These images are from ABC, illustrating how the oil spill metastasized in just three days. The CEO of British Petroleum has said that stopping the leak is “like performing open heart surgery at 5,000 feet.”
Fishing has been banned in the gulf. The oil spill is now predicted to be worse than the Valdez.Within a day, the spill is supposed to enter the Loop Current – think of this as the gulf stream’s conveyor belt – and eventually it will enter the Florida Keys and enter the Gulf stream along the east coast of the U.S.
If you saw the head honcho of BP on the news at any point today – May 3 – then you undoubtedly heard him say that even though the company wasn’t responsible for the spill, they will pay for the cleanup. Huh? They aren’t responsible? Then who is?
Rush Limbaugh said that the “ecology would self-regulate.” Huh? Isn’t this what the experts claimed about the free market and derivatives?
Representative Gene Taylor, a Democrat from Mississippi, compared the massive oil slick to “chocolate milk” and said it would break up naturally. Huh? Doesn’t that sound a lot like Rush’s “self-regulation”?
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has a novel approach to the problem: keep drilling.
Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana!) is demanding that the U.S. not “retreat” from further offshore drilling.
Governor Rick Perry of Texas attributed the spill to “an act of God” and hopes that it won’t deter us from drilling in the gulf.
Meanwhile, California’s Republican governor Schwarzenegger has withdrawn his support of gulf drilling, Florida’s Governor Crist says to forget it. You would think that “forgetting it” would be obvious, right? I mean, really, does the message get any louder than this?
Today, I went to our local Publix to buy fish for dinner. The guy behind the counter, who definitely knows his fish and his customers, informed me that tuna would be on sale tomorrow. Then he said, “At least tuna won’t be in short supply soon, but just about everything else will be.”
The oil spill has become what Seth (Jane Roberts) would call a mass event. It has entered the collective consciousness. So for the last few days, I’ve been paging through The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, one of the books Jane Roberts channeled for Seth, searching for something relevant to this catastrophe. The book was published in 1981, long before these kinds of disasters. The closest analogy is the Three Mile Island horror, man-made, like this one, but Seth doesn’t go into it in any depth. I ran across some other treasures, though, that we might apply generally.
“There is nothing more stimulating, more worthy of actualization, than the desire to change the world for the better. That is indeed each person’s mission. You begin by working in that area of activity that is your own unique one, with your own life and activities. You begin in the corner of an office, or on the assembly line, or in the advertising agency, or in the kitchen. You begin where you are.”
Always, according to Seth and many other metaphysical teachers, our point of power lies in the present.
So perhaps, collectively,we should imagine the spill gone. Poof. Blue waters. Ecosystems flourishing. Dolphins, turtles, birds, fish, jellyfish, everyone is doing fine out there. Turn off the news for a few days. Maintain the image of a flourishing ocean, a happy planet. Maybe this practice is delusional. But hey, suppose it isn’t? Maybe it’s the same energy that operates when a group of people pray for the healing of a loved one.Can’t hurt to try.
Dan -I think you're absolutely right. That containment dome failed to do anything. It's not so difficult to imagine great stretches of a dead zone in the gulf and along the atlantic coast. This country is run by greedy corporations. BP will get off. Exxon still hasn't paid for valdez.
I sure hate to sound like a doomsayer, but I think this leak is far more catastrophic than the media is leading on. I'm hearing as much as 300,000 gallons a day is spilling into the ocean. I had a look at this steel dome they were going to use to cover this leak and said to myself, "you have got to be kidding me." It seems to me that if this thing is leaking 3000,000 gallons a day (possibly more?)it is not going to be contained with a small steel dome lowered by robots. I think they are trying to set the public at ease because they know they don't know what to do, and they know there will be no quick fixes. This leak is 5000 feet below the surface, and one has to wonder how long it took them to drill the well to begin with. This may well end up being the worst ecological catastrophe ever. And I'm quite sure all the guilty parties are going to walk away with a slap on the wrist. One really has to wonder how this even happened to begin with? What a tragedy.
Well said, Sansego!
No, they don't. Like I said, conservatives generally nix any spending on preventive measures (no sex ed or family planning, no community development or afterschool programs, no on fixing infrastructure to withstand disasters) and the results usually end up far costlier (unwanted pregnancy, crime, broken levees and collapsed bridges).
Its all about getting as much dollars into the bank accounts of the CEO and then passing the expensive aftermath to the government to deal with. You'd think that the teabaggers would realize the boondoggle by now!
Do companies like Halliburton ever get it??
Not only did Halliburton botch the seal job, but it is deplorable that they nixed the safety valve for only half a million! Well, this is going to end up costing them billions, and maybe they'll finally "get it"! (an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure) But, I doubt it! Great post!
Conservatives are pretty consistent about being stingy on preventive measures. Its always cheaper to deal with preventive measures than cleaning up in the aftermath of disasters, but they never change.
My hope is that this disaster outrages so many people that no one will be chanting "drill, baby, drill" anymore (except the right wing Palinists). Three Mile Island did seem to put a damper on new nuclear power plants. Off-shore drilling is too risky to our fragile eco-system to be worth it. I hope more people are moved to a pro-environmental stance because of this.
Pluto in Capricorn until 2024 exposes the dark underbelly of,among other things,the corporate reality. Halliburton – Cheney's old company – was responsible for the concrete seal on this rig. You know enough of the back story to piece it all together.
Good point. I always liked those books.
The repugs are going to implode. The utter stupidity of those people are beyond anything even remotely rational. They are in the pocket of oil, and now everyone knows it.
The fix would've cost half a million dollars. They thought it was too much, even though the CEO makes several times that figure, and the company profits last yr exceeded a billion dollars. Go figure. Shows why regs are needed. Greed tends to trump safety. – R
I'm totally with you, Trish. Time for some collective visualization about the health of the wildlife.
If this oil spill just evaporates, those in the oil industry may not have learned to leash in their power to destroy. But then, I'd love to see how they would explain such a dramatic miracle.
wv: ourgall
I heard that last night, too. When you put two oil people at the head of gov't, these are the kinds of messes that result. Rush only crows about what is untrue.
I was very disturbed to learn that there was a remote control safety valve that was supposed to have been installed at this particular rig. In 2003, Dick Chaney waived this mandate. And the builder of the concrete platform that busted, causing this mess: Halliburton, Cheney's company. (source CNN news)
Why isn't Limbaugh, etc, crowing about this?
Good technique, Gypsy. Maybe we're all too bombarded with 24/7 news. Mike – I like that idea, giving thanks that a problem has been solved. I think that's similar to some of the Hicks techniques.
I agree with you. I've just written a post for tomorrow about problem solving and how 'giving thanks that a problem has been solved' works – at least on a smaller scale.
I guess for such a large issue as the oil it would need a combined effort of lots of people – otherwise individuals would probably lack the confidence / belief that this would actually work for such a major problem.
and what you say is exactly what i have done the past week or so – my senses were being bombarded 24/7 by the onslaught of the media coverage on the oil issue and the volcano – i quit watching/listening to any media coverage – it isn't that i don't want to be informed – but rather that i didn't want the constant negativity impacting upon/coloring my own perspective of the future – mine and yours and that of the planet – so i have put more focus on more direct contact with nature the best i can – from home – which is where i am – spending more time outdoors in the sunshine, touching my plants every day, feeding the sea gulls – just absorbing the beauty of what is around me – little things that i normally do but into which i've been putting more time and energy this past week – did a post on beautiful dolphins and their intelligence yesterday, actually – anyway – for me, there is no doubt at all that individual and collective perspective/vision go a long way in making a difference –
great thought-provoking piece, macgregors!
Good point, DJan!
I think I can visualize the blue waters of the Gulf, but the only hard part is doing it in the NOW and not in the far-off future. I am so close to taking a news fast so I can heal up the only part of the planet I actually control: my own spirit.