“We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us”
While the media coverage of the BP oil spill may finally be dissipating, the oil itself isn’t. While this disaster is still important, there may be an even more stealthy eco-culprit right underneath our noses. Alex Wilson, founder of Building Green, LLC shares his insights.
“These spills are horrible, of course, but so too are the spills that occur when the oil pans in our cars drip oil. Each year in the U.S. roughly 180 million gallons of motor oil is either dumped down the drain during oil changes or is leaked from engine crankcases, according to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The few drops of gasoline that most of us spill each time we fuel up our cars add up to hundreds of thousands of gallons per year nationally. Leaks from our outboard motors leave that familiar iridescent sheen on the water. The lubricating oil we use in our chainsaws is deposited directly onto the ground as we cut our cordwood (as it’s intended to do). These smaller incremental leaks each year add up to many times as much oil contamination as the BP spill to date.
This is not at all meant to trivialize the BP spill, but rather to point out the significance of oil spills that we consumers can do something about. We can repair our cars so that they don’t drip motor oil. We can be more careful when fueling up. We can use biobased lubricating oil for chainsaws. And, of course, we can use less energy—by driving less and better insulating our houses.
If we’re serious about our anger at the BP oil spill in the Gulf, we should direct a large share of that anger at our own consumption of petroleum in our cars and our homes. As Pogo said in Walt Kelly’s famous comic strip: “We have met the enemy and he is us.””
From GreenBuildingAdvisor.com
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