Great article by Dr. Rick Steiner posted at The Mudflats - "Lessons of the Deepwater Horizon

By Professor Rick Steiner, Conservation and Sustainability Consultant, Anchorage Alaska
Member, IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy

If one of the hallmarks of intelligence is the ability to learn from mistakes, we must not be looking very intelligent these days.

Time and again over the past few decades we have been presented with the hard, brutal facts about the costs of our addiction to oil – health impacts from air pollution, wilderness lost to drilling, wars to secure oil supplies in the Middle East, vast sums of money paid to oppressive oil-dictators, and the growing and devastating impacts of climate change. And of course, oil spills. As a former oil minister in Venezuela dubbed it, oil is indeed “el excremento del diablo” – the devil’s excrement. Despite the destructive effects of our oil addiction, we still don’t seem to want to seriously change our use of it. We are all junkies looking for the next fix. As many observers have said, we need an overwhelming, clear signal of the costs of oil in order for the public and political leaders to begin to break our century-long addiction to oil.

Today, as millions of gallons of toxic crude oil continue to spew uncontrolled from the mile-deep Deepwater Horizon blowout into the Gulf of Mexico, we are hopeful that this catastrophe will be the very catalyst we need. This may be looked at some day as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are to the nuclear industry. Indeed, the Deepwater Horizon disaster may provide our last best chance to hasten the switch to sustainable energy in time to avert global ecological and economic disaster.

This spill disaster from the Deepwater Horizon blowout at “Mississippi Canyon 252” is like no other humanity has dealt with – it is historic in its size, depth, and potential offshore impact. Here’s what we know so far.

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We must now collectively insist on a massive, urgent, concerted, well-funded transition to a sustainable energy economy. Not just in word, but in deed. We must now put a high price (tax) on carbon-intensive fossil fuels that reflect their true costs, and subsidize energy efficiency and clean, low-carbon energy alternatives. Those in government and industry who still don’t understand this simple fact should be called to task.

The Obama administration, which campaigned on a platform of transition to sustainable energy, needs to suspend entirely its recently released plan for more oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and take full advantage of this wake up call to take us in a new direction.

So far, the signs are not encouraging that the Deepwater Horizon lessons have been recognized and will be heeded by government and industry. But there is still hope. The main question now is whether, after this disaster, we will simply return to business as usual, or use this to catalyze a transition to a new, sustainable reality. It is our choice, and let’s hope that we choose wisely.