Sometimes I think that when people hate something external to them, they are in fact trying to hide that they feel guilty about stuff they have done, and since this something reminds them too much of their own guilt, it becomes a target for frustrations and bad feelings in general. I’m saying this because yesterday I was on the airport waiting for my flight back to São Paulo (I had been in my grandparents’ small town near Salvador these days), and bought a Newsweek magazine to read and try not to die out of boredom. Well, I’m glad I did.
Amidst writings about the post-China world (I’m so tired of so-called analysts trying to predict the world’s economic future, when they clearly cannot); how the lack of democracy in African countries is so prevalent that in order to do business with them, the richer countries are downplaying the usual UN-demanded political pre-conditions (is that even news? That’s what they always do!); and how nowadays marriage is becoming an obsolete institution (this one I can agree with); there was a small commentary that, recently, President Obama of the U.S is likely trying to emphasize that his country is not to blame for the Gulf oil leak, by calling BP by its actual name, BRITISH Petroleum.
Also it is well-known how people from all over the world have been talking bad stuff about BP lately, and showing actual hatred for its higher-ranked employees. Look, BP is obviously to blame. It royally screwed up, there’s no arguing that, and something went completely wrong. The company’s processes are ridiculously convoluted (as was shown here http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/09/bp-oil-spill-contingency-plan) and they clearly seem like they don’t know what the heck they must do to stop the leak, much less predict how long it will take to clean the mess. However, and here I’m only giving my opinion, hating BP is too hypocritical.
First of all, as far as I know the U.S government was the one that ceded its shores for petroleum drilling, even though BP’s contingency plans in case something went wrong had glaring errors. So, too many people in government were paying attention to the profits and economic benefits of deep-water oil exploitation, instead of doing their jobs of actually checking if BP was doing its job properly. As it turns out, nobody was doing their jobs as they should, and of course, once irresponsibility goes on for too long, disasters happen. Decision-makers, as usual, were probably too busy driving expensive cars, getting some with hot women that only care about their money and rising their drug-addicted kids to actually make good decisions.
Secondly and last, BP wouldn’t exist if it didn’t have…guess what, consumers for the oil it so gleefully extracts from Earth’s inner cores. As someone that had hands-on experience with oil drilling software (as I worked on one) and thus has above-average knowledge on how the drilling process happens, I can safely say that it’s one of the most aggressive, if not the most aggressive, things that humans have ever done to Nature. If Earth was a person, I’d say that oil drilling is continuous rape. And I’m not kidding on that. Oil is essential to modern life, of course, but what I don’t get is this incessant urge of finding out more and more new reservoirs, and then nearly instantly starting to exploit them, even though oil production as it is right now is fully able to absorb consumer demands, and even if the majority of oil reservoirs are far from becoming empty. One could say “hey, but it’s good to find new reservoirs because lots of jobs are created, and economies receive a boost”. Ok, but is it really worth it? Especially when jobs could also be created by focusing on how to improve the drilling process itself, making it safer, cleaner and more efficient? It seems obvious that no one has been focusing enough on such improvements. In addition, does the population of countries heavily dependent on oil extraction really benefit that much from the business? I guess not, given that the petroleum industry gains aren’t shared as they should. Just take Saudi Arabia as a prime example. And Brazil too, by the way.
Even with all these problems, most people seem to support oil companies and new oil extraction ventures, attracted by the promises of new jobs and “unprecedented economic growth”. Also, they can’t stop complaining every time gasoline prices go up, even if a tiny little bit. If everybody falls for the same tricks of big companies and governments (who are the ones that make the big bucks and actually benefit from the industry) every time, and to top it off want every consumption item on their lives to be dirt cheap, who are we to hate BP really?
This is hypocrisy on my book. Another example: when people want to buy more and cheaper every day, and start thinking they should change their mobile phones and computers every year (otherwise they are poor!), and then go on to complain how Microsoft or Apple or Nike enslave thousands, if not millions, of Chinese people by choosing factories in China to make their goods, they are also being completely hypocritical. Factories in China pay a fraction of what they should to their employees and force them to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, not because they are “evil”, but because consumers all over the world want their optical mouses to cost $30, and their Nintendo Wiis to cost $250 (or less).
How about we stop pretending that we care?
No such place as far away 