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I am watching the huge BP oil spill on the news every day. I am not happy with the cavalier attitude of BP and the US Coast Guard in controlling the flow of information, much less controlling the flow of oil. The environmental devastation is compounded by the enormous economic devastation that will follow due to the damage to the fishing and tourist industry. But to see the thick oil ruining the fragile wetlands, entering the loop current that may spread the contamination to Florida and up the eastern coast of the USA is horrible.
BP seems to be hiding the true extent of the damage by severely underestimating the amount of oil flowing out of their damaged well and back-stepping on their responsibility to pay for the clean-up effort. I am shocked that the US Coast Guard appears to be complicit in this cover-up. Underwater plumes of oil and soiled beaches are just one aspect of this disaster. It will become more and more visible as the oil begins to wash ashore but the enormous amount of oil spilling is toxic to ocean life and the environmental disaster will take decades to recover.
With one side chanting “drill, baby, drill” and the President capitulating by opening more areas for drilling, I would think that this disaster would have people reconsidering our energy future. While this is an enormous amount of oil, it is a small portion of the oil consumed each day. We are sucking our planet dry of a non-renewable resource and we will soon simply be out of oil. The implications of more drilling are more danger and more environmental damage both in our oceans and in our air from CO2 emissions.
Oil is poisonous to fish, and with the recent report from the UNEP that warns of fish-less oceans by 2050 which states that unless fishing fleets are slashed and protection zones are established, we should all be very concerned about the death of our oceans.
The alternative is to exercise more foresight and prepare our country for a future based upon conservation, efficiency and renewable energy sources. Making this transition will not happen overnight as it takes time to install wind farms and photovoltaic generating sources. There are environmental considerations with any source of energy, but at least when a wind turbine fails, it doesn’t take the environmental toll in the form of an oil well spewing precious oil into the ocean.
The low-hanging fruit in the solution of the problem of oil addiction is conservation and efficiency. Here in Vermont we have an efficiency utility that literally buys the energy we do not use through more efficient appliances, lighting, heating and cooling. The energy we do not use is the safest and most economical of all energy sources. We have a lot of room to gain energy independence simply by subsidizing energy conservation and efficiency measures.
Many people already use compact florescent lights now, and while they do contain a small amount of mercury, the move to LED lighting will not only save energy (they consume a fraction of the energy), but also are safe. It will take mass production and a boost from subsidies and incentives to really launch that industry, although there was a whole floor of LED lighting vendors at the trade show I recently attended in Hong Kong.
For many, many years the oil industry has enjoyed massive government subsidies that encouraged the exploitation of this resource from oil depletion allowances to below-value oil leases. It is time to put that type of massive effort behind the development and deployment of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and hydro.
Coupled with a real commitment to energy conservation and efficiency, we can buy the time to wean ourselves from oil and preserve that resource for more important uses than burning it in internal combustion engines.
The scale of the environmental disaster in the Gulf is massive and should serve as a wake-up call to really take action to prepare for the day when an economy based upon oil is no longer possible.
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