more.
We all have a choice – and we ALL make mistakes. Yes, the Gulf Spill was a complex accident, caused by an unprecedented combination of failures in human judgement, but perhaps a company such as BP may be viewed as ‘human’ too. It has needs in order to survive and meet demands of society, people rely on it for jobs ( BP, undeniably a giant, is located in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia and Africa and employs thousands of people in each country who suffer great loss if the company suffers) That said many OTHER catastrophes go unnoticed… the number of oil companies drilling on/off shore who create ‘mini’ environmental catastrophe’s every day, go mostly un-noticed. ( see Alberta Oilsands). The environment gets compromised over and over again until something BIG happens that effects one coastline – and then we focus the blame on one company that operates at the frontiers of the energy industry and bring it to shame. The shame should lie with all of us. It could have happened to anyone – the point is – it happened.
What BP ARE doing: According to company almost $185 million have been paid in for individual settlement claims, up to now BP has made almost 52,000 payments on 105,000 claims ( taking in to consideration that many of these claims are opportunistic or false) Each claim needs to be investigated and approved, I am personally quite impressed that the company has addressed this many in the given time frame. They have taken the responsibility of paying out the total cost and compensation for damages to the environment and the effected communities, met the disaster head-on. They have shown – and no doubt will continue to prove their dedication – not just by fulfilling legal obligations – but by assuming a moral responsibility as well, which I believe will be reflected in their future business practices.
BP as a business has in recent years taken a leadership position on key public issues. The company has taken precautionary action to address climate change with a commitment to reduce its own emissions of carbon dioxide, deliver cleaner fuels in 59 cities in the U.S. and more than 90 cities around the world. Unlike most, BP are improving energy efficiency in its own operations through close performance monitoring , they are developing efficient fuels and lubricants, actively promoting natural gas as a key part of the energy future ( – gas is easily the cleanest burning fossil fuel, as well as being efficient, versatile and abundantly available.) BP are also including a cost of carbon in investment appraisals for all new major projects to allow informed investment in fossil fuels, encouraging development of the technology needed to reduce their carbon footprint, and investing in low-carbon businesses. Since 2005 they have invested over $4.5 billion in Alternative Energy, with their activity focused on advanced bio-fuels, wind business in the US, solar power, and carbon capture and storage. They are a leading example of how ALL businesses within their industry SHOULD be moving forward.
THE BUSINESS OF ENERGY: What’s different today is that energy has become a complex challenge, with strategic, economic and environmental dimensions. Energy security, climate change and the energy needed to support economic development and jobs will keep energy high on the public and political agenda for decades to come. The main ways to meet the world’s future energy challenges are through diversity, by accessing the widest range of energy sources. BP is has become instrumental in bringing out the best ways of finding, producing and distributing energy; and efficiency, by making the most of each unit of energy.
In a press release today – 15 July 2010 BP Selling out of Oil and going into Biofuels!!!!!! Verenium Corporation (NASDAQ: VRNM) today announced an agreement for BP Biofuels North America to acquire Verenium’s cellulosic biofuels business. This acquisition demonstrates BP’s intent to be a leader in the cellulosic biofuels industry in the U.S. and positions us as one of the few global companies with an integrated end-to-end capability, from R&D through commercialization to distribution and blending,” said Philip New, CEO of BP Biofuels. “Our partnership with Verenium has been very fruitful, enabling the companies to develop a leading cellulosic ethanol technology package, driven forward by the skills and expertise of people from both companies. By acquiring Verenium’s cellulosic biofuels technologies, BP Biofuels should be well placed to accelerate the delivery of low cost, low carbon, sustainable biofuels, at scale.
IN SUMMARY: Human or not – BP has demonstrated it is aware of their responsibilities to those people whose livelihoods and neighbourhoods have suffered, and they are doing everything in their power to put the damage right, in every way possible. They will pay dearly for what has happened to the environment – and so will their employees and the families who rely on BP to survive. The income they would have invested in renewable energy this year may be thrown back into fixing the damage that has been done in the Gulf while other, small-minded companies continue to plunder the earth for oil with even less consideration for the future of this planet and alternative energy .
The way forward is to drive all oil and chemical producing businesses to revisit their business models in order to ensure that companies work with contractors in ways that mean risks are fully understood and managed in future, and to make sure that the contractors take ownership of how their rigs and equipment are being operated by individual businesses like BP, to become less energy dependant within our own communities, and to for governments to put pressure ( taxation) on ALL operating oil businesses and rigging partners to assist in the clean-up of our current disaster.
Hate solves nothing. You can fight capitalism and human greed – or you could just Go Green.
Any of you wishing to volunteer to help with clean up, go to http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/page/2931/46359/ and select a state affected that you would wish to help in. Additional information on help is also available at: http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/gulf_oil_spill/wala-oil-spill-volunteer-opps-lr
Hey Jeannie, thanks for the post. I don’t think this post said anything about hating BP – blaming them, sure, but not hating them. Indeed, the thrust of this post was that individual consumer demand is the real culprit here, not solely the oil companies. No hate, no diatribes against capitalism and human greed – the last paragraph makes it pretty clear I believe its our role as consumers that has created the situation where a disaster like this is possible.
I agree with you that understandable response had to be to boycott BP. Its a great idea to become environmentally friendly by using less oi and gas. It’s a way out, plus practicing sport is beneficial to our health. Shopping locally is also nice remedy. Immeasurable, irreparable damage has been done to wildlife. How long we will stand behind while big corporations destroy our planet. There is no doubt, BP should be punished. I really should than you for such a good article and issues raised in your post. Excellent work! Keep posting, I will bookmark your blog.