When I heard about the oil spill, I was pretty angry. Between you and me, I was so annoyed I was ready to fill up my car at the Mobil station.
Then I started to read all kinds of stuff blaming BP and Halliburton and TransOceanic.
Luckily, just before my blood pressure hit the roof, I remembered that BP isn’t really an oil company, it’s an energy company.
So, please take a deep breath, and do yourself a favor, and think twice about some of truly mean things people are saying.
Like the crazy idea that the chief operating officers of BP and TransOceanic deserve jail time just because eleven people died and a large portion of the Gulf Coast might be destroyed.
Or that the BP oil spill wasn’t an accident.
That BP would actually sacrifice public safety just because they wanted to make money.
Everywhere you look oil company critics and conspiracy theorists are having a field day telling their twisted story: Deepwater Horizon, the deepest oil well in human history, goes down three and a half miles. Supposedly, BP had already lost $25 million on a previous well. Now, they were losing a million dollars a day on the new well. They had estimated it would take twenty-one days to complete drilling. They were up to six weeks.
So the badmouthers, and you know who you are, say that BP cut corners. They didn’t listen when people came forward to warn them that there were critical problems with their Blow Out Preventer: that broken seal gasket, called the annular, or that malfunctioning pod. The things they needed to successful close the well in an emergency.
Hey, it’s easy to complain. You don’t want to drill, try shoving a windmill down your gas tank.
As for me, I’m sticking with Tony Hayward of BP: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of … oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
Tell it like it is, Tony. We’re talking a big ocean, and a small spill. There’s plenty of fish in the sea. Plenty for you, plenty for me.
Now, these self-same critics are arguing about how small is small. BP and the US government estimate that 5,000 barrels a day are spewing from the well. But, get this, some “independent scientists” studying the video of the gushing oil well have tentatively estimated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day, about 3.4 million gallons a day.
Who do you believe? The egghead scientists?
I’m going to go with BP and the US of A. Why? Because I believe the BP commercials on TV: the beautiful yellow, green, and white sunburst, and that great slogan: Beyond Petroleum. BP isn’t an oil company anymore, they’re an energy company.
Watch one of those commercials and tell me your eyes are dry. You can’t make commercials like that unless you really love the earth. And, believe me, BP loves the earth. How do you know? Because BP puts its money where its mouth is. Because BP gave money to the National Wildlife Federation.
Remember those nifty posters they sold in their gas stations: timber wolves, spotted leopards, golden frogs, elephants, and panda bears. I love panda bears. I love all of BP’s “endangered wildlife friends.”
The ads have pictures of windmills. And solar panels. With that great happy music. Music that makes you realize how great energy really is. So, really, forget about the little bits of oil in the Gulf. It’s energy, baby! And, really, what’s the big deal if some extra energy flows into the Gulf?
As Brother Barack Obama put it two months ago: “… today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration — but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources.”
Barack knows how to tell the story. We’re balancing, baby, balancing and expanding and harnessing. You got to love how we’re going to harness those energy resources at the same time we protect our natural resources. If anyone can balance and harness, it’s Barack.
Now, Barack says it good, but BP says it best: “From the earth to the sun and everything in between.”
It’s a great time to be alive. I’m loving Beyond Petroleum.
______________________________________________________
Mickey Friedman will be spending his vacation in Key West in the Year of Obama, 0001BP.
The Berkshire Record, Thursday May 20, 2010. © Mickey Friedman. All rights reserved.