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Oil-covered pelican by BP; photo of oil-covered pelican by sfgate.com

So, NPR.org is running a story today about what average motorists think about their own choices and activities in light of the ongoing fiasco in the Gulf of Black Ooze, and naturally their correspondent has done the usual “fair and balanced” soft-soap job. But the conclusion of the story does, probably inadvertently, at least point toward a genuinely interesting line of thought:

What I heard there was that people are angry, but they also don’t see a real connection between the spill in the Gulf and the decisions they’re making about the cars and trucks they drive and the number of times they fill up the tank in the week.

Now, my initial, knee-jerk liberal reaction was basically: of course they don’t see a connection, because not only are they stupid and ignorant but moreover they’re willfully ignorant; they don’t want to see a connection.

And that’s probably true, as far as it goes, but I kept thinking about it and began to wonder. Unless you’re a wooden-headed reactionary fettered by your own dogma, it’s easy to glance at the oil spill and say that it’s ultimately a result of America’s “addiction to oil.” But beyond that relatively facile observation, just what form the connection between Joe and Jane Tahoe and a zillion gallons of oil flooding the Gulf of Mexico actually take? In what way, exactly, does not only our society, but the individual, bear some responsibility?

Obviously, BP and their partners in crime fucked up, but that by itself can basically be assigned to the apologist’s refrain of “accidents happen.” Or at any rate, “accidents happen when you have assholes cutting corners and behaving recklessly,” which seems to be part and parcel of large, profit-driven corporations.

For that reason, of course, thinking people believe in regulatory oversight, but then that’s vulnerable to both the phenomenon known as “regulatory capture” as well as the fact that ultimately, even the most rigorously-observed safeguards can’t prevent some element of error. And thus to some extent, the risk of this debacle was the direct result of drilling for oil a mile underwater in the first place.

And because that was in turn driven by humanity’s and, particularly in the case of this well, America’s thirst for oil, one arrives at the conclusion that we the people of the United States of Cars all share in the blame, collectively and individually. But in this case, I feel like drawing a direct line from point A to point B is missing a few important points.

For one thing, while extraction and combustion of petroleum has many important drawbacks, not all oil extraction risks a big uncontrollable spill flooding the ocean. When people stop at BP, they don’t specifically want offshore oil. Of course I’ll admit that if the gas pump offered “regular” at $2.70, and “offshore oil” at $2.60, most people would probably choose offshore, even now. But ultimately people don’t want oil, at all; we just want to get around to work and school and the store, etc.

Sure, there are various reasons why people should walk or bike or at least choose more efficient petroleum-powered transportation for getting around, but no one lives a totally “sin-free” existence (or if anyone does, I daresay the rest of us wouldn’t want to hang out with such a prig). We all consume resources, in one form or another, but we’re limited by having to purchase our share. Ideally, when I confront the issue of whether or not to put gas in my car, I (and everyone else) would be presented with a price that accounts for all the resources being consumed plus a proportionate share of all the damage which results from oil extraction.

Of course, we obviously do not live in an ideal world, and instead have an artificially low gas price concealing various subsidies, negative externalities, etc. And realistically, some risks are simply very difficult to assign an accurate cost, particularly when people have incentive to be over-optimistic, and for that matter some things are just plain fucking stupid (like going a mile under the ocean to drill for oil) and would be best left off the table entirely.

The key stop along this little detour of blame, I think, is examining who is to blame for putting offshore drilling on the table, and who is to blame for failing to reveal, if not intentionally concealing, a gas price which is at least less inaccurate, and makes some account for the many obvious market failures connected to the oil industry.

Is it our government? Our government, even Obama himself until it blew up in his face, obviously welcomed offshore drilling. And presumably it also has the responsibility for correcting market failures which, by nature, aren’t really something logical for private industry to address. Government regulators can even be assigned some of the blame for overlooking half-assed practices that increased the risk of disaster.

But, of course, private industry was still directly responsible. And, particularly in the oil industry, has done its best to bribe and bully government into letting it do what it wants.

All the same, what private industry really wants are endless piles of money, a desire tempered by little other than inertia: if you’re an oil company, you generally want to make the biggest profits you possibly can make by being an oil company, as opposed to repositioning yourself as a green energy company (something that’s fine as a marketing campaign but too much work to actually do). And it’s profitable to be an oil company because lots of people buy that industry’s product. So does that mean we’re stuck with the blame again?

Having done more than enough dancing around, I think the answer is ultimately “yes, but.” As I’ve outlined, the relationship between people, government and the oil industry can’t be reduced to a simple two-dimensional model (which is one reason why journalism largely fails to cover it in any useful fashion whatsoever). As The Dude said, “it’s a complicated case… Lotta ins. Lotta outs.”

But if I had to distill any kind of coherent thought from this ramble, it would be that it’s a mistake to assign blame for the oil spill, or for our “oil addiction” generally, entirely to people’s behavior at the gas pump. The American people arguably bear ultimate responsibility for these problems, but having the right culprit alone is not enough in “Clue” and it shouldn’t be enough here.

Because government plays a big role as well, and while here in America we do have (more or less) government of the people, we don’t choose that government by pulling into BP or Chevron.

Sure, some of the dollars we spend work their way back around to influence government; we can’t completely abdicate an element of responsibility as consumers. But on election day we’re still free to vote for whichever candidate we want, regardless of which one has the support of those companies we bought the most stuff from.

And throughout the year we’re also free to exercise less-direct influence on our government in ways that are as smart, or as dumb, as we decide to make them, and not all of that less-direct influence is economic in nature. Politicians hand out permits for offshore drilling, and fail to implement realistic gas taxes, not because they’re afraid that people will just buy less gas if it gets more expensive and thereby cut into the oil industry’s profits, but because they’re terrified of the inevitable public backlash every time that gas prices rise. (And because they’re spineless, but we elected the spineless candidates, after all.)

When people answer surveys saying that they disapprove of Obama’s handling of the oil spill, that really doesn’t send any particularly clear message, but when they pillory anyone who suggests policies that would nudge the country away from oil dependency, that does.

But I don’t know. Maybe I’m just splitting hairs, here; maybe there isn’t much difference between a model based on willfully-ignorant consumer behavior and one based on voter eagerness to embrace unrealistic promises. Maybe I’m just trying to justify my own continued funding of oil companies in spite of feeling incendiary hatred for them and their influence on our political and natural environments, both.

But I think there’s an important point in here, all the same. After all, I buy booze but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to endorse giving the liquor industry everything it could conceivably want; the same goes for the forestry industry or agriculture, etc., etc. There’s clearly more than one type of responsibility for what corporations get away with, and I don’t believe we really help anything by muddling the distinction when it comes to the oil industry.