ONE BILLION DOLLARS

How come every time I go on vacation, a disaster worth a billion dollars in damage happens?

In September of 2008, I attended a raw foods festival in Sedona, AZ.  During that time, hurricane Ike ripped through the Gulf of Mexico and landed on my hometown of Houston.  Millions of people were without power or clean water for weeks.  Trees fell onto houses, cars, buildings, and roads.  Lots of property was damaged and large numbers of people were displaced, totaling a billion dollars worth of collateral.

Now, as I prepare to leave for Las Vegas, NV, the BP oil spill of 2010 racks up its billionth dollar.  A 560 million dollar oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico called Deepwater Horizon is no longer usable.  The amount of oil spilling into the gulf is probably around 80,000 barrels a day.  A barrel contains 55 gallons, so that's 4,400,000 gallons of oil per day.  The leak has been going on for 35 days now, bringing the total to 154,000,000 gallons of crude oil just floating around underwater.  Let's just say that every single gallon costs the same as a gallon of gas in Texas.  The average price this week is $2.78 per gallon, putting the dollar amount of oil lost at $428,120,000.  Add that in with the worth of the rig, and we're almost at a billion dollars.

But who can calculate the money lost by the fishing industry?  Who decides the worth of the wildlife that has been lost in this tragic destruction of an entire ecosystem?  How much money has been spent on research into the spill, on toxic chemical dispersants, on cleaning up the oil that's already hit the coast?  In my opinion, the billion dollar mark was passed weeks ago, and the damage will undoubtedly continue to spread its way around the Gulf of Mexico, into the Atlantic ocean, and possibly to the western shores of Europe and Africa.

I am outraged, and I feel powerless.  Sure, the people who care could rally and protest and scream at the top of our lungs, but the corporate powers-that-be wouldn't even hear it.  We could all call our congressmen and women and demand accountability on the part of BP, but there will still be offshore and domestic oil drilling.  We could even physically go to the coast and try to save a few animals by cleaning the oil off their coats and caring for them until the mess in the Gulf is cleaned up, but there would be too many animals that we couldn't save.  Even if we decided to end our dependence on oil for our daily commute to work, the big oil companies would still profit through greed and embezzlement.  So, what can I do?  Read.  Self-educate.  Be aware of the consequences, and, hopefully, never have to see another one like this, though that is highly unlikely, considering the continued push for offshore drilling.  This is truly the worst environmental disaster the United States has ever seen, and it's only getting worse.