I wonder how many people first heard about the BP oil spill while driving in their cars on the way to work. It’s a well-known fact that the most profitable time for radio advertisements is between 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m., during the drive time commute. It’s when Morning Edition, NPR’s daily radio news show, pulls in the most listeners.
I wonder how many people heard the news while driving their cars, sipping a bottled water. Or eating a cheap breakfast wrapped in cellophane packaging. I wonder how many people felt any trace of guilt when they heard the news in the midst of their petroleum-based daily product consumption.
I wonder how many people have heard of the Trash Vortex, the area in the Pacific where an “island” the size of Texas (even larger by some estimates) composed almost entirely of plastic trash is forming due to oceanic currents.
The consumption of petroleum based products here in the US and the rest of the world is off the charts. Beyond our obsession with cars, nearly everything we buy at a store is shrink-wrapped, and most of the time we carry our purchases out of the store in petroleum-based plastic bags. According to the Clean Air Council, Americans(combined) throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every HOUR, and in one year, the average American throws away enough cellophane packaging to shrink-wrap an area the size of Texas.
Is it any wonder that we go to war to gain control over parts of the world that produce oil? We’re addicted to the stuff, and unless we radically change the way we live, the way we get from place to place, the way we shop, the products we consume, we are going to be digging ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole we can’t get out of.
So we can point the finger at BP, or the corrupt regulatory processes, or off-shore drilling, or the oil industry itself, but keep in mind that every time you get in your car, or tote your cellophane-wrapped purchases out of the store in a plastic bag, you are as much at fault as the oil executives.
This is a problem that we have all created, a problem we all contribute to, and it’s going to take an awakening on a global scale to change anything. You can do your part: ride a bike instead of driving everywhere, bring your own bags to the grocery store, try and buy food from farmers markets and local stores that don’t carry as many shrink-wrapped products. There are things we as individuals can do to make an impact, but it has to speed up, drastically, or we as a species will not make it.
Our consumption of oil has to be curbed, or we will continue to see disasters like the BP oil spill, like the Exxon Valdez, and we will continue to fight wars based on our own greed and desire to control the resources that sustain our society.
Where there is demand, there will always be a market for supply. Its analogous to the idiotic “War on Drugs” we’ve been fighting for decades in this country. We cannot consume something and then whine about the evil people that sell it to us. That’s asinine. If we didn’t consume it, there wouldn’t be a market for anyone to sell it. This is the power we have as American consumers: if we stop buying a product, there isn’t a way for companies to make a profit, so they’re forced to pull it off the shelves.
I understand that it’s difficult to shop without buying something wrapped in plastic. I understand that its next to impossible for many people to do their jobs without driving. I understand that our society, our culture, is dependent upon petroleum-based products. But we have to try, even if it’s something as simple as trading in your SUV for a smaller, more fuel-efficient car, or buying a water filter and filling up a nalgene instead of buying bottled water.
Every little bit helps, and the more people catch on, the more people start making that little effort, the more impact we can have on the well-being of the Earth and all the living creatures upon it. Mahalo.
