Like many of you, I've been keeping up with the various news angles and reports from the BP oil spill but a recent article in The Atlantic caught my eye for a different reason.
John Besh, the James Beard Award-winning chef of Restaurant August and five other restaurants in New Orleans, Louisiana, authored the article The BP Oil Spill...Destroying A Food Tradition which I thought was worth sharing.
I particularly appreciate his imperfect perspective on the energy industry as both a Louisiana-native who grew up with off-shore drilling as a way of life and serving as a paid endorser of cooking with propane, yet Besh has become an outspoken advocate for responsibility and solution-finding throughout this crisis. Advocating for doing the right thing and taking action not only because of the environmental impacts, but also because of the cultural ones.
Additional headlines about Obama's call for a tough investigation and possible criminal charges may be justified, but in the end will not correct the heartbreaking damage to the ecosystems and cultural traditions of the Gulf.
Meanwhile, BP disputes existence of underwater oil plumesas possibly another way to minimize the situation, but in the end I wish all of the time and energy being used to point fingers and dodge blame would be spent on finding solutions instead. As Besh puts it...
Those of us here are left with a seemingly insurmountable mess, with the richest wetlands of America and a culture to match hanging in the balance. Whoever is looking to assign blame—even to me, for taking money for promoting propane—is overlooking the plight of those fish, birds, and people who depend upon the salt marsh estuaries that give the Gulf of Mexico and much of America life. Our wetlands and culture are at stake! Now let us see what we are going to do about it.
None of us are perfect. We've all used oil-based products in our daily lives and will continue to do so at varying levels, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't pull together and demand solutions instead of getting wrapped up in the blame game. There will be a time for accountability, but first we need solve the tasks at hand.
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