The oil-drenched sea in which the seed for a novel was planted

I was reading the news a few days ago (I must be a masochist) and I saw where the President invited American manufacturers to recommend ways the government could cut regulations and make it easier for companies to get their projects approved. As my eyes moved further down the news report in Washington Post, I saw this on the list of self-serving recommendations: BP wants to make it easier to drill for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico by reducing how often companies must renew their leases.

I gritted my teeth. I’m still gritting them, particularly since yesterday, April 20^th, was the seventh anniversary of the devastating BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I remember that date as well as I remember the dates on which people dear to me died. A little melodramatic, you say? This picture may change your mind. That's a sea bird, barely alive when that picture was taken.

Photo: Huffington Post

Now imagine what was under the surface. Years of scientific observation of the Gulf following the spill have shown what that was. From a 2015 NBC report:

• "Nearly five years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a new report says that creatures like dolphins, sea turtles and fish still haven't fully recovered.
• Bottle-nose dolphins were found dead on the Louisiana coast in 2014 at four times historic rates, according to "Five Years and Counting: Gulf Wildlife in the Aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster," released on Monday by the National Wildlife Federation.
• Fish including mahi mahi and red snapper, coral colonies, and white and brown pelicans are still struggling. Around 32 percent of laughing gulls have died as a result of the oil spill, the National Wildlife Federation said.
• Between 27,000 and 65,000 Kemp's ridley sea turtles died during the oil spill and that the number of nests discovered every year since has gone down."

And BP wants to continue drilling, drilling, drilling. Climate warming and the resulting acidification of the oceans because of increasingly high levels of carbon in the atmosphere aside, what guarantees do we have that there will never be more oil spills?

They say the seed for a book is often planted in a significant moment. The one I’m writing now was planted on April 20, 2010 with the event that rocked everyone who gives a damn about the health of our oceans. The seed didn’t germinate immediately. It was a while before it began to sprout and the story grew into two branches - one in 1802 and the other in 2010. Kate, the main character in the 2010 section, isn't anything like me. I'm a creative sort. Kate is a marine and atmospheric scientist, but she speaks for me here as she remembers her reaction to the BP Oil Spill:

"She had not been able to erase the images of the birds and sea turtles that looked as though they had been dipped in tar from her mind. The innocent victims of corruption, greed and the thirst for power. The men on that platform whose lives had been extinguished in a violent explosion of flame had been innocent victims too. Oh God, it was horrifying. It had brought her to tears. Soon those tears had been replaced by a numbing fury that had propelled her into inexhaustible action.

NOAA’s response had been quick. She’d dropped everything and volunteered to help. The Gulf now took precedence over everything else. What they found was bad. The dispersants hadn’t helped. They’d only added to the unholy mess that was a death warrant for thousands of marine species. The first that came to her mind was the dolphins, those gentle, friendly creatures with the same level of intelligence as humans."

Writing From The Heart

I woke up to the sound of rain this morning and it hasn't stopped raining since. The rain stormed in early yesterday afternoon with a violent show of lightning and wind to match. But I like the steady, soft rain that's falling now. It's good writing weather.

When I retired from advertising, I vowed to never write another sentence. How I came to pick up the pen again was a friend had a crazy notion that I should write a novel. I told him in the unlikely event I could be persuaded to write a book, it would be something a little more philosophical in nature than fiction. "But," he argued, "You can use your characters to express your views. That's the beauty of fiction." I thought about that. I started writing The Tangled Web, which despite its light, thriller veneer is really an indictment of greed and corruption.

I'm writing another novel now. What motivated this story was pictures like this one I just snatched from Huffington Post - a bird on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast after being drenched in oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Heartbreaking isn't it?

Photo: Huffington Post

A U.S. judge has just ruled that BP's recklessness caused the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This could cost BP billions of dollars in fines, but that can never repair the damage to the Gulf and marine life. The terrible effects of the spill will be seen for years to come.

Greed can have far-reaching and long-lasting effects as demonstrated by two industries that have had a massive impact on the world - sugar and petroleum. These two industries have been powerful enough to influence the global policies of the world's leading nations. We're aware of the role Big Oil has played and continues to play in the world, but the role of the sugar industry has faded along with the past. From the 16th through the 19th centuries, approximately 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic to work sugar estates primarily. The Atlantic slave trade was the largest forced immigration in human history.

Below is a picture of whipping scars on the back of a U.S. fugitive slave named Gordon. This is a mild punishment compared to some punishments that were inflicted upon West Indian slaves.

Photo: http://usslave.blogspot.com

My story weaves between 1802 (the height of Britain's sugar industry) and 2010 when the BP oil spill took place. The premise is that until the world learns its lessons, until greed ceases to be a motivation, the more things change, the more they will remain the same.

If you have the stomach for it, look at these pictures in Huffington Post taken after the oil spill.