Remember the massive BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010? Millions of litres of crude welled up from the depths and quickly contaminated everything within hundreds of kilometres. Not only were we shocked by the loss of human life, there was the appalling inability of the company to contain the spill. In the end it was the largest oil spill on record and large areas of sensitive marine habitat and wetlands were desecrated. A variety of creatures including birds and dolphins were affected. It was an ecological tragedy and the billions of dollars in fines and reparations BP was forced to pay can't make it all better. Money isn't capable of doing that, even though some corporations act as though money is a god.
Now we're told that there is a giant bathtub ring of oil on the bottom of the Gulf, roughly the size of Manitoulin Island and 37 million litres of crude. We don't see this the way we saw beaches and pelicans soaked with the goo. But it is still out there, affecting the ecosystems, and probably will do for generations to come.
There was strong moral outrage when this happened, along with promises that the perpetrators would pay and laws would change. There were church services in coastal communities which were laments and vigils for an altered way of life. And yet the spills still happen, trains burn, pipelines burst.
Rather than worrying about the future prospect of hell, why don't we listen to the report on the lingering bathtub ring and realize that we are creating a living hell for future generations? Surely we can do better.
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