April 20 marks the one-year anniversary of the BP Oil Spill that dumped 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico over a span of three months.
What became the largest oil mishap in history, created panic among natives of Louisiana, Florida and many other states.
In fact, after capping the well, many throughout the United States have continued with their lives and forgotten about the incident as if it had never happened.
The harsh reality is that nearly 5 million barrels of oil does not simply evaporate. In fact, despite clean up efforts, most of this oil continues to contaminate the Gulf.
The modern American has often been criticized for being lazy, and indifferent — too busy texting their vote to American Idol to make a difference in a community. The public response to the BP Oil Spill reinforces such a generalization.
At this time last year, the public response to the spill seemed promising. Citizens throughout the country expressed their anger and frustrations at BP CEO Tony Hayward and the company’s irresponsibility, demanding that the Obama Administration hold BP accountable for the careless mishap.
Many residents of Southern states, whose lives were directly affected by the disaster, made admirable efforts to help clean and contain the mess.
If anything positive came out of this catastrophe, it a certain expression of willpower within the American people — a characteristic that had not been expressed since September 11, 2001.
Finally, Americans were once again politically charged and ready to make a difference.
But as time passed and lies regarding the progress of the clean-up accumulated, the inspiring uproar Americans had produced quieted.
People believed the illogical notion that nearly all of the oil had been cleaned, and that the rest had dispersed or localized in oil plumes deep underneath the surface.
Since the oil could no longer be seen, it was easy for the public to forget about the disaster.
Media coverage slowly moved away from the affected areas and the once hot topic slowly made its way toward the back pages of newspapers. People stopped caring.
Today we discover that the initial signs of promise expressed by the American response were false hopes that the American people were ready to unite and use the spill as a precipitating factor for political change.
One possibility being a green revolution, demanding an end to U.S. dependence on oil, and begin to seriously invest in alternative energy solutions.
Yet no such efforts have come to fruition.
If millions of gallons of oil dumped into our own backyard doesn’t incite a movement, what will?
BP survives, millions of gallons of oil lie along the bottom of the Gulf. Meanwhile, oil companies continue to hold us by the throat with high prices for gasoline. And we do nothing.
A year later it is clear that the temporarily energized American pulbic proved to be an illusion, just like the illusion that many of us continue to hold onto by believing that the Gulf has been cleaned and the crisis has been averted.
Gregory J. Paladino can be reached at gpaladino@spartans.ut.edu.
Thank you for this article! It’s the same thing over and over for Americans. The old addage “out of sight, out of mind” could practically be our motto. A year ago the outrage over the spill ignited people’s fears over what it means to depend on such dirty sources of energy, and today people are angry over the moratorium on offshore drilling and high gas prices; and then they blame Obama. People expect change, but never want to be the solution. When will we wake up?