If you’re making a list of high-profile environmental activists who have moved on to other issues and put the BP spill on the back burner, you will want to leave Jerry Cope WAY off your list.
Mr. Cope has termed the spill and resulting actions – both private and governmental – the “crime of the century.” He remains dedicated to the truth about the spill, and now the regular Huffington Post contributor has filed an omnibus report that displays his mastery of the issue and includes documentation and background to put the recent National Oil Spill Commission report into stark context.
Mr. Cope also becomes one of the few commentators to take the national media to task for “moving on” and for not having the courage to truly challenge the national narrative of “Mission Accomplished” and “the oil is all gone.” Perhaps most important, he not only touches on the “third rail” of the BP spill – human health concerns – but grabs onto it and wields it like a weapon. Members of the mainstream media had better take note, because Mr. Cope is making enough noise to make Americans take another look at how the spill was covered.
Listen, we’re not really all that naive. We know that the hundreds of millions of dollars BP shelled out for all those full-page newspaper ads and slick TV and radio spots create a climate that makes hard-news reporting difficult. But did you really get into the news business to help Big Oil, government bureaucrats and a bunch of politicians get their lives back?
That National Oil Spill Commission report, Mr. Cope contends, “…did not include or consider a sufficient amount of independent data regarding the short- and long-term impacts of the spill on the ecosystems, marine life, and human health.” He points to the story of a coastal family directly sprayed with toxic Corexit dispersant. That family has contracted serious health problems since the incident.
“The National Oil Spill Commission,” Cope warns, “in its final report to the president likewise gives the health impacts only a passing mention despite the fact that it was a top-tier issue at every public forum the Commission held…”
Look, pretty soon we’ll have to start calling some pundits “oil spill deniers” for believing that Harry Houdini was in charge of the oil-spill response. You know, he didn’t really make things disappear, he only offered an illusion that many people believed.
But you can bet Houdini wouldn’t have fooled Jerry Cope, who now stands to emerge as an even more important national voice on the BP spill.
I highly recommend you read Mr. Cope’s entire report at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/poeple-wearing-plastic-ba_b_809912.html
And you can catch up on Jerry’s commentary with an earlier, much-heralded report on Democracy Now at http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/4/environmental_activist_jerry_cope_on_the
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