The Economy in Germany

The Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig could become the writing on the wall for a society that is devouring itself. Bad as the oil spill may be, is it not the price that we are willing to pay for our lifestyle?

What is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now, in early summer 2010, cannot be sustainable – that much at least does not seem to be in dispute. Between 3.2 and 6.4 million litres of crude oil are flowing from the leaking wellhead into the sea each day, 1500 metres below the ocean surface. That is an incredible waste of resources – the resource of crude oil on which our economy depends for its very existence and the resource of the environment. And so far, the consequences of the oil spill on the marine ecosystem are completely unpredictable. This oil spill has historic dimensions. Every five to ten days, as much oil flows into the sea from the wellhead as flowed into Prince William Sound in the Gulf of Alaska during the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in 1989.

Sustainability?

Sustainability, explains Professor Georg Müller-Christ, a business administration lecturer at the University of Bremen who has specialised in the problem of economic sustainability, is also an economic principle. It is quite simply “that one does not consume more resources than can be replaced.” According to Müller-Christ, a sustainable economy should be based “on the rationality of household economics.” For if economic activity is possible over generations at all, it is only rational “to maintain the economic resource base by investing in reproducing the resources”.

Müller-Christ makes this easily comprehensible using the example of forestry. In forestry, the aim is “to achieve a balance between preserving and using the forest.” Thus, what one can learn from forestry “is the principle of the sustainable use of resources. One should only fell the amount of timber that can be replaced in the same period of time.”

We’ve seen it before

But oil cannot be replaced. Oil is a finite resource, extracting which holds considerable risks, as can be seen in the Gulf of Mexico or the Exxon Valdez disasters. In this context, one must at least question the criticism made of the British company BP. The public pressure on BP is enormous. It is accused of poor crisis management and it is said that it should have been better prepared for the possibility of such a disaster. The pictures of oiled seabirds were the last straw.

But does not BP do what we expect it to? And is BP the only oil company that has offshore drilling rigs? Back in March, US President Barack Obama lifted the ban on oil and gas exploration in America’s coastal waters. In reaction to the disastrous oil spill, Obama imposed a six-month drilling moratorium around the Gulf of Mexico, but this was overturned by a federal judge following an appeal by the oil industry.

What can we learn from this? We are dependent on crude oil. Our industry, our economies, and our lifestyle. After all, who would want to manage without their car?

Learning from mistakes

Thus, Federal Minister of the Environment Norbert Röttgen (CDU) is quite right in saying that “a trace of oil leads from the Gulf to every oil consumer in the Western world”. And he is also right in saying that the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico will not be the last disastrous oil spill.

In reaction to the current disaster, Röttgen calls for a turnaround in energy policy: “We are all dependent on oil and we have to get away from that.” In addition, “high ecological standards like those for drilling in the German Wadden Sea” should be enforced world-wide. Here, he is relying on “societies’ ability to learn.”

But the problem with that may be that the idea of sustainability has its eye on tomorrow while people tend to concentrate on today. In this connection, Müller-Christ points to old-age provision. Presumably, nobody has any trouble understanding the point of it, yet not everybody bothers to do enough about it. Why not? Because for a young person, there is no immediate need to provide for old age and there are competing current wishes or needs.

Societies’ ability to learn from mistakes and disasters can be seen right now in the Gulf of Mexico.