Why is noone talking about criminal charges in the case of the BP spill?

It saddens me greatly to see another huge environmental disaster caused by BP. Is it enough just to expect them to pay for the cleanup? I think not.

In 2002 I volunteered to help clean up the Prestige oil spill in Galicia. It was a feeling of incredible impotence. 150 volunteers in our group, and we managed to take out 7 tons of seawater-soaked tar-like oil, sand, seaweed, rocks and debris from the beach per day, and it didn’t even make a dent in the shore where we were working.  It was like putting a band-aid on a severed limb. And it was a preventable disaster, but was not prevented, because oil companies successfully fought legislation which would ban single-hulled tankers.

An oil spill is so disgusting that its hard to describe.  Imagine every inch and every possession in your entire house covered with a thick layer of very sticky black excrement, and then someone hands you a toothbrush and tells you to clean it.

Days later, a storm came through and 4-meter waves scoured the beach far more than we could ever do. The lesson? There is NO easy fix to an oil spill on this scale any more than there was an easy fix to Chernobyl. Time and mother nature are going to sort it out, and the effective response is to work on campaigns to prevent disasters of this sort.

Should you write a check to some NGO, volunteer your hair, get a full-body suit on, or scrub down birds? It may help, just as a bit of gauze may help your severed limb. The smart thing is to ask how the limb got severed, learn from it, and prevent someone else from getting hurt. Is it a psychopath who is to blame? Then prevent him from doing it again. That’s what jails are for, aren’t they?

Why is no one saying the obvious?: That fining BP will merely make them recalculate a cost/benefit analysis. But by calling for more serious measures we are much more likely to get results. Can anyone think of any pressing reasons that we can neither disband the BP corporation or consider holding the engineers of this disaster – BP’s main stockholders – criminally responsible for manslaughter and envirocide? Seem impossible? Well, at the very least the possibility should be entertained. Nothing’s possible unless you take that first step of talking about the elephant in the living room.

That the other oil companies also have terrible environmental and human rights records is no excuse. Their shareholders will take their responsibilities to the rest of humanity and  much more seriously if the possibility exists that they could be put on trial and do time scrubbing floors and washing laundry in a federal prison. Or get their corporate charter  revoked.

BP is guilty. So lets make an example of them. Whats a fine to a billionaire? Even if its a big fine, it’s still just a bad day for someone who won’t ever have to work in their life. Its painfully evident that the ONLY thing that will effectively prevent these types of disasters is to require criminal liability. Stockholders in nearly every corporation systematically try to cut corners on safety systems that save lives and prevent disasters of this type. Stockholders only care about profits, even if it costs lives and environmental disasters such as this one, simply because they can get away with it. That’s the definition of a sociopath, and that’s what jails are supposed to be for. If we’re going to have jails, is there anyone who deserves it more than those responsible for this crime? These stockholders have names and addresses and at the very least they should be made the  object of public ridicule  for their uncaring acts. Or how about several tons of this mess dumped in their patio so that THEY have to look at it every day?

Of course, we all know that it’s very unlikely that the congresspeople who take lobbying dollars from BP are likely to bite the hand that feeds them.  That’s why environmentalists interested in justice eventually turn to methods of direct action. I wish them every success. Tar and feathers are pretty unpleasant and humiliating, but doesn’t every criminal deserve to reap what they sow?

So lets get out there and join in the National Day of Action, Night of Mourning Against Offshore Drilling. on Friday, 14th of May 2010

Advertisement