To the Defense of Big Oil's BP! - Sort of

BP has recently caused a couple of stirs. 1 - They had the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and 2 - they lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber to grease the way to more oil business with Libya. How should we feel about those things?

The gulf spill was a combination of government oversight, industry accepted practices, and possibly inadequate steps by BP to implement those practices. It has been widely reported that government oversight has been too cozy and lax with industry, while BP may have cut corners. If it turns out that both of these are true, then yes, government is corrupt and so is the company. In the end, the responsibility to do right was with BP and they should be held to blame.

In the case of the lockerbie bomber release, again it remains to be seen what BP's role was. If it turns out they exerted pressure on governments who in turn put pressure on doctors to find a reason to release him, and then did release him as we know they did, that would be a negative for BP. But the wrong done was not the lobbying pressure, it was the actual act of releasing him, which was done by the government.

In both cases, it looks (at first glance) like the government was inept or corrupt in their handling of the situations, but in one case they actually did something wrong, in the other case the big oil company did something wrong and must be made to answer to it (if accurate). Notice that this is an immediate moral question, not a moratorium on whether big oil should eventually be shut down because of a belief in global warming. Let's hold all to an ethical standard equally, not allowing a green agenda's end to justify the means, nor allowing corporations or governments that behave corruptly to go unanswered.