You might not have seen this coming but I think the oil spill is good news. It’s such good news we should call it the Fantastic Gulf Oil Spill. What other event would make us stop drilling off our coastlines?

A critical environmental impact report doesn’t make a difference. Picketing or demonstrations don’t do anything. Tables at green educational events are the silliest waste of time I can think of, not only because you are either preaching to the preachers or preaching to a parade, but because no one is doing anything besides talking. It’s like saying you’re going to lose weight and all of us can see you’re gaining. But you sure sound like you know what you’re talking about.

No one opposed to the drilling hijacks the tankers or blows up the rig. Heck, they don’t even stop using oil. They drive to their green events acting like they are smarter than the average bear by giving lectures on how atrocious it is to fighting a war for oil. Meanwhile, average polar bears are swimming for their lives.

When environmental gurus pat themselves on the back because their flyer lists five sponsors or their lecture is pithy or their documentary film riveting, they don’t seem to realize that corporations and governments pat themselves on the back as well.

When we show an enviro film and are thrilled that 300 people came, oil drillers are thrilled that 300 people aren’t on the rig refusing to allow them to drill. They love it when we sit in theaters or make flyers or write

Advertisement

columns. They even love it when we win the Oscar for best documentary because now there’s even more people thinking they are being revolutionary by sitting in a theater. That’s right where they want us.

The Fantastic Oil Spill is offering a probable tipping point in our history. Not because it has spewed 40 million gallons of oil into the ocean. Not because we’ve used a million gallons of the dispersant Corexit (which is itself toxic) to not even come close to cleaning it up. And not because we have a chance to relax EPA approval of an environmentally friendly dispersant.

It’s a tipping point because we’re finally seeing that technology can’t save us from technological mishaps. Most annoyingly for Americans, we can’t throw money at this one. Even more annoying, no one is smart enough to fix it. Even the robots are shaking their riveted heads. It’s not going away.

But fish will go way. So will the stock market and more of our money. Shipping routes and trade will suffer. Agriculture, too, and our way of life. Maybe we’ll be thrust back into the luxurious life of hunting and gathering (they only “work” a few hours a day). Maybe not. Maybe environmentalists will just sit around talking about how awful the oil spill is or nodding our heads in agreement that 75,000 dams in the United States are just too many.

And we’re going to nod right through another 20 years of environmental devastation so that by the time the whole thing collapses, there will be nothing for a hunter to hunt or a gatherer to gather.

Joy Colangelo of Pacific Grove is an occupational therapist and the author of “Embodied Wisdom: What Our Anatomy Can Teach Us About The Art Of Living.” Her column appears on Opinion the first and third Sundays of each month. She can be reached at bellpg@aol.com.