No oil, not here, not now

I am at home this weekend. The gardenias are blooming and the air smells wonderful; however it is too hot and humid to spend much time outside enjoying the aroma. I’m sitting in the den looking out at the dogwood and other shrubs and trees in the background. There is so much beauty in nature.

I have spent a great deal of time in the national parks. When I was younger, I backpacked and camped frequently and was able to experience nature. There is nothing like it. I also camped on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay and enjoyed sailing in regattas on the bay.

I’ve been to the Great Salt Lake and marveled at a different type of beauty there. This country has such a variety of landscapes and opportunities to experience nature. My husband and I were talking about our descendents today and how we have forgotten them as we make our own lives easier. He commented that while we have forgotten them, they will not forget about us; nor will they be able to ignore the damage we have done to the environment.

He is right. Today, in addition to the Gulf oil spill, Chevron is trying to stop an oil leak before the oil reaches the Great Salt Lake, and a North Carolina company is battling a natural gas fire caused by a lightening striking at a tank farm near Greensboro, NC. There was a natural gas explosion in Cleburne, Texas earlier this month.

The oil and gas industries create a great number of jobs. The governor of Louisiana doesn’t want a moratorium on oil drilling because of the number of jobs that will be lost. At the same time he is demanding that clean up of the current oil spill be handled immediately. The estimates of how long the clean up will take vary from a year to a hundred years.

I know that the people working in the oil industry need jobs. I also wonder if I’ll ever be able to take my grandchildren to the gulf beaches for a vacation without subjecting them to toxic water. I wonder how far the oil will spread. Will it hit the Atlantic and poison the fish there?

The oil experts are now telling us that there “might be” problems at other oil wells in the Gulf with the same shut off valve that failed at Deep Water Horizon.

Not only is oil a non-renewable resource, it is extremely dangerous to the environment. It contains toxins and carcinogens such as benzene, toluene, and xylenes. The chemicals will enter the food chain in the Gulf, will create health hazards for workers doing the clean up, and will cause pollution of the air when the BP does the necessary burn of the oil.

It is time to completely revamp our energy policy. We need to look at how we can create energy jobs in renewable, clean, sustainable energy. Our slogan can not be “drill here, drill now.” It must be “No oil, not here, not now.”