The cataclysmic environmental disaster was visited on one of history’s greatest superpowers at a time when that nation was facing economic hardship and recession. The country was mired in a devastating war in Afghanistan, the longest in their history, which had drained the economy and wrecked the will of the people. Shackled with an outmoded energy infrastructure and no tangible plan for an energy future other than drilling, mining, and nuclear the government’s priorities lay elsewhere – foreign wars, international posturing, quelling a restless, divisive population, and a futile attempt to fight a general sense that their place in the world was slipping away from them.
When the disaster did finally come, it was devastating.
Outmoded technology was being used to produce the energy they desperately needed for a floundering economy. Corners were cut, old techniques were employed to save money, and when the "accident" happened it was caused not by a failure of science, or even the machines themselves, but by simple wrongheaded human carelessness. People had begun to believe that nothing could go wrong – so they never made a plan to respond to a disaster when something finally DID go wrong. Those involved knew better, but the incentive had been placed – always – on doing the cheaper wrong thing, instead of doing the more expensive safe thing.
When the "spill" came it moved rapidly, covering hundreds of miles and, eventually, impacting neighboring countries. Though the government moved quickly to mitigate the disaster, they simply lacked the planning and the tools to handle it. Risky and dangerous techniques had to be invented on the spot. New machines – including cutting edge remote controlled robots – had to be adapted to help in the cleanup. The site of the disaster was effectively off limits to human hands. Lives were lost.
Eventually the disaster was stopped and the "spill" contained. But the extent of the environmental devastation and the human impact may never fully be understood. The site of the "spill" remains largely a dead zone, though life is struggling back. But the people who live in the area are still feeling the ill-effects to their health and their livelihoods.
But perhaps even worse was the "accident’s" effect on the global psyche. This mighty superpower looked the fool. Smaller nations, friends and enemies alike, were appalled and voiced concerns they had previously spoken only privately. This swaggering superpower which had spent the better part of a century throwing its influence, wanted or unwanted, all over the planet was shown to be a paper tiger. All factions of the government were complicit in the disaster – their own corrupt and blind unwillingness to deal with the real problems of their nation, ultimately, was the chief cause. Many smaller nations were managing their energy needs in a safe manner that was becoming cleaner and more environmentally friendly with each new decade.
And yet one of history’s greatest superpowers – a nation that could build nuclear bombs and send men and women into space – couldn’t even figure out a way to take care of its most basic infrastructural needs without risking the health of the entire planet.
Though the story sounds familiar, this country was not the United States, but the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the date of the disaster was April 26, 1986. The "spill" in question was not oil, but radiation from the meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Prypriat, Ukraine. The devastation at Chernobyl is different from the BP oil spill in many ways, of course. More lives were lost directly at Chernobyl from the initial incident, but it appears that the BP oil spill will ultimately impact a far larger geographic area. The parallels between the two events are uncanny.
Since the BP spill took place the media has been struggling to find a narrative into which to frame the disaster for easy consumption by the general public. "Obama’s Katrina" appears to be the most prominent of these thus far. Chris Matthews of MSNBC has attempted to liken the spill to the Iranian hostage crisis of the Carter administration, and this narrative has gained some ground. Rachel Maddow, also of MSNBC, has found a direct parallel with the Ixtoc oil spill of 1979, which also happened on Carter’s watch.
But everyone, it seems to me, is avoiding the obvious parallel and the obvious lesson from history: Chernobyl.
Chernobyl happened because the USSR’s national priorities – for decades – lay elsewhere. The reactor involved in the disaster was old technology that had never been properly updated. Everyone knew this at the time. Further, on the day of the meltdown the machines were being used improperly. There was no plan to deal with such an accident and the response, though valiant, seemed inept.
The only priority was cheap energy.
Instead of paying attention to the most basic needs of the people: a strong economy, good jobs, a sound energy policy, and the most current national infrastructure, the old Soviet Union let those things slide to the background and instead focused on maintaining their dwindling imperial influence. The things that had made the USSR a great power in the first place were allowed to slide, as the government became obsessed with the perception of leadership, not the reality of actually governing a nation.
The Chernobyl disaster demonstrated all of this on the world stage. That’s the reason historians now look back on the disaster as one of the causes for the collapse of the USSR. Blood and treasure that was being funneled toward a futile war in the ‘Stans and in posturing in a never-ending Cold War could have – and should have – been used first and foremost for internal needs. The great nation put forward a brave face, but the body of the whole was sick from within. The Chernobyl disaster proved to the world that the mighty superpower couldn’t even manage its own domestic priorities and, thus, had little business interfering in those of other nations and peoples. Within three years, the USSR was simply no more.
Perhaps the media avoid this narrative out of fear. No one wants to think about a Chernobyl "happening here" nor does anyone believe that the USA is on the verge of collapse. Of course on April 26, 1986 no one believed that about the USSR either.
The question is – are we going to let the BP spill of 2010 be OUR Chernobyl?
The truth has already been laid out: we don’t have a sustainable national energy infrastructure policy and the government is fully corrupted by the fossil fuel industries, on both sides of the political aisle. How do we handle this? Do we, like the Russians, dump tons of concrete on the disaster site and go back to business as usual, only to let the country continue to wither? Or do we "fix it for real" by turning our eyes toward our true national priorities: building a national infrastructure and a national economy that can continue to support a prosperous and happy United States of America?
For once, let us learn the correct lesson from history.