Memorial Day

It's up to you of course, but on this Memorial Day, while thinking about the summer ahead, take a moment to remember our veterans and those currently serving their country. Whether in agreement or not with our current or past wars, the people fighting them are Americans. If anything, on this Memorial Day, consider what we can do to bring those Americans home.

Unbelievable

The top kill didn't work. BP's oil geyser, eruption -- destruction of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem and it's marine economy -- continues unabated.

How can a country with enough brainpower and resources to build spaceships, invent the Internet, military drones, nuclear weapons, even some cures for cancer, etc not fix a broken pipe? Sure it's deep and cold and there's lots of pressure but come on! Come on!

Going Beyond Petroleum with Macbeth

BP promised to take us Beyond Petroleum and they are certainly doing that. Let's give credit where credit is due. This is well beyond the mere extraction and processing and selling of the stuff.

This is a nightmare that we can't seem to wake up from. It's our tragic flaw exposed. Like a Shakespearean hero, we know better, we know the core problem -- our addiction to petroleum -- but we can't help ourselves. And now we helplessly witness the terrible consequences of our actions.

I pefer this blog to be more of a conversation of ideas, so apologies. I'm rambling and grumbling. It's like this: Not talking about the BP Gulf Oil spill seems negligent and Nero-esque, yet when I do talk about it, the venting takes over.

What good can we take from BP's royal mess?

We may actually turn the corner from Sounds Like a Good Idea to We Really Need to Make This Happen on the renewable energy economy. Such a tragedy though, that the martyrs are the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem and its human connections.

Junkies, All of Us

When can we stop living like this? When can we just get off this addiction? We need a twelve step program for oil. We go cold turkey and tough out the gut-crushing nausea and cold sweats and come out the other side in a bright green energy economy.

We’re hostage to the petroleum economy. When can we get free? When can we evolve? When can we stop having to weigh in our minds how much we care about sludged birds and suffocated fish? When can we stop having to consider the loss of profit or the waste of nature's bounty? When can we just stop having to think about these things?

Just for a moment imagine that we were not asked to have this burden, because we had the wisdom and strength to build a flourishing energy economy on things that don't get used up or burn dirty.

Wouldn’t it be a much better place if our bristling presence in faraway lands was actually motivated by our humanity rather than our addiction to petroleum? No more sending youth to some dusty place to be targets and throwing rhetoric about democracy around it all, just to get our trembling paws on their oil, all so we can drive our air conditioned living rooms to the mall for far less than the cost of a cup of coffee. It’s kind of sick. Addiction is a disease after all.

Make it Stop

Today I tried not to think about the undersea oil geyser but was unsuccessful. I've been spending much energy on this futile mind trick lately. It doesn't work. The vision of this thing so far out of reach, rapidly spewing oil into the water does not recede. The grey-blue petroleum or the white methane billows just pumping, pumping madly out into the water through the grainy disaster-cam.

While I sleep, while I shower, while I think about what I want to eat for dinner, while I tap tap tap on my computer, there it is. Spewing. I feel some kind of pressure. I want it to stop spewing. I just want it to be fixed.

When it is finally stopped, I’ll breathe a sigh of relief. I imagine a party, it's the party to celebrate the end of the flow. I’ll raise a glass and toast the stoppage of the flow, when it happens, hopefully soon. It has to happen. Right? Nevermind that this is only the beginning. Nevermind the fat, giant plumes of oil lurking below the surface and drifting toward the loop current. A new and real monster of the deep.

Sweet

Christening SS Deep Blue

Inaugural post here. Champagne bottle against the hull. This blog will be about ocean conservation, appreciation, and fascination.