How BP can win me back RE

[thudd]

I'm not sure this is the place for this, but this is my response to Dan's most recent video. I'm new to this tribe and apologize if I'm somehow interrupting the normal flow of things by posting something where it doesn't belong. I don't know where else to put it, as my response was too long for a youtube comment and I have no way to make a video response. So here it is!

BP did not previously have my respect and would therefore not be winning back anything. With that said, I think claiming that they are 100% responsible does not accurately represent the situation. Yes, they are the cause of the oil geyser. But we, as a culture, are the cause of them. In our industrialized capitalistic society, we are the demand and should not, as such, shuck our responsibilities. Had BP not personally killed the Gulf of Mexico, they would still be a cog in the destruction machine that this planet-killing culture is. I also take issue with the fact that the apologies were mostly economically focused and dealt only with the affect on humans. We are not the only lives, ours not the only community, that is being harmed. (I could actually make the argument that this view of "us" and "our community" is in itself flawed and unrealistic. We are a part of and entirely reliant on the entire ecological community that is the abiotic and biotic life on and of this planet. The deceptive view that we have separated ourselves from it and are of more value is where we first went wrong. And the idea that this is progress? It makes me sick.) The Gulf of Mexico and every being that makes up that ecosystem is being murdered. Ignoring the apology that needs to be made to that murdered life will never earn my respect.
Overall, I really enjoyed the letter (especially the part about Tony Hayward and changing the company to an environmentalist group).

[swan]

Seems to me like you chose the post this topic in the right place, so no worries there. I definitely agree with your post, and I think that our society in general does not give big companies any real incentive to be environmentally friendly.

I remember watching one of Dan's live shows a while back and he mentioned that he didn't think BP was completely responsible, so unless he changed his mind (which is entirely possible) I think his letter is more about BP doing the noble thing, which is taking full responsibility for both creating and fixing the problem, without deflecting any potential responsibility at all.

Of course the flip side to BP taking full responsibility is that it allows everyone else to just shrug their shoulders and dismiss this entire incident as a terrible mistake by one particular company. Now the oil spill itself is, was entirely caused by BP, but that doesn't mean that your average person doesn't impact the environment in a negative way. I think the one thing we should all take away from this incident is that people, at both the corporate level and the individual level, need to start making more environmentally friendly decisions.

[Johncoyne]

globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam

Seriously, how the fuck can anyone call this a spill?

Apologizing isn't enough.

If my neighbor were to run over my puppy with a truck, I wouldn't expect an "I'm sorry, it'll never happen again" (of course it wouldn't the puppy is dead...)

I would expect a fruit basket or a batch of cookies. Now, the neighbor wouldn't be able to solve the problem (the puppy is already dead) but they would help to relieve the pain of the death of my puppy.

Now, take the example of BP. The can't bring the puppy back to life. There's already oil in the Gulf Coast. They can, however, stop the vigorously gushing geyser of oily destruction and help to (if not totally) clean up the existing oil.

That wouldn't win me back to BP because the made the problem happen in the first place. It would help if they:

1. Increased the population of all the marine wildlife it affected.
2. Filtered all the oil and pre-existing pollution out of the water.
3. Increased the stability of their systems so this could never happen again.
4. Offer to help other oil company's systems so it couldn't happen to them either.
5. Repair EVERYTHING that happened and make it look better than it looked before.

That would win me back. I don't even think number 2 is possible.

[thudd]

Swan:
I would hate to see everyone just shrug their shoulders and dismiss the incident as mistake by one company. This should definitely be something that reminds everyone of the community that is humanity. No one will be able to fix anything or make any significant change without most everyone else taking part.

John:
I agree that apologies in themselves are not enough. But I don't think they will be able to do 1, 2 or 5. There is no way BP or anyone can repair EVERYTHING, let alone make it better than it was before. We don't even have detailed enough knowledge on what goes on in a healthy and complex water ecosystem to even understand the full extent of the damage that is being done. Humans cannot at this technological stage completely reconstruct an natural ecosystem. It's too complex. We can't bring the puppy back to life.

[Johncoyne]

Well, I guess BP won't win me back, then.

[LegacyOfPaper]

MY thoughts

[Ferrrrrre]

My short opinion;

by doing EVERYTHING they can and literally drop anything that doesn't have anything to do with the Gulf and get all the employees to work on a solution etc.. (which they should have done RIGHT after it happened..)

Seriously, I think that the nature is actually a little more important than searching for a scapegoat etc.