Photo reblogged from Jamie (Internet remix)
When I replied to Gruber’s tweet, I thought of Sarah’s early ones.
We all do things that are morally fraught. Some of us speed (possibly) endangering the lives of others. Some of us smoke, which pollutes the air and, what’s more, lines the pockets of truly evil corporations. Some of us shop at stores that resist workers organizing at all costs or buy from manufacturers who don’t pay workers a living wage. The act of buying gas—and, indeed, driving itself—is really no different. There are no green oil companies, no matter what they claim in their ads. Corporations are, for better or for worse, driven by only one motivation: maximize profits for shareholders. Some of them simply go about it in more evil ways than others.
Where is the line we draw—this is too evil, but this is acceptably evil?
I’m not disparaging people who will boycott BP, nor am I saying that we shouldn’t base our purchasing decisions on the actions of companies. I’m just saying that the world is imperfect, as are consumers, and each of us has to decide for ourselves what we can tolerate and what we can’t.
I think Sarah has the only appropriate response, if we want to see fewer/no oil spills, we don’t need a new oil company, we need to use less oil. Most industrial failures are calculated as a percentage (normally a very small one) which means if you decrease the number of wells by a factor of x, you will decrease the number of failures by x as well.
One stat I find amazing, all the oil currently floating around the gulf and stuck to birds and in marshes, etc. is less oil than this country uses in a single day.
Source: jamiek
