The BP Oil Disaster - Is It Enough To Cause Americans To Take Personal Responsibility? Consume Less?

[TomCADem]

I am reminded of how for several decades, we as a country continued to spend more and more of our income, until we were spending at a negative savings rate. Then, the Great Recession hit, and people finally began to save more, and reversing decades of spending escalation even as it meant a decline in standard of living.

The question I have is whether Americans will begin to take personal responsibility for the BP oil disaster? Even now, many polls show that Americans still support offshore oil drilling despite the evidence that the technology to combat oil leaks from wells deep water simply does not exist. Right now, the BP oil leak is history's greatest science experiment. The amazing thing is that if we stop the leak, it could just as easily be due to sheer luck, such as successfully drilling a relief well that hits the bore that is causing the leak.

Many Americans will convince themselves that there is someone at fault like the Obama administration AND that if simply change administrations, then it will be safe to drill more than a mile below. Americans will also likely convince themselves that the technology to clean up such disasters will be developed some day, so why not start drilling now? These beliefs will likely be spread by PR firms in order to help Americans justify their continued support for deep water oil drilling.

However, the question is whether at some point will Americans take individual responsibility? I think of the "patriots" who have stickers on their large SUVs supporting our troops even as they drive gas guzzling cars that consume gasoline made from oil purchased from regimes that are hostile to the U.S. Will the BP oil disaster finally cause Americans to consider their dependance on oil on a personal level?

Right now, I think most people still think that our oil dependence, our energy crisis, and the BP oil spill is some other guy's fault. Thus, many Americans still support offshore oil drilling, because they assume that it is a simple matter of drilling correctly and responding to such oil spills more effectively. However, what if there is no there, there? What if it simply unsafe to drill at such depths, and what if there really is no technological means to promptly shut down such oil leaks more than mile below the surface?

So long as it is some other guy's fault, we felt free from the need to change our individual habits. Thus, the suburban patriot in my example above could support their troops with a sticker while driving the gas guzzler that supported the hostile nations that our troops protected us from. The disconnect and irony were loss on us.

Will the message begin to hit home to us individually? Will Americans reverse the erosion in their belief in climate change? Will they begin to demand the development of alternative energy sources? Will they individually begin to change their lives so that they consume oil less? This may result in a decline in living standards, which is a heresy for many. But maybe we have lived too large as a nation? Perhaps we all bear individual responsibility for our collective well being, and maybe this responsibility will begin to translate into belief, if not action.

[Scuba]

1. Yeah, it's my fault....

...for driving to work. I needed gas, so I wrote BP and asked them to bribe the regulators with whores and drugs so they could drill in an unsafe manner and get me my gas.

[Hannah Bell]

2. me too. spending $20/month on gas empowers bp. i'm personally responsible for their 150-year-old

world-wide empire.

they're an immortal corporation and it's all my fault.

god i'm sick of these silly posts.

the reverse face of "it's your consumer 'choices' that run the world, we are merely your servants".

ok, servants, let us vote on how to organize the world, including your profit margins & personnel choices.

[TomCADem]

4. The U.S. Is The Largest Carbon Emitter Per Capita - How Can The U.S. Respond?

If each of its citizens believe it is someone else's job to address this issue? Don't blame me. Blame a corporation, politician, but do not dare suggest that I need to change my lifestyle. The facts are clear. The U.S. is the largest consumer of fossil fuels on the planet. On a per capita basis, each of us is an energy hog. Our economy is founded upon cheap oil. Americans gleefully demanded that we "Drill Here, Drill Now," and ridiculed like you have the suggestions of energy consumption. Remember the tire pressure guage in the 2008 campaign even though Obama stated back in August 2008 that he was open to offshore oil drilling? Now, we attack him for considering off shore oil drilling, but back in 2008, Obama was attacked for not embracing more oil drilling as the primary solution for our nation's energy problems.

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Now, looking at this graph, do you think we need to work to change it? If so, won't that have an impact on your life?

[Hannah Bell]

10. I think that it's not a question of individual "lifestyle," it's a question of national

lifestyle.

1. US military largest single user of oil in the world.
2. US has few mass transit installations, long-distance or city.
3. US has largely suburban housing grids, and to large extent work locations mirror this.

These are all things individuals accomodate themselves to; they didn't create them & can't but to a limited extent change via consumer "choice."

[William Z. Foster]

14. you are speaking for the rulers

When you say "the US" and "we" you are referring to the rulers, with whom you must therefore logically strongly personally identify. When you say "our economy" you are talking about their economy, the economy that serves only the wealthy few.

Here is the change we need for our "lifestyles" - stop speaking and working for the benefit of rulers and start building solidarity among the working class and working to end the control over us by our tormentors. Dedicate yourself to the well-being of others, instead of blaming them and scolding them for things over which they have no power or control. Let's try that "lifestyle."

Were there public transportation - and when there was - people won't be driving. They drive because they must.

Social issues are public issues, not personal lifestyle issues.

[TomCADem]

27. I Am Saying That We Are Individually Responsible For Our Collective Well Being

Let me put it this way. When you brush your teeth, do you leave the water on? That is an individual choice. But, collectively, everyone leaving the water on results in millions of gallons of wasted drinking water increasing demand.

Now, a libertarian or right winger would say just look out for number 1, and screw everyone else. But, what I am discussing is our obligation to the greater community to make better, more environmentally sound choices.

For some reason, many "liberals" responding to this thread, rebel against the idea of individual responsibility for our collective well being.

Do we need better regulation? Yes. But, we also need to embrace a more environmentally conscious lifestyle. Maybe you can't get a job closer to where you live. But, perhaps you can buy local, in-season produce, rather than grapes in the dead of winter, which must have been trucked thousands of miles to get to your plate. Perhaps we can eat a little less meat, and a little more greens.

When 70 percent of public states in response to a poll that they support expanded offshore oil drilling, are they not not responsible in part for the environmental disasters that follow?

If we cannot take individual responsibility for the choices that are within our discretion to make, how can we expect politicians to go against public opinion and millions in oil industry campaign contributions, and implement wise policies?

Even cap and trade, which is a relatively modest effort to promote alternative energy over fossil fuels has encountered steep resistance as an energy tax by the American Petroleum Institute.

[William Z. Foster]

35. I see

I understand your point of view much better now, and you make some good points.

There was a time, and it still exists in agriculture to some extent, where better individual choices were encouraged within a context of public assistance and support. That system worked very well, and still exists although it is under horrendous pressure right now from the corporations who want their hands on the food supply and want unfettered access to rural land.

Let's look at one example where the personal choice model works against providing more and better choices for everyone.

You say "perhaps you can buy local, in-season produce, rather than grapes in the dead of winter, which must have been trucked thousands of miles to get to your plate. Perhaps we can eat a little less meat, and a little more greens."

Here we have ideal conditions and soil and weather for growing cherries - proximity to the lake, sandy soil, rolling hills, long photo periods at peak ripening time, wide temperature variations over 24 hour cycles, sufficient chill hours in the winter. All of this is ideal for deciduous fruit. There are several hundred small family growers. Tomatoes, cukes, sweet corn, and melons do not do so well here. 150 miles south of here, there is an area where conditions are perfect for growing tomatoes, cukes, sweet corn, and melons - deep soil, warmer, more humid, wetter. There are several dozen small family growers there. So the farmers here through the season run their trucks full of fruit down to those farmers, load up with tomatoes and such and head back. The roadside stands and fruit markets in each location now have a wider range of superior produce fresh daily. Perfect. But "buy local" foodie activists in both locations are critical, and are shutting out or boycotting the growers who are doing that because "it isn't local."

In season is always a good idea, but there are exceptions. Dried fruit, concentrates and canned fruits are all good traditional ways to keep fruit in people's diets year 'round. Bringing apples up from New Zealand in the spring, very efficiently by the boatloads, and from a fair trading partner with equivalent environmental, safety, labor and good farm practices standards is not a bad thing. In the Fall, we send fruit the other way. You have to think in terms of tons per gallon of fuel, and fruit can be moved across the ocean by ship very efficiently. More efficiently - on a ton-gallon basis - then hundreds of people driving their personal cars every week to a CSA to pick up a small bag of veggies, for example.

Meat is subsidized by the government (nothing wrong with subsidizing the eaters, in my view, which is what that amounts to) fruits and vegetables are not. A change there would lead to more fruit and vegetable consumption. So would increased funding to the USDA for educational and public outreach programs. Those are public programs, and we should be advocating those rather than nagging people about their personal choices - if we want results rather than to just feel good and feel superior or something.

But the biggest thing we could do to overhaul our food system would be to get Wall Street out of it all together. Promoting organic, for example, helps corporations, which gives Wall Street more clout, which gives Wall Street more control over the food system, which leads to less food, higher prices, and lower quality. As organic became successful, corporations found ways to fool the public and buy inferior produce from overseas through a dummy holding company, and then sell it through hidden connection under what appear to be independent brand names. The organic demand is giving Wall Street - the corporations - a way to get around the health and safety inspections and regulations and to fool a gullible public. How did the public become vulnerable to this? By the promotion of "organic" as some "good choice." Corporations will always exploit and corrupt any "personal choice" movement.

What you are describing here, is the problem and not the solution:

When 70 percent of public states in response to a poll that they support expanded offshore oil drilling, are they not not responsible in part for the environmental disasters that follow?

If we cannot take individual responsibility for the choices that are within our discretion to make, how can we expect politicians to go against public opinion and millions in oil industry campaign contributions, and implement wise policies?

You are right, that is all unworkable and impossible. "Take individual responsibility for the choices" will not change that. So we have to rethink it.

Here are some choices that are within our discretion to make:

- Stop looking to partisan electoral politics as the end all be all of politics.

- Start advocating for a robust national food policy, rather than yammering about personal foodie choices.

- Organize outside of the partisan political process to overthrow the total domination and control over our lives that corporations now have.

- At all times, fight for public solutions to social problems, not privatized or individual solutions.

- Reject the "shop our way to progressive change" mentality and see consumerism as the problem, not the solution.

Let's take personal responsibility for those. Let's take personal responsibility for all of the people, and fight for better things for all of them, rather than arguing for each of us individually trying to find better choices within an unjust and unworkable system.

We are never going to get politicians or corporations to "do the right thing." We do not have the power to make them, and they must be forced. We get power only by banding together in common cause. Personal choice, personal responsibility, consumerism and privatization all work against that.

[TomCADem]

3. U.S. Per Capita Energy Consumption - So, We Bear No Responsibility?

There is a gap between reality and the polls. The reality is that the technology to stop such leaks has not kept up with the technology to drill a mile down.

Also, is bribery the cause of climate change? Do you bear responsibility for that? Or, is it some other guy's fault as well? Americans consume far more energy per capita than most countries:

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So, let me ask you? Do you think you bear some responsibility?

[Scuba]

7. OK, so what do you suggest...

... besided politicking for better government and regulations, what do you think I should be doing?

Moving near where I work? Unfortunately, the current employment culture in America has caused me to have to change jobs many times over the past 40 years. Was I supposed to move every time?


Bicycle to work? Same problem. At one point I had a 1,200 mile commute. I flew back and forth each week, consuming vast quantities of jet fuel that wouldn't have been used had my seat on the plane been empty, like the one next to me sometimes was. :sarcasm:


Change careers? Pretty hard to do without burning down everything you've worked for and starting over. Do I live better than the average European? Maybe, a little, in terms of my home and fuel-consumption history. Am I in the top 20% of Americans who own 93% of American wealth? Hardly, I've been scraping by, saving for retirement, and then seeing it vanish when the casino my 401k played in turned out to be fixed.


Please suggest some alternatives. Thanks

[TomCADem]

9. Easy, How About Purchaing In-Season Produce For One...

It seems like you are suggesting that if you cannot quit or dramatically reduce oil consumption cold turkey, then why bother?

The purpose of my post is to note that we each have individual responsibility for our collective well-being. When off-shore oil drilling is a popular policy choice supported by up to 70 percent of the population at times, then we are collective paving the way to an environmental disaster like the one happening off the coast.

Individually, we need to not only demand political change as you suggest, and support environmentally friendly policies, but we also must begin to implement such choices in our own lives, rather than waiting for a federal mandate, since even liberals often hate governmental mandates.

Buying locally produced goods is low hanging fruit. I used to love tomatoes or various fruits year around. But, of course, these fruits have to come vast distances. Why not support the local economy and the environment by buying local in-season produce to the extent you can.

Look at bottled water. This is a bad habit I've learned to drop. Now, I use a filter, which results in water that is just as pure.

Eat less meat. You don't need to go vegan. Read Michael Pollan's book Food Rules.

Fifty percent of our energy use is due to transportation and residential use. Governmental mandates alone are not going to reduce per capita energy usage. Rather. we will each need to take individual responsibility for our collective welfare. This is an ongoing process where each day we need to challenge ourselves to do better.

Just because we can't go native or live on the doorstep of our place of work is not a reason to discount our responsibility for energy usage. Little steps for little feet is the beginning of this journey that we must all individually take.

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[Scuba]

16. Nah, that won't make even a small dent... look at your graph... what's missing? ....

... the US military, worlds largest single consumer of energy.

[TomCADem]

28. Michael Pollan - "How Much Oil Are We Eating?"

The odd thing is that while we attack BP, many of us defend corporate consumerism.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/michael-pollan-food-policy-44101308

Why will food become such a central issue? Pollan says food must be addressed in order to successfully reform climate change (the author says the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy or put another way, "when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases"); the health care crisis ("It is no coincidence that in the years national spending on health care went from 5 percent to 16 percent of national income, spending on food has fallen by a comparable amount,"--all of those cheap calories have affected public health, and our diets have to be addressed); and food has to be a focus due to its global impact.

[William Z. Foster]

13. none of that, I would say

Educate, organize, mobilize, resist. That is how all social progress has been achieved.

We can accomplish nothing as a matter of personal individual choice. We can accomplish everything by mass action.

Personal lifestyle choice chatter is only relevant for the privileged classes and their defenders and wannabes.

[Scuba]

17. Yes! You've nailed it.

[William Z. Foster]

21. it always happens

Every time there is a serious screw up by a corporation, or an obvious heist from the pockets of the working people, we suddenly have a tidal wave of commentary like this - "we have only ourselves to blame!! We must change our lifestyles!"

[Kablooie]

5. Without corporations changing it's futile. Individuals are a very small part of the problem.

Corporations include the military and all world shipping.

[DrDan]

6. is all that oil U.S.-bound only? or put on the world market.

[catgirl]

8. Thank you for all your posts in this thread

It's unfortunate that it makes some people defensive and shirk off the blame. We're all to blame.
If everyone did their part, we'd at the very least, use less oil.

Some have asked, what are the alternatives? Gee, start by walking when you can, turning down the
thermostat, buying hybrid or electric car, car-pooling, buying local products, doing errands that req.
driving, all at once.... This list could go on and on.

[Subdivisions]

11. '...use less oil' indeed...

In the United States we currently use 21 million barrels of oil per day. However, we produce just 5 million barrels per day. We need to reduce our oil consumption to match our own domestic production so that we no longer use or depend on foreign oil. That needs to be the goal and meeting it would provide uncounted opportunities.

[Scuba]

15. Thanks for your thoughtful answer....

...I think all Americans should do these things, but it still won't be enough. The US military uses more oil than all the retail consumers combined.

WE HAVE TO DEVELOP AN ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SUPPLY.

I believe the moon can provide most of the energy we need, via the tides. Too bad we didn't fund that type research with the billions of dollars of tax breaks Bush/Cheney gave to THE MOST PROFITABLE INDUSTRY IN THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE.

ok, no more shouting.

[AllentownJake]

19. What a fucking crock of shit

"If we all did our part"

Yes because reducing US demand will make the companies less likely to try to find more of the substance and extract it and sell it.

We should be more energy efficient but I'll be damned if I take responsibility for a greedy bunch of executives taking huge risks in off shore drilling for a few extra points in their stock price.

BP ignored saftey to make a few extra dollars and you want to let them off the hook with some nonsense we are all to blame?

Here is when the world gets off oil...when the last bit of it is burned.

[catgirl]

36. Deep breath n/t

[spin]

24. I'll lay the blame at the feet of all the politicians in national office since 1973...

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the oapec (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia) proclaimed an oil embargo "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war; it lasted until March 1974.<1> . With the US actions seen as initiating the oil embargo and the long term possibility of high oil prices, disrupted supply and recession, a strong rift was created within NATO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis

We got a warning back then and we started to look into green energy programs to reduce our dependence on oil. Once the price of oil dropped, the financing for the green energy research evaporated.

Not all countries were so shortsighted.

Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. (And it didn’t happen by Danish politicians making their people stupid by telling them the solution was simply more offshore drilling.)

What was the trick? To be sure, Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea. But despite that, Danes imposed on themselves a set of gasoline taxes, CO2 taxes and building-and-appliance efficiency standards that allowed them to grow their economy — while barely growing their energy consumption — and gave birth to a Danish clean-power industry that is one of the most competitive in the world today. Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America? About 1 percent.

And did Danes suffer from their government shaping the market with energy taxes to stimulate innovations in clean power? In one word, said Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy: “No.” It just forced them to innovate more — like the way Danes recycle waste heat from their coal-fired power plants and use it for home heating and hot water, or the way they incinerate their trash in central stations to provide home heating. (There are virtually no landfills here.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/opinion/10friedman1.html?_r=1

[laughingliberal]

29. Add in the corporate vultures and I'm with you. nt

[spin]

33. No problem. I'll add them in. (n/t)

[William Z. Foster]

12. I certainly hope not

That would be going in the wrong direction.

"Personal responsibility" and blaming the working class people is politically extremely reactionary.

[AllentownJake]

18. Post 3000 of we are to blame for the incompetence of BP executives

Oh if only we would have found a way to fight them better.

They have owned the world since Theodore Roosevelt was President. About the only administration that has effectively ever did any damage to them was Theodore Roosevelt's and that was before a device for transportation practically every American uses was widely utilized.

Franklin Roosevelt who had effective dictatorial powers for 13 years couldn't touch these assholes and you want to blame the American people.

Let us focus on the present here, they have been caught with their pants down and their ass fully exposed to the world. Let us get our licks in while we can because it won't last long.

[TransitJohn]

20. If the Arab oil embargoes of the '70s which hit us in the wallet didn't

I don't hold out much hope that this will.

[inna]

22. more "personal responsibility" crap.

Pathetic.

[Brickbat]

23. I'd rather it inspire us to demand responsibility from corporations and the government.

And I don't mean "demand" by writing letters and marching when it's convenient. I mean large-scale protests. So I guess my answer is "No, I don't think even this will inspire people to do so."

[TomCADem]

30. Scientific American - "Environmental ills? It's consumerism, stupid" - Corporations Love Consumerism

The best way to fight corporations is to turn away from the gospel of consumerism. We DO need more regulations. But, we also need to fundamentally get away from our corporate sponsored consumer culture. The grand irony is that on a liberal board, people are reacting defensively to a post that asks us to individually reject consumerism for our collective well being.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=environmental-ills-its-consumerism-2010-01-22

As simply put by the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005: "Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted."

And consumerism isn't even delivering on its own promise—a better life. "Not only is consumer culture causing unprecedented environmental havoc, it is in many cases not delivering the well-being for human beings it is supposed to," argued Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute during a press conference last week to release its new State of the World report, "Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability." "The kinds of changes in policy discussed at Copenhagen are also critical and, in fact, will go hand in hand with a cultural shift "

What does he mean by a cultural shift? Well, for example, a change from current Western burial methods—injecting corpses with toxic chemicals, sealing them in expensive, non-degradable boxes that are then planted in cemeteries that maintain eternal greenness with fertilizers and pesticides—to burying loved ones in ways designed to heal families as well as the local environment (and ultimately turning these sites into natural reserves). "Two centuries of intentional cultivation of consumerism has led us to see it as perfectly natural to see ourselves primarily by what and how we consume," argued Erik Assadourian, lead author of the report for Worldwatch, whether that be McDonald's hamburgers or Hummer vehicles.

The Worldwatch researchers identify six key institutions that must be changed to promote sustainability: education, business, media, government, social movements and cultural traditions. "It's not a project out of whole new cloth," argued report co-author and political scientist Michael Maniates of Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. "There are strong cultural elements that treasure things like frugality or thrift. We need to re-center conditions in culture that call out that within us that has been suppressed."

Nor is this cultural ethic of consumerism confined to the developed world; developing countries are adopting it as an economic model. "Consumerism is now spreading around the world," Assadourian added, noting that China, among other things, has surpassed the U.S. as the largest market for new cars as well as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. "Is this going to keep spreading? Or are countries going to start recognizing that this is not a good path?"

[Duer 157099]

25. Wrong question to ask about this disaster

It's a valid question in other context, but not this one.

The correct question to be asking now is, as pointed out by other posters, will the American people finally realize how vital it is to properly REGULATE the corporations?

And not only that, but will the tea bagging portion of the American people finally realize that we need BIGGER federal government when it comes to science, technology and the sorts of skills needed to contain this accident?

There are lots of lessons the American people should be learning from this mess, but diverting the focus to personal consumption is, imho, one big red herring. At a time when we need FOCUS.

[Cleita]

26. I don't think we are doing the majority of the consuming, I mean the

average working class family isn't. It's big business that's doing it. All the trucks on the road burning up gas, airplanes using jet fuel and all the high rise buildings consuming electricity for lights and air conditioning, not to mention heating. Many of us don't have a choice. If we rent, we can't just go out and get solar, and ethanol is very hard to find to put in cars. I remember when I lived in Southern California, the consume less advocates were always coming after us peons to sacrifice and to use less water and electricity, but it wasn't us who was using the lion's share. It was the many and varied businesses that were doing it. How many toilets flushing in large high rises and other institutions and showers in hotels consume less water than us?

[Swamp Rat]

31. Is it enough to get the current administration to investigate the last one?

[Imajika]

32. Not at all

No one is going to change a thing because of this oil spill. And if gas prices go up, Americans will demand we drill down through the oily Gulf waters for more oil.

Oil drives our economy, and as someone said in this thread somewhere - we will use the oil till we've burned up the last drop. We may become more efficient at using it, but there are more and more humans on this planet all the time who will expect their share of hydrocarbons. Further, the Chinese and Indian economies will increasingly require so much more oil that our cutting back might not even make a significant difference in the grand scheme of things.

No one is willing to give up anything. For better or worse, we want it all. We don't even make tough budget decisions much of the time, we just spend on everyone's priorities and run up huge debts.

[Individualist]

34. Another unrec for another blame the people, not the corporations post.