Friday, June 18, 2010

Oil Spill - Gulf of Mexico

I venture to say that this disaster that is both the work of nature and man will provide a turning-point for the world. Understandably, you may consider my position an exaggeration - 'its just a nasty oil spill'. What we are witness to, live, is the largest energy disaster (I am mindful of Chernobyl - 26 April 1986)in our history, occurring on the coastline of the world's largest economy and hegemon. Do not underestimate this. The culprits in this case are even more shadowy than the world shaking villains of the past.

The images of the disaster, disfigured landscapes and oil-coated marine life have being awash through the pages of the media channels and we are covered in a slick of these images. To the children of the world watching on, trying to comprehend what they are seeing, what shall they make of it? How does this fit into the world? What can we impute from it? Those that caused the problem do not know how to fix it.

The President of the United States has ramped up his dialogue on this catastrophic addiction to carbon energy. There are answers but they do not have the one critical economic unit that is the key to oil – its relative cost.

The word addiction is used in a broader rather than medical sense, as we may call a person addicted to exercise. Extending the use of this word, the world has a problem with addiction to oil, and the weaning process, the drying out of the world economy from it's 'opioid' will hold much pain.

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