Diamond-Cut Life

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to slash Exxon’s punitive damages for the Valdez oil spill back to a fraction of the original ruling is immoral. We should be outraged that the Supreme Court is essentially excusing Exxon from making reparations, and not consume this as just another piece of ordinary news.

I deliberately use that word ‘immorality’ because the concept of immorality has been co-opted in recent decades to micro-level concerns, such as who has sex with whom. That’s the wrong focus, as I pointed out at the end of Spitzer, Sex and Sustainability the other month.

Morality is most needed at the macro level, the level of sociopolitics and justice, where the fabric of our culture is truly woven. For fishermen whose livelihood and marine ecosystem were destroyed in 1989 to only receive $15,000 in damages is so unjust that it is cruel. The Supreme Court justices aligned themselves with Exxon’s interests — the interests of a powerful multinational corporation — at the expense of the ordinary citizens whose interests the justices are bound to protect.

Given that my body-of-thought in the Diamond-Cut Life focuses on solutions more than descriptions of problems (the world already has enough of those), here are my best ideas on what to do:

• Stay grounded in moral outrage and reject an attitude of ho-hum resignation. Passivity, even mental passivity, supports the status quo that lets wrongdoers escape real consequences.
• Don’t buy gas at Exxon stations (we’ve been consistent with this since the Valdez spill originally happened in 1989)
• Use as little gas and oil as possible in general. They are toxic, at least in the way our civilization is currently using them.

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