I was listening to an interview with the head of BP, the giant oil company that is struggling to contain the devastating oil leak that is threatening whole swathes of land and sea in the Gulf of Mexico putting Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida into a state of emergency and threatening extinction to a range of creatures that inhabit the Louisiana wetlands including the dinky sounding Beach Mouse.
Tony Hayward, the rather smarmy-looking boss of BP said this morning: “We will ultimately win it because ultimately one of the interventions to stop the leak will stop the leak.”
It was strange hearing his slightly blokey, English accent trying to defend an industry that has generally taken us, the ordinary people of this planet, for granted. Well, the oil moguls do more than that, they ignore us completely and think we can be placated with sound bites.
Oil is big business. Much too important for you and me to concern our pretty little heads about.
So Mr Hayward’s inane attempt at putting our minds to rest is just the latest in a series of insults to our intelligence casually waved in front of us by the Oil elite.
OK, if we didn’t want that war in Iraq – tough, we need that oil, they say, not to us, but to their puppet the former President of the USA.
Similarly, they said tough to all those scientists who raised fears about oil mining in such unpredictable waters and so deep down in them that an accident might cause a catastrophe.
BP announced today that they are trying the latest of their ideas to try to stop the leak, which has been sending out its poison since 22 April, by shipping out, over the next few days, a giant concrete box to place over the site.
I was reminded of one of my childhood games involving buckets of water, bits of tubing and, usually, a very wet brother.
I am sure that there are some brave and impressive acts of ingenuity going on at the moment in the Gulf but we are back in that ethical area where I have to ask why are BP mining in an environment when they can only experiment with possible ways of stopping the oil flow?
Well, I know the answer of course. Tough, we want that oil.
Luckily the new president is being nasty to BP and telling them, for a change, tough, you pay for it, OK.
If we can go oil mining without a plan for emergencies then how reassuring is it that we are all planning the nuclear alternative to oil with an equal disregard for what would happen if something went wrong. Tough.