It's not that bad...

For three months now, I've been wondering whether to write something but I haven't. But this latest article from the BBC is something that rankles something else in me. The only thing this article doesn't actually come out and say is that it may not have (had) adverse effects at all....(if any). Mind you, it's "devilishly hard" to answer whether 4.9 m barrels of oil spilling into the ocean, might actually just have been really bad, and the question is whether it's the worst one yet, see ....and it's upto the "vagaries of the winds and tides" now, and new green stems are sprouting, see?

I don't know whether this above article is better than another one by an expert in which he compares the spill to buying some iffy chicken tikka masala from a supermarket store and getting an upset stomach. Who is responsible? Do I hold the supermarket responsible or the company that made and sold the iffy chicken tikka masala?...Same things, see? Iffy chicken tikka masala and an oil spill.

In the early 1920s, a sociologist, W.I Thomas, came up with the Thomas Theorem, which states, "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." I don't know why but I never quite got the hang of this during my undergrad days wondering how on earth something could become real, at the social level, just because people believed it to be so.

And BP has come out with another over-200 page report...not surprising that. And no surprises as to how blame is assigned either. There were other corporations involved, see? And who can blame BP really when back in May they pointed out that they needed to drill? There is a demand for oil. They are merely satisfying the rising demand.

And we talk about future generations, our moral responsibility to nature, to animals? How can we even begin to think about these with the commitment required when we aren't even thinking about ourselves ? Where are we going to be/go when our planet becomes inhabitable? Even if we were seriously concerned about ourselves, wouldn't we stop and think some before acting or saying what we do? Or does that never really matter? We can push the limits with our new-fangled technology, not really understanding what we are doing, cut some costs here and there (how much are the piddly amounts that are saved when we are talking of over $400,000 a day for the leasing of an oil rig?), never bother about criminal negligence, and keep ourselves well-fueled and if there are some disasters here and there (and share prices fluctuate) - we can talk about the costs of cleaning up, assign some blame, and then keep walking along while making plans of where to drill next. And of course we must never get into slightly deeper or more uncomfortable questions. Never question the need for more and more oil. Never question whether we can do something about how much we use. Never question whether we could have, by now, switched over to renewable sources while clamping down on our consumption.

For an almost forgotten chemical disaster, some of the people affected were paid some $500 and the PR of the company responsible for the disaster is noted to have said that the amount was more than enough. BP, early on had gone around trying to sign agreements with local fishermen promising $5000 if they would promise not to sue BP.

Some two years ago, I was wondering whether human beings, as a whole race, have some in-built way of forgetting what horrors we wreak. It increasingly seems to me that maybe there's no reason to forget anything because we can convince ourselves that what we do isn't that bad....

I might as well not talk about this. I've been sickened by the whole thing and most of all else that comes as news these days.

P.S:

Here's something amusing....

And here....