Gulf Mess a Tipping Point?

The British Petroleum [BP] oil "volcano" in the Gulf of Mexico has generated what may become one of the prominent tipping points in the history of the United States. It will be a true tipping point if it convinces the body politic to act decisively to turn our full effort to free our dependence on oil and accelerate a drive to all forms of alternate energy sources. From this day--the 51st day of the spill, the probability of this happening seems to depend upon the public reaction to the environmental devastation. The press coverage of the environmental impact has been impressively prominent with photos of the invasion of the oil into fragile wetlands along the outer Louisiana delta, the depressing death and impairment of large birds coated with crude and early shore drift of oil blobs on the beaches along the Florida panhandle. With the closing of major fishing and shrimping areas, the economic loss in these industries is coupled with speculation of the effect of the oil on the marine life itself. The adverse impact on larger sea life and the toxic effect of the oil and possibly the dispersant that is being employed is also being noted in press and TV stories. The possibility of extensive damage from oil looping out of the Gulf and into Atlantic waters is expanding the fear of more widespread environmental damage. Finally, the fact that containment is not possible until emergency side wells can seal the source in late August, makes any comprehensive environmental assessment premature.
The tipping point may be real if the economic impact becomes more acute. If further jobs are lost in the fishing, oystering and shrimp industries with an unknown time for recovery, this economic impact could build. Progressive drift of oil on vacation beaches could see a sharp drop in tourism. A moratorium on deep water drilling for six months could adversely affect employment in the drilling industry itself. Noxious plums of sub-surface oil may have lasting economic damage to all marine based industries for years to come. The cost to state and federal governments mounting the clean-up effort will a economic repercussions far into the future. Again, all economic bad news may be only a rough estimate.
Notice that in spite of the enormous environmental and economic distress, I said that the oil mess MAY become a tipping point. I sincerely hope that it does. I fervently hope that the American people get the message and quickly get behind the Obama administration's policy to direct all our efforts to abandon our fossil fuel economy. My read of our political scene, however, leads me to think otherwise. All of the economic loss in aggregate is not going to alter the public's "drill, baby, drill" mantra. Law suites will fly against BP and partners, and civil and criminal suites will pay off the vocal. The oil lobby will spend millions to keep us from changing course. As far as punitive damages against BP, forget about it. The Supreme Court excused Exxon from paying $5 Billion in such damages, some fifteen years after the Prince Edward Sound disaster. Remember, Judge Sam Alito recused himself because he owned Exxon stock. With this precedent, there will hardly be a judge from Texas to Florida that will be available to hear a case.
As far as environmental damage is concerned, this country only pays lip service to saving the planet. Even the statement that this is the largest environmental disaster in the history of the world is not likely to have much impact on the American public inured to the poisoning of our air and waters for two centuries. Chesapeake Bay was nearly destroyed in the mid-twentieth century and we still cannot find funding to do the recovery work. I cannot eat fish out of Lake Ontario, where I live. A country that does not care about the overfishing to extinction of the world's oceans is not likely to care a wit about oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
And conservation? Not once have I heard one word about any measure to conserve gas. President Nixon's 55 mile speed limit to conserve is an historical joke. So, the Gulf mess is depressing, but more depressing is my conclusion that we are not going to change course, not with the fall elections coming up and the Tea Party gathering steam. I doubt this will be any tipping point.