Well, beings... - Thought Leader

Sticky, bilious, yellow-green shame gushes from a hole in the ocean a mile down. Oh, Lord, don’t put it on the television. Better that we cannot see it. Our eyes decide what our outrage is based on, not the truth. We’ve made our systems more efficient — less effort, better feelings — we’ve “new and improved” ourselves.

We gather to burn another animal on an open fire and tear it apart with our teeth. “Evil petrol men,” we snarl, “how could they?”

We gather in places that are lit 24 hours a day. There is weeping. Tears spoil lattes. The world is going to end. We passengers, are furious at the man we landed on the TV.

“Shame on you, Mr CEO, you hydro-carbon belching pig, you’ll kill us all with your shameful rooting for gold, and running off to your yacht as we choke … we, recycling, lightly treading ecological ballet dancers, we green saints … you bastard … what about our little children and seagulls? Have you no care? Are you that concerned with profits? Is it all about the bottom-line, Mr Fossilmuncher?” We cry, as we climb into our cars to go the airport for a meeting in another city, as we fly to our holiday home at the coast.

We self-drive resolutely past BP forecourts en-route to burn another brand’s black gold. We don’t want BP to cause any more trouble. We have had quite enough from you, you planet-raping devils. We don’t mind if you torment poor blacks with your digging in Africa, but we are tourists in Mexico from time to time — do you even care about our holidays?

A local businessman must pay for these sins, because he has a BP sign on his shop. Why not make green and gold stars for him and his family to wear? Let’s nail the big BP boss up on a cross — that apparently makes a lot of people feel better. I’m sure he will understand — take one on the chin, and in three days, you’ll walk — give us blood, brother, and we’ll let the oil slip.

Let BP supply the pound of flesh, and all is forgiven. We are all absolved and the burden of decency is lifted off our morally atrophying shoulders. Then we too are free to continue feasting and farting at the trough, snouts filthy but with processed plunder — we can pig out with some sense of dignity and what a relief, I mean we pay taxes, and uphold most of the laws — we are the good guys, we squeal and they take action. Action indeed. When will we back public transport, demand solutions from our bickering menagerie of bosses? Switch to solar? Adopt power-saving lifestyles? Will we walk more, outlaw gas-guzzlers, downsize — disempower the oil cartels? No, we don’t have the energy to love the future that much because we won’t be there. But we will pout digitally, double-clicking our tongues and joining other online moral slobs — we moan loudly from the safety of the ergonomic chair as our species softens and spreads, and we lazily head for higher ground on artificial islands of morality.

We share pictures of birds wearing the filth of those evil oil men and mutter of their dark arrangements to kill us all. We are horrified enough to click “join” — we can’t be bad people, we said that we cared, didn’t we?

We sanitised oil long ago, just like the chicken and the beef, and the pork bangers and now the fish fingers, and the oils we hide in secret places in other food . We took this black goop from the ground and turned it into numbers in spreadsheets, we did this — not some overpaid stuffed-shirt yachtsman — he’s the tip of our dirty iceberg — we’re the bulk he’s afloat on. The least we can do is share the blame.