Corporate Gusher, Public Sun
by Harvey Wasserman
BP’s apocalyptic Gulf gusher has put our ability to survive in serious doubt.
We have no reason to believe an end to the crisis is near—or even in sight. Nor can we begin to calculate the damage to our Mother Earth…to her oceans, to the core of her being…and to each of us as individual organisms.
Only one thing IS clear: we cannot ultimately survive without a rapid conversion to a Solartopian economy that is totally green-powered. That transformation will be forced by biological imperatives, not money or markets.
The powers that be studiously avoid the core reality that this disaster stems from the ability of large corporations to make all of us pay for their irresponsible greed.
The black poisons killing our global body gush from a system that grants corporations human rights but does not demand human responsibility.
It is suicidal to allow corporations to deploy technologies they cannot mange or insure and then make us pay for their greed.
From banking to industry to energy, the system privatizes profits and socializes disaster. It is the essence of what Mussolini called “corporate control of the state.”
Liability at the Deepwater Horizon was set at a paltry $75 million. Had BP been forced to account beforehand for the scale of harm now being done, that well would never have been drilled.
The $20 billion Obama wants BP to ante up won’t cover a fraction of the damages. In fact, BP does not have sufficient assets to pay for what it has done, any more than any owner of any nuclear power plant could cover the downwind horrors of a major meltdown.
The liability pool for an atomic reactor disaster stands at a scant $11 billion. These reactor pushers all claim such an accident is virtually impossible. Just like BP.
The Obama Administration supports these nuclear loan guarantees. But it could no more meet the monetary and logistic challenges of a melt down than it’s done at Deepwater Horizon.
As always, society as a whole, not the corporate perps, would be forced to pay.
For us to survive, technologies that can’t be insured must be replaced with ones that can. That means wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, ocean thermal, sustainable biofuels, wave energy, current energy and a massive push for increased efficiency and conservation, including a restoration of mass transit.
All the above bear risks of some sort. But all can get liability insurance. None threaten our survival.
Fossil/nukers say such technologies are years away from meeting our needs.
But the barriers are not primarily technological—they are defined by the corporate-run world of money, markets and bureaucratic corruption.
Remove socialized risk while taxing ecological impacts and Solartopian technologies would eventually force fossil/nuclear fuels to extinction.
But could the market make that happen before we terminally pollute our planet?
The BP gusher says: not likely.
After Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt set completely “undoable” goals for armaments production. All defied a market economy and sober assessments of what we could actually accomplish. And all were met.
In crisis, we’ve conjured military mobilizations, the New Deal, Manhattan Project, Marshall Plan, stimulus package, bank bailouts, public works projects and whatever else it took to survive.
Now energy consumption must plummet as efficiency and green production rise to supplant the fossil/nuclear technologies that are killing us. Our basic biology demands the twain meet before BP and its buddies kill us all.
The Solartopian scenario requires not just a shift in energy production and consumption. It means an end to war, which is not sustainable anywhere, for any alleged cause. Real peace in turn demands social justice, which can come only with true democracy—paper ballots and all. Our food needs to be raised organically. Our numbers can only be controlled by freely educated, empowered women in bio-conspiracy with our Mother Earth.
Above all, the corporate structure that rules our world must be replaced with a means of organization that serves people and the planet, not the reverse. BP’s black death pouring through our oceans says we cannot afford the free market illusions of a corporate-sponsored apocalypse.
A system that is peaceful, just and totally green-powered is the only way we survive.
Let’s hope we have the time, wisdom and will to get there.
Harvey Wasserman’s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and writes regularly for www.freepress.org.
I was talking the other day to another Green Party member and I was saying I thought this election would be a good year for us Greens. The two mainstream parties were part of the corruption of the MMS and not part of the solution. We the Green Party can honestly say we are not part of the corruption and should be able to come up with sloggans and focus on our environmental platform as we are the strongest on the environment and moving forward into a Green economy that would not only be better for the planet but for all of us who live on the earth. I am really excited that here in AZ we will be having a Green candidate running against John McCain for Senate.
Watching Tony Hayward yesterday in the hearing I did feel sorry for him. I have a kind loving heart filled with compassion for others. Some might ask how I could feel sorry for him, but I do because I don’t think Tony Hayward wanted this disaster to happen. I don’t think he woke up on April 20th and said I want to cause an environmental disaster in the gulf of Mexico. I don’t think he is an evil man. I am sure he feels a lot of guilt. Like many CEO’s at a large company, the company is so large that they are not aware of every single decision made on lower levels of management. I would hope that style of management changes and we have more hands on CEO’s that double check the work of their lower level management. No, I don’t think Tony Hayward is happy that families, animals, marine life, the gulf of Mexico and all the ocean, and the wetlands are suffering.
I do think that Tony Hayward is over his head. I do think that he needs help and I also think he is willing to hear of reasonable ideas from anyone who has the knowledge. The government is also to blame. Yes, I know some like to only blame BP and on the other side of the political spectrum you have those who only blame President Obama. Like always the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. The corruption of our government has been going on for years. When I mean years I mean longer than George W. Bush who the Left likes to still blame for everything under the sun that is wrong with this country and excusing Obama when he does the exact same as Bush. I don’t like the extreme of both sides. It is time for Obama to act like he is the commander in cheif and not look like he can’t do his job so he blames Bush for everything. Obama has to start acting like a man and not a little boy. Men take charge and admit their mistakes and little boys blame the President who walked before him when he hasn’t been in power for two years. I didn’t support Bush so my defense of him doesn’t come from the place of like. Yet, I like to be fair and it isn’t fair that Democrats are still blaming Bush when he hasn’t been at the helm for two years. It is the Democrats who hold the power and not Republicans, Greens, or Independents.
I heard on the radio this morning that the gov. of LA is angry that the skimming ships that they were using to pick up the oil before it gets into the wet lands were told by the government that they can’t be used anymore. WHY? What is wrong with Democrats? Don’t they understand the words “National Disaster”? You need every boat and ship out there to help in the clean up and you make people jump through hoops that one has to jump through whenever anyone is dealing with government. Instead of making it harder for LA and the other gulf states on a local level clean up and defend their home from this blob of oil that is killing all that is in its path, the federal government under President Obama is making them jump through even more hoops and is hindering the clean up efforts on a state and local level.
Instead of telling Americans that it would be 90% contained in a few weeks which I believe is building up the American people to be disappointed when it doesn’t happen, President Obama should have called for a national day of prayer and meditation of all faiths to pray or do spiritual healings like Pagans would do. Every single American of faith (any faith) needs to be crying out to their higher power that God would do a miracle and stop this volcano of oil before it kills all the life in the oceans.
Yes, it is great you got BP to put 20 B into a fund. I believe in praising Obama when he does something good. If I have the guts to point out his weaknesses than I should have the moral strength to point out the good he does as well.
I actually feel sorry for President Obama too. Why some might ask why I would feel compassion for our President? Like Tony Hayward I don’t think Obama is an evil man who is happy that this environmental nightmare is only getting worst with each passing day. For the last 60 days this volcano of oil is pouring out its toxic stew, plus add the chemicals that have been sprayed to the toxic stew and it all adds up to what we have now. We must stop that volcano of oil. But how is the 50 million dollar question.
I like to think that everything happens for a reason. We can learn from our mistakes. One of the lessons I am learning is that man in doing this deep water drilling is play russian roulette. We don’t have the technology yet to stop this volcano of oil, so the smart thing is to not allow oil companies to drill so deep. Why do we as mankind think it is ok to play russian roulette with our planet and all life on this planet?
One of the lessons I think we should learn as man, is we Greens need to be more active and vocal in our communities. We need to run for political office ourselves or help our fellow Greens run for political office so that we can begin winning seats at the political table of power. We need to start sending men to Congress who are Green and who will not allow oil companies to continue playing russian roulette with the planet and all life on the planet. We need to make sure that we have Greens in Congress who will demand they have a serious plan in case of an accident and not just rubber stamp permits like both the Republicans and Democrats do. We Greens must really get serious as this country needs us to step up to the plate and do the right thing.
So it is day 60 and the hell continues!!!!!!