Reflections on the Oil Spill and Life

One of the many surprises of my Crude Awakening work is how widespread the work has traveled. I am in the process of answering some interview questions that were emailed to me by a newspaper in Puerto Rico. The first question totally stumped me. It was "Where were you when you heard about the oil spill for the first time?" Nothing came to mind. I had to look up on the internet when the Deep Water Horizon explosion happened. It was April 20, 2010. Then it all made sense. I was meeting my grandson at the hospital for the first time. He was a day old.


During the 3 weeks I was helping out with my grandson's arrival, I never read any newspapers. I had some vague awareness that something terrible was happening in the world but chose not to learn more about it and just focus on the immediate joys of a new little person coming into the world.

It is now a full 3 months later. 3 Months of growth...


...or 3 months of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. On Jul 15, 2010, for the first time in 87 days, oil stopped flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

I always assumed that we would leave this world in better condition than how it was passed on to us. Now I am not so sure it is possible. The challenges are great but for the sake of the future of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren I have hopes that we can learn from our mistakes and be better stewards of mother earth.