Check your oil

It was June 23rd.

I found myself with the truth-action.com team in Pensacola Beach, Florida, experiencing the largest wash up of oil to date as a result of the BP oil spill. We had been looking for oil for days now. Our only plan was to find it and document it in a way others had never done before. We wanted to put people in the oil, and humanize this event by experiencing what has only been seen on local wildlife.

The “Black Gold” as we call it, now covered 8 miles of the whitest sands of the world. As our team gathered there with cameras, I reached my hand into one of the 4-foot wide puddles. The oil slowly dripped down my arm. I was surprised by its viscosity as it attached to my arm like glue. The feeling was horrifying; I could only imagine the desperation of the wildlife who had been victims of it.

I had been full of feelings of anger and blame just moments before, but suddenly a new wave of perspective hit my conscience. This coveted substance is responsible for the fuel in my car, and the plane that allowed me to arrive there. It is used to fertilize our commercial farmlands and preserve some of our foods. It makes up my plastic shampoo bottles, and the bags used to carry my groceries home, and virtually all plastics created worldwide. It is the foundation for the oil paints I use on my canvas and it is refined to make my laundry detergent, hair dyes, and even in some the makeup I use on my face.

This tragedy is not only the negligence of an oil company, but in a way my own, and collectively all of ours. It occurred through attempting to meet the demand of creating our modern world.

I was no longer looking at oil running down my arm, but the very material of my greed and yours. I felt guilt and a deep sense of doom. This industry was created long before me. It created the world I know and love. To kill such a monster would take all of us sacrificing fuel, energy and consumables as we know them. So there on that beach, covered in oil, I surrendered to the idea that this monster will never be killed, but will very possibly kill us and our life as we know it. Then realizing further that this monster will never be killed, because it is you, and it is me.

I don’t know if I am ready to sacrifice my life’s luxuries, my car, my cell phone, my make up! Are you? Of course not! So now what? We wait and hope that some intellectual will fix it. We throw money at it and hope it goes away quickly. But as long as we demand it, our need for oil will not go away. There is truth, there is action, together there is progress. But are we ready to face the core of this truth? I don’t know? Are we?

- Robyn Newmark
truth-action.com (see more photos here)