Today is World Ocean Day, BP Gives Profits (?) to Wildlife, Super-Weeds

BP announced yesterday it would give net profits from the oil being pumped from Deepwater Horizon to Gulf Coast wildlife. Since they say they’ve already spent a billion dollars on the cleanup I’m wondering if they really expect to have a net profit from the well. Seems like a blatantly stupid way to make themselves look good. Seriously, BP. And if they simply calculate just expense on this particular well it’s a fair bet that the 45 days it took them to design something that is half-way working to capture the oil was pretty darned expensive. Hmmmm….hmmmmm???

Today is World Ocean Day and my dive agency, PADI, is asking people to be aware that sharks are becoming more and more scarce. When the shark population crashes, everything under it will crash due to the balance sharks create in our waters. I tried explaining that to a man and his family who had caught a shark and left it to die on the beach. My environmental lesson didn’t help the shark. I walked back by later and found it rolling in the water. They had tossed it like garbage into the water.

Sometimes its difficult to stay hopeful, to stay positive with the environmental catastrophe happening in the Gulf. Yet I know nature is resilient and much more intelligent than humans. An example….Monsanto engineered seeds that were resistant to Roundup so fields could be sprayed with Roundup to kill weeds but not the crop. Now, weeds have evolved to the point where Roundup is no longer working. The solution? Go back to more toxic sprays, more genetically engineered seeds…at least for some farmers. Others are going organic. Those who realize nature will outsmart us are learning to work with nature, not against it.

Slowly, seemingly at a snail’s pace, we are learning that nature is more powerful than we are and the only way to preserve any quality of life for ourselves and wildlife on the planet is to work with earth’s energies…the plants, ocean, wind…sunlight. If we make a friend of nature we can all thrive. To pit ourselves against it is a death sentence.