A Natural Perspective

In watching the Platform Horizon Wellhead Blowout event, and our Organizational response to it, I was at once impressed and appalled by the dual scopes illustrated. At the time, and to this day, I see the event as a diatribe against an innate inefficiency and possibly abject failure of our Philosophy of Regulatory Control, where we politicize and adversarilize items of great National and Environmental interest, and thereby ask and answer the wrong questions.

In effect, we are endeavoring to solve problems using the same line of reasoning and thought, which created those problems. I could illustrate it in great detail in the following paragraphs, but most people’s eyes would glaze over. So I won’t. Suffice it to say, we need to change how we look at things.

In the past year I have gotten to attend some fairly high level, think tank  type events, where people who care more about the world, and the Oceans than themselves, have come together to examine our systems, which regulate the direction of man and his involvement in the natural order of our existence here, on this blue ball.

Blue Marble

It has been informative, educational, inspiring. But all that being said, I have to posit something. “So what? Will that make us better?”

It might. That depends.

Clear Reasoning

Lately, I have been involved a bit in helping on a project to resolve the radiation issues evolving from the ongoing Fukushima Nuclear disaster. A group of Scientists on their own, have actually innovated a solution that removes radiation from sea water. One of them was at my home the other night, and brought a paper written when they were 15 years old and a Parochial school student. They read it to me, and at the end, this well know research Scientist, one of the foremost in their field in the World, said this:

“I should have stopped right here. At the age of 15, I got it. I had the answer.” I have to agree.

What the paper, which was entitled “The Environmental Obligation” said in essence, was this. That we ought to approach our involvement in the natural world as stewards, and do it as unto God. That we were given a sacred trust, and have a larger moral obligation to ourselves, to approach all involvement as if we were answering directly to the grand Architect personally, because we really do, eventually.

She absolutely understood the value of higher accountability at 15 years of age.

But we do not engage in that fashion today. It is about money, it is about National Security, it is all done as a short term psycho-socio fix (as in drug fix) designed to make us feel better. But that does not creating a healthy economic nor environmental future. In fact, it is killing us all.

Those think tank events? Well they make me feel better. They give me hope. There are solutions. But we will NEVER see them implemented with any great positive effect anywhere, with current lines of reasoning and regulatory control firmly in place, because those control systems are out of step with both Natural Order and God. They serve money. They need to serve efficiency, not entropy,  if there is to be any real level of  public safety and sustainable progress implemented.  That is a common sense. No huge mystery or complex formula is needed.

Here is a newsy fluff piece from the Huffington Post. Many have probably missed it. But it is a teensy telltale regarding what we did on the Gulf Coast and which was both facilitated and exacerbated by the EPA, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, formerly known as the Minerals Management service. (Yea, the acronym really does sound sorta like “bummer”)

Read it carefully. This little story many will miss, is a grain of sand type telltale, an understatement possibly akin to the tip of an iceberg regarding what we did in the Planning, Mining, Regulation, and Disaster Reparation process.

The disaster reparation process was the largest endeavor of it’s kind in the History of the Oil industry. It was massive in scope, bigger than I can explain here in a few paragraphs. But here is the deal, really. What we did was akin to holding a beach cleanup party. In reality those are pretty stupid in the grand scheme of things, because the waste should never be there in the first place. And for every piece of waste you see? Well, there is a grand effect that you do not see.

Then there was the Corexit. Now, today, there is broad spreading death. There is a lot of money to be made in all of this for some entities. But not much efficiency. So the net large investment is really just massive capital loss for the Nation and the World. Corps just tack expense onto the cost of goods sold, increase the price (easy to do on an inflexible type commodity) and maintain their ROI levels. In effect, YOU pay for what they, and Regulatory control  do, or in this case DON’T do: Protect the Environment and National Interests. Because in reality, that is not what they are designed to do.

We really need to change this, if we want our Nation’s interest to be served. If we really give a rat’s ass about our children, our heritage and above all, our service to God. There is something very pertinent and important in the concept of “duty”.  This must begin with us.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts on point essay on the importance of Biodiversity is one of the best reads I have encountered in awhile. “Biodiversity and the Environment: Silent Spring for Us?” It describes the regulatory process’ role in our Socio-Economic system quite well.

About a  year ago, my friend George Orbelian, sat me down in his home at Ocean Beach in SF. “David, what are we going to do about Fukushima?” I laughed. I mean all things considered, it was a ridiculous question. Until we all began to really look at things in a different fashion.

A little over a  month ago an editor of mine got a hold of me. He was deeply concerned about Fukushima. He had actually been up there, and had seen people surfing near the disaster location and was appalled. “What can we do? What is really going on? This is being down played.”

What I had to tell him was this.

“You are fucked. You have killed the land, you have killed the Sea, and now your people are in deep trouble and this problem? It is a matter of National Security.” Then I put him in touch with all of the informational sources on the disaster and told him to seriously consider what he writes and reports on, as it would possibly not help things. I mean, where do you put a country full of people when a City like Tokyo has Rad levels in it’s soil, roughly akin to being classified as nuclear waste?

We can fix this. But what we have in place is not working. We should kill it off and start over with a  system that is collaborative rather than adversarial. You can get mad at a donkey for being one, but really that never gets anything done. Either shoot it, or give it carrot.

If we do not change what is in place, we have failed our children, we have disgraced ourselves, we have not honored what God has given us, and we helped destroy our Nation in process.

That is why I always produce and post so much beauty from the Ocean and Nature in my work. To make people fall in love. If we do that, really love and cherish what we have, then we will protect it. Really protect it, and not be mislead by the morally corrupt and bankrupt entities of the world.

Take a good look at this wave image below. In it is every color of the rainbow. That is important to recognize. Here is why. Colors represent energy signatures, frequencies of sound. So what this image is saying is that all creation is contained within the signature of the sea. If we fail to recognize that, then we lose much. But the sea? It will do what it always has, just without humanity as it exists, as we know it.

House of Mirrors

That is how we make a difference.

That is how we will matter.

We can do this.

Let’s start over while we can.

Seth Godin (again) says something very smart about Fear. “I don’t even know what I am afraid of”

Below are some incredibly beautiful images of a pretty darned healthy Ocean, shot off the California Coast near my home in Ventura California, and in San Francisco. Could it be better? Of course. Will it ever? Only if we change what we serve.

Everything to gain if we do. Everything to lose if we do not.

You can take THAT to the bank.