Garrison Keillor on Oil

Garrison Keillor has featured in this blog before in connection with Lake Wobegon. I love his writing, and the updates that he delivers as part of the Prairie Home Companion show.

He has also recently written a very useful piece giving his thoughts on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, published in the Chicago Tribune, amongst other places.

It starts with some very 'geographical' meditations:

Aboard a Delta Airbus at 37,000 feet maneuvering around giant thunderheads, connected to the Internet via satellite, looking at dark gloop a mile below the sea, contemplating the death of a beautiful body of water, unable to think of a single sensible thing to do or say about this that would make a milligram of difference, and yet here I sit with a clear view of the situation, like a passenger in a car skidding slowly into the median.

Years ago, in some crowded gymnasium, a commencement speaker told us that we should pursue our education because Knowledge leads to Power to Effect Change, but I don't see it in this case. I'm flying in a jet airliner consuming oil as I observe a disaster caused by the demand for oil, mine, yours, theirs — and yes, there was gross corporate irresponsibility, zero government regulation, rank corruption in the Minerals Management Service, but growing demand (drill, baby) is what's pushing us toward the next disaster and the next and the next.

Well worth reading the whole piece, and also exploring more of Keillor's work if you're not familiar with it....