When it comes to marking anniversaries, champagne for two is sometimes the appropriate path but there are many anniversaries that are more appropriate marked by serious (and loud) crowds. Today is such an anniversary, where we should be working together to remind people of what occurred and what is still occurring on what merits note as a dark day in humanity’s fossil-foolish addictions.
A year ago, “Beyond Petroleum”‘s Deepwater Horizon exploratory drilling rig blew up. While, a year ago, we were told ‘nothing to see, don’t worry’, this merits a spot among the worst single environmental disasters in human history. Day after day, 10,000s of barrels of oil surged into the Gulf of Mexico killing unknown numbers of wildlife, creating havoc for the people along the cost, and creating incredibly uncertain long-term implications for wildlife and humanity in the region. (See NRDC’s The BP Oil Disaster at One Year: A Straightforward Assessment of What We Know, What We Don’t, and What Questions Need to be Answered.)
People are taking different paths to draw attention to the anniversary. BP is marking the anniversary with donations to Republican politicians and Republican political organizations. Representative Darryl Issa is marking the anniversary with attacks on President Obama for not more aggressively supporting deepwater oil exploration and drilling (a Twit’s tweet). Credo is reminding U.S. that BP has been deducting all of the costs related to the spill so that they eliminate their U.S. tax liability. And, 1000s of people are taking their remembrance to the streets, shutting down BP gas stations in an effort to capture attention to America’s fossil foolish addiction and BP’s failures over the past year to adequately address the damage that their actions caused.
These actions have a simple and straightforward tagline: Make BP Pay!.
The Gulf is still suffering and BP hasn’t cleaned up it’s mess or paid up. It’s time for President Obama to stand up to big polluters and make BP pay!
In a precursor, here is what happened Sunday when Powershift 2011 attendees took to the streets.