Was the oil spill the best thing to happen to the Oil Industry this year?

     I hate BP. Thats what a lot of people say. It feels nice.

     In Environmental Law and Policy today, in a discussion about who should be held accountable for oil spills it was sweetly and succintly expressed that, of course, it should be the oil companies who pay for the massive, irreversible damage on the oceans when epic disasters like the recent one in the Gulf of Mexico. It was the old "if you gave your cousin a dollar and he drove around with it in the back of the truck and it blew out, is it his fault?"

     This argument has been going on for forty years, at least. That's when peak oil was predicted. When people realized that constantly cutting down trees and burning coal might not be the best idea, and it was time to think of something else. 1970.

     Everyone seems to be at a loss about what has actually happened since then. We'll do it in the future, I guess people said. We just can't afford to fund research for cleaner energy, maybe? A measure of the success of Presidents seems to be what gas prices are like while they are in office.

     What's not to hate about BP? I mean- could they have seemed to care less about the oil spill? That jerk of a CEO; the continued lies; the continued attempts to shed blame; spraying dispersants all over the people who had just lost their livelihood to BP. Everyone knows lots of reasons to despise the despicable people who made this happen.

     The beat goes on. Not one person (well, maybe one) in class today suggested that maybe it is the market demand that drives the oil industry rather than some scuzzy CEO. For those not econ-savvy, "market demand" just means that the insanely high demand for oil is simply because we readily and willingly pay for it. We keep lining up at the pumps. Oil companies turn in record profits year after year; not because they are ethical, or responsible, or even market well (seen a gasoline commercial in a while?). Oil is in such high demand and so profitable, that it is worth the extremely high financial risk of drilling for it 2 miles underwater. Even worse, we deploy troops to protect oil interests abroad.

     The oil spill may just have been the best thing to happen to the industry overall all year. They have effectively subsidized the blame -not to the person who drives their Hummer; the average American drives 33.4 miles per day- but easily to the person everyone loves to hate; someone else.

     I'm not flaming any individuals here. We are all just trying to do our best here. Again, we haven't been provided with alternative forms of fuel. But we have to consider why oil is so profitable. We definitely better be talking about what to do to fix it.

     We can however, vote with our dollars and our ballots. I find it absolutely incredible that energy indepence isn't the single greatest initiative of our country, given the obvious importance of it. I don't care what letter is next to a candidates name; he had better be talking about clean energy. What if we spent $1,143,420,630,548 on clean energy since 1991? What would we be driving. That's what we've spent on the war in Iraq, by the way (costofwar.com).

     How can we vote with our dollars? Surprisingly, start with food. Your average meal travelled 1000 miles (total, including all ingredients). Then, support public transportation. Carpool, you might just make new friends. Try not to move 100 miles away from where you work. Next time you are stuck in traffic, count the consecutive number of cars in a lane with only one person inside. Last time I did it, the average was about 30 (I was shocked). Not everyone is able to ride a bike everywhere; but if you can, it's a great health decision! People who use public transport weigh an average of 5 pounds less.

     BP might be a bunch of jerks, but we have to remember who pushes the pedal.