Most mainstream media coverage of the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico neglects to point out the basic cause of this mess, which is our society’s dependence upon oil and its corresponding lack of respect for the ecosystem that supports us. Activists and governments demanding greater respect for our planet (after all, we need it to survive!) and for more just solutions to global warming met in Cochabamba, Bolivia last April and issued a call for a United Nations resolution to recognize the rights of Mother Earth. See the Cochabamba Declaration
If our society had been organized around the principle that the Earth is a living system whose survival is crucial to our own, the offshore drilling our fossil-fuel lifestyles depend on would never have been an option. Indeed, as more of the public becomes aware of the enormous and potentially devastating risks of offshore drilling, there are rising demands for its regulation if not abolition.
Clearly we need new ideas about how to organize our societies so that we do not threaten the livelihoods of future generations or of non-human species. Tens of thousands of people from around the country and world will be coming to Detroit June 22-26 because they believe that there are some good ideas for making “another world possible.” They know that, to make this happen, “another United States is Necessary.”
Everyone who is feeling angry, frustrated, and helpless at the loss of life and livelihoods caused by the BP oil disaster should find a way to join those coming to Detroit to build the momentum needed to build a society that doesn’t cannibalize its mother.
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