KORN VS. BP
Time for another angry eco rant.
We just got a press release from Roadrunner Records announcing that Korn have boycotted BP oil products and will not be filling their touring vehicles with BP gasoline during their Summer tours. Awww… that cute. I could rant about how it really doesn’t matter which oil company they boycott, because this disaster could’ve been caused by any of them — and I could rant about how they’ll still be polluting the environment with their tour regardless of where they fill up — but that much should be obvious.
Instead, I’m going to rant about how this oil spill is all our fucking fault. ALL of us. Not BP, not the other big oil companies, not our government or Obama… but you, me, Axl, the Monkeys, Korn, your sister, your brother, your parents, and every fucking person on this planet. It’s our fault this happened.
Citizens of the world, and in particular (but by no means exclusively) Americans, have created a lifestyle that isn’t sustainable. We buy houses in the suburbs and exurbs because our big cars allow us to get everywhere we need to be and we believe it’s our RIGHT to do so. We fly cross-country because it’s easy and cheap. We crank our air conditioners because we’re hot and want to be comfortable, despite the fact that people got on just fine for thousands of years without them.We buy mass-manufactured products that come in multiple layers of packaging, then we throw out said packaging after one use whereafter it sits in a landfill for hundreds or thousands of years. We take our bands on big tours with two gaz-guzzling semis full of power-draining lights. We eat fast food, the ingredients for which have often been shipped halfway across the world simply because they’re cheaper that way. Etc. All of these things use up oil, creating the demand and monetary incentive for companies to start drilling in the gulf, Alaska, and other sensitive environments. And because we live in a capitalist society, where there’s money to be made someone’s gonna try and make it.
We’ve created the conditions that have allowed such a spill to happen — not by any over-sight on BP’s part (though certainly some blame should be placed there) but by the fact that our lifestyles demand tons and tons of oil, day in and day out. This is OUR fault. Our lifestyles certainly do not need to be this way.
The fact of the matter is that to prevent crises like the oil spill in the gulf, what we need is not a better blowout preventer, contingency plan or ready-to-go clean up crews, but a major, major, major lifestyle change. In ALL of us. This is no small task. We need to be conscious about what we’re consuming, what we’re doing, what we’re eating — every day, every hour, every minute. Mistakes are inevitable, and no supposed oil spill-stopping system is ever going to be fool-proof. To think that is akin to thinking some aspirin is going to heal a broken bone — it might help ease the pain, but it won’t fix the actual problem, the root problem, the real problem. We need to attack to the real problem by changing our lifestyles in such a way that will demand less oil. On Earth Day, I outlined some easy changes you can make in your every day life that will help; of course, this is just scratching the surface.
I implore you, think hard about everything you do, and what the actual effects of that action are. Driving to the grocery store? Load up on more groceries in one trip instead of having to take another trip later on. Taking a shit? Sure, may sound trivial… think about how much water your toilet uses in one flush, or how much toilet paper you use. Going to a metal show in a city where mass transit isn’t available? Pile up all your buddies into one car instead of driving separately. Boycotting BP is a cute gesture by Korn — and look, I hope more people do this and send BP into the ground — but it’s an ultimately inconsequential PR move. Stopping disasters like the one in gulf starts with you, me, US. Start it now. It’s up to us to fix this mess, not BP.
-VN
