BP: Just the tip of the oil spill

On 27 July 2010 Greenpeace shut down BP stations all over Central London in protest at the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Whilst this sort of direct action does warm the cockles somewhat and is often orchestrated in a clever, witty and creative manner they, of course, will not actually change the policies of multi-national companies. They do however serve to inform the populace of what is being done in their name, and for their dollar (or pound sterling in our case; employing the Yankee dollar as the exchange rate for corruption and global devastation always seems somewhat more appropriate).

In essence the campaign should take into account, infact actually be centred around, the desperate need for unionisation of the workforce. The workers themselves cannot only act as the watchdog and safeguard against such tragedies, both on a personal level (eg for the 11 dead and countless other injured BP workers and their families) but also in the protection of our environment. Global companies have shown time and time again that health and safety and green policies do not enter into their profit and loss columns and they never will. The irony in BP spending millions projecting a new "greener" image whilst making wholesale cuts in workers safety and conditions leading to the biggest environmental catastrophe in US history should not be lost on the world.

Following Greenpeace's direct action I shared good cheer with others on social networking site, Facebook. It didn't take long for a "sensible" person to point out "BP Stations in the UK are a mix of BP owned/operated and franchises - if they are targeting franchises that's not on - those poor sods are just trying to make a living and were unlucky enough to choose the wrong franchising option." Need I mention that it was a petty-bourgeois small businessman saying this? The sort of person who would be keen to assert that the European manufacturers of gas chambers in the 1940s were only trying to make a living...or should that be killing?!

But of course the obvious retort is to point out that NOT ONE of the global petrochemical companies has clean hands, their billion dollar returns are coated in a slick blend of oil and blood. For example Shell continue to use the prohibited practice of ‘gas flaring' which pollutes eco-systems and causes health problems for communities in the Niger Delta. Please follow this link and sign the Amnesty appeal letter and make Peter Voser - Shell Chief Executive aware of your disgust at the situation: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?Action

However, Greenpeace and Amnesty are really only sticking plasters for a fundamentally flawed system. And like sticking plasters they can easily fall off, especially when wet, and were never designed to heal the underlying condition. Electricity, gas, oil and coal must be taken back into public ownership and an integrated plan drawn up concerned with the safe long term production of our energy needs without harming the health of people or the future of the planet.

Not only is the private sector a threat to our oceans it is a disaster to ever other environ. The future offered to us by capitalism is air we cannot breathe, a land polluted by nuclear waste, oceans covered in oil-slicks and devoid of life, rainforests just a distant memory and the wholesale destruction of countless species.

Only a fundamental change in the way our society is organised, corresponding with a change in whose hands the power lays (the people or a tiny clique of faceless corporations) can we have any genuine hope it protect the future of our planet for ourselves and our children...and the little fishes.