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The quote, for those of you who don’t recognize it, is from Tony Hayward, the President of BP, who, I believe, said it in complete seriousness, as though he felt that people should feel sorry for his plight.
With all the focus on dead dolphins and sea turtles, like the one pictured above, I think we tend to lose sight of the fact that CEOs like Hayward are suffering too. They’re the real losers here, being kept, as they are, from the polo fields and private clubs to which they’ve become accustomed. It’s easy to look at a photo of a dead turtle or oil-bloated dolphin carcass and feel overcome by sadness, but who cries for Tony Hayward? Who cries for the vulnerable CEOs, forced against their will to walk the beaches of America’s east coast, feigning concern and trying to force tears through their cold, dead eyes?
And, here, since I brought up turtles, is a clip from the Discover magazine website:
…My brave friend Leilani Munter called from the field to report that the National Wildlife Federation and CNN had documented the first sea turtle caught in a slick at sea, gasping for air through an iridescent sheen. Tragically, just as nesting season for a number of the Gulf of Mexico’s sea turtle species is set to begin, these highly endangered animals become the poster species of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Soon, if not already, adult male and female turtles will gather in shallow coastal waters, mate and prepare to nest, precisely where oil is accumulating. The pregnant females will scuttle across beaches at night to lay eggs, just as they’ve done for millions of years, but these beaches will be different—they will be blacked with oil. In a few short weeks, a new generation of hatchlings will emerge from the sand and make their way across oily beaches to an oily sea where tar balls and slicks will make their already-long odds of survival even longer. As they mature, they will have to rise through oil slicks to breathe and survive by eating oil-coated animals, algae and seagrass. While sea turtle will be among the most recognizable victims, they won’t be alone. Many species of birds, fish, invertebrates and plants will fare just as badly…
