A violent wound on the Earth itself

By Will Parry

It is now evident that BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster is like no other catastrophe in history. The word “spill” does nothing to convey the reality. The Canadian wrier Naomi Klein comes closer, calling it “a violent wound inflicted on the Earth itself.”

The disaster’s monstrous toll on creatures and communities is yet to be reckoned up. That toll mounts with each passing minute as -- seventy days after the initial explosion – we continue to watch, as Klein says, “Earth’s guts gush forth, in real time, 24 hours a day.”

“For the first time in history,” writes Michael T. Klare in the June 14 Nation, “oil is pouring into the deep currents of a semi-enclosed sea, poisoning the water and depriving it of oxygen so that entire classes of marine species are at risk of annihilation. It is as if an underwater neutron bomb has struck the Gulf of Mexico, causing little apparent damage on the surface, but destroying the living creatures below.”

The final reckoning is surely generations away. But with what we’ve already seen since the incendiary explosion of April 20, with its instantaneous death toll of eleven oil rig workers, can there be a person of conscience anywhere who is not outraged?

We’ve seen the photos of pitiable oil-soaked pelicans. We’ve read about the threat to the viability of the fisheries as the oil seeps into the nurturing wetlands. We’ve read about endangered sea turtles corralled into “burn fields” and burned alive.

There are costs of a different order that are no less tragic. Klein warns that “the coast’s legendary culture will contract and wither. The fishing families up and down the coat do not just gather food, after all. They hold up an intricate network that includes family tradition, cuisine, music, art and endangered languages – much like the roots of grass holding up the land in the marsh. Without fishing, these unique cultures lose their root system, the very ground on which they stand.”

BP is no different than other oil companies, raking in billions in profits from their single-minded focus on production, and the hell with safety and the environment. The world needs tough regulation of this industry – and a crash program to create renewable alternatives. As long as these pirates ride high, the planet is endangered and so is the human race.

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