We are a culture that lives under the illusion that our technological and monetary powers can repair all the damage inflicted by a technological disaster. History has proven that nothing is further from the truth.
The sad fact of the matter is that given the sheer magnitude and severity of the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, there is no quick technological fix or magic monetary wand that can undo much of the harm inflicted on the environment and the coastal population.
While the Obama administration's BP compensation fund is a positive step in the right direction, it cannot completely restore the environment or replace the way of life that many have lost.
President Barack Obama recently promised Gulf Coast residents that the region would be restored to a state better than before the spill. Unfortunately, he made a promise that no one, including his administration can fulfill. It is a promise that will ultimately come to haunt him and his administration. Sadly, such a pledge illustrates all too clearly how out of touch the president and his advisors are to the brutal reality of catastrophes of this magnitude and oil spills in particular.
Previous disasters of lesser magnitude, such as the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, demonstrate quite clearly that this is an impossible pledge to uphold. Decades of robust research demonstrate unequivocally that the harm inflicted by the 1989 spill to both the environment and the residents of coastal, Southcentral Alaska has, to varying degrees, endured for decades. The residual harm of technological disasters in general persists much longer than that most believe. Previous disaster research in general, much of it ironically funded by federal money, strongly suggests that long after the BP funds have been exhausted the harm will persist.
There are many advantages to a compensation fund, but one of the realities that such a fund ignores is that there is non-remedial harm that simply cannot be remedied by money alone. While recognition of this fact does not diminish the many benefits of such a fund, it sadly ignores the true long-term reality of the complex nature of environmental disasters and underscores why we should never place our environment and our nation at risk for short-term energy gains and the private gain of corporations.
Unfortunately, not all human and environmental problems can be reduced to mere monetary terms. After all, how much is a pelican worth - or, for that matter, an entire species? How much is the rich biotic zone of the Gulf of Mexico worth? What quantitative value can we assign this miraculously complex resource? What reductive process can put a price tag on its value?
By the same token, just how much is a way of life, or a culture worth? Are not cultures priceless? Is there a calculation we can assign to the inherent worth of cultures? Are there actuarial tables that can calculate their value? Does anyone really believe financial compensation can restore a culture or a way of life once it is brought to he edge of extinction or it has been destroyed?
As our nation confronts the worst oil spill in our history, we have to reassess how much we are willing to sacrifice for the greed of a few and how much of this planet we want to leave to those who follow after us. Despite the fact that corporate bureaucrats tell us to rely on technological fixes, such fixes seldom exist. In reality there is no amount of money that can restore the Gulf Coast to its former state, or recreate a way of life once it has been sacrificed.
How did we come to be a society that valorizes corporate profit and greed over and above the benefits of long-term sustainability? How did we arrive at the idea that our environment, or our culture, or the cultures of others around the world, can be subordinated to some economic, quantitative formula?
How did we come to invert this equation to the point where it benefits relatively few inhabitants of this planet at the expense of the rest of us?
After all, as a nation we cherish our American way of life, just as other peoples and nations cherish theirs. Indeed, brave men and women have labored and some have died to protect and preserve our way of life. Are we willing to forfeit it for short-term gain or place its future in precarious balance?
In disaster research we talk about "lessons learned" with the hope that politicians, policy makers and environmental polluters will heed the lessons in order to prevent disasters. As the Deepwater Horizon spill sadly demonstrates, too often these lessons are ignored.
As one astute observer said long ago, "Every time there has been a choice between what is best for Big Oil and what is best for the nation, Big Oil has won." Unfortunately, this is more true today than it was four decades ago.
Instead of talking about how huge corporations, or in this case the oil industry, are too big to fail, or saying that "what is good for the oil industry is good for America (or for that matter the world)," why don't we embrace instead the notion that long-term sustainability, the life of our planet and the existence of our species are "too big too fail?"
Gregory V. Button is a University of Tennessee faculty member specializing in disaster research, including research on several major oil spills. He also is director of UT's Program for Disaster Displacement and Human Rights.
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