Deepwater Thinking…

An interesting, sideways look at the spill.

For a long time now, we have been done in by industry in insidious ways. They have killed, maimed, poisoned or otherwise dis-eased millions upon millions of people through various products of convenience (always convenience, again, such a terrible word, the etymology, Con-Venue, coming together to do great harm, believe or not).

So we’ve had Non-stick cookware, aspartame, cars (cars, terrible things, have killed and maimed so many, but as long we remain statistically safe, we continue to use them, so convenient after all), microwave ovens (really really bad), Mobile telephony (terrible curse, no doubt a sickner, but so convenient), GMO, GM foods in particular….the list goes on and on and back in history.

All these deaths by a thousand cuts were released to the public backed by spurious studies telling us they were safe, quelling a vocal minority on the disastrous after-effects of said introduction.

But this Deepwater Horizon (such an apt name, so powerful) cannot be denied. Will not be denied. It is out there, gushing away, washing ashore, day after day, week after week.

This might truly be the tipping point because the effects of the industry’s lack of anything (morality, conscience et. al.) are in our face and cannot be denied. Hard to argue with dead, oil soaked birds, dead oceans and goo streaked beaches. No PR can spin this positively. If I may pun, hopefully aptly, this is Industry’s watershed moment and ours.

And such a choice it puts before us, eh? How many of us stopped driving to work or play because Oil is such a disaster, literally and figuratively and metaphorically?

Oil is the basis of our convenient lives. So all this tooth gnashing but no real action. Till it hits the pump (higher price than I can afford), or sweeps into my home, environment or food chain, I’ll just be a harried bystander.

Much more convenient that way.

We can all justify convenience, much harder to justify action.