BP Set To Commit 'The Biggest Environmental Crime in History'

“Beyond Petroleum”

Usually the ones touting the most PR for something are the antithesis of what they claim. It's usually a smoke screen to tell you they aren't what they do the most.

It was often the worst of the worst underwriting NPR as well to make you think they were a positive element of society.

No child Left Behind, Clear Skies, all smoke and mirrors.

KEM PATRICK

yes, i used to drive a car.......but it was automatic and i could never figure out why it wouldn't go round bends........
ah, so it's the bloody brits again........ho hum

IKE KAY

thankyou for your post. it's good to hear from people actually involved in all this mess. but regardless of what you, me, kem, jim and all the rest of us here say, the one thing that stands in our way is the fact that these big greedy corporations just don't give a damn. or the governments for that matter. they all have 'tunnel' vision and all they see at the end of it is money and profits. good luck with your endeavours. i'm trying to do my bit for planet earth even though it's futile.

Hey, this is capitalism, Bub!! Everybody's got a right to make a buck.

Most of the energy I use in my home is for heating. Yet the south-facing walls and roof intercept many times that amount of solar energy during the course of a year. I hope to use something of the order of 10 MWH of solar per year by using a scheme based on that of the Drakes Landing Solar Community ...
http://www.dlsc.ca/ ... which, ironically, is in Alberta.

You have driven a car COCO? You said once you're a blond.

The Canadians don't own the oil rights Coco, they don't own the uranium either, the British Royal Family owns those mineral rights. Glad you are not living in the Gulf area now. Have fun there and stay blogging with us.

Bali goes on as the Rio conference, which I attended went on, Agenda 21, Kyoto Protocol, and so many organizations and NGOs which I work with trying to reduce the harm multinationals, the G8, WTO and the varied alliances that are aimed at increasing human misery for greeter profit go on. WE need to reduce toxins reduce the economic and carbon footprint on this globe is shouted everywhere because we are very clear on the fact that we must do this if the human race is to survive. We have responsible people on the globe doing all they can to fight against the power elite to end this madness that we see happening.

I have been watching the advertising con-job these big oil companies have been using to try to obscure the fact that they are doing something but we know that they are not! We know that are trying to look green over their black profits which will as it is heading exterminate life on this planet.

The oil companies say that renewable in their wisdom will only account to 30 percent of the energy budget for the globe, but even that much, but I am certain it could be greater, coupled with conservation and increasing populations who want to go back to the most efficient lives possible would make the difference in keeping the carbon footprint down while breakthroughs in new conserver technology are brought on line.

These corporate con-men are selling us death and destruction of this planet. They are the most irresponsible of the corporate voice and the most cynical. We need their investments not in advertising to hoodwink the world to believe that they care but their resources invested into green solutions to the reduction of the use of the hydro carbons in the ground or a sequestration of the carbon if the resource is to be used.

We are the problem in that we need all these great inventions that are created so that we can do everything faster, and have ever more of everything. Who here who is writing will reduce their wants by half and try to half those around us do the same?

The entire condition of life on the planet is skewed. The need for ever larger and more of everything is based on a conception of economics that is out of touch with survival strategies for the human population. We try to export these ideas globally so all will buy from us and require the same things. Its called globalization! We are going down the road to extinction along with the systems we have created that have put us out of touch with all life including our own.

The end for wall street and its ideas of value and reason for being which is endless growth can not continue. There is no such thing as perpetual motion or growth. When we experience growth that is out of control in the human organism it is called cancer and we die. On that note since 1970 the incidence cancer has increased 100% in people over 60.

The idea of human valuation is based on money and thingness; that too is out of touch with human needs for survival. All systems are reaching critical mass. The giant human extinction process has begun. It may lead to the end of all life on this planet. We have less tyhan ten years to make the major shifts necessary to survive.

How much I like the call to optimism, to human adventure and responsible action. I rings like the bell of the angels and like so many how write her I am happy for those of you out there that will say, now , now be optimistic. More people at Bali should get these vibes and act responsibly. Having said that I have written here on the problem and tried often to get the powers to be accept we have a really serious problem. I work at the UN and UNESCO in Europe.

I must say, I loathe the establishment because my concerned friends it comes down to vested interests, greed and the economy as so many know here. I am afraid that we have lost this little game of truth or consequences. But if the truth really be known, the power elite and the one percent who have everything and own everyone really don't care if some three billion people on this globe perish.

This is the reality of the circumstances of this situation of climate change and its results, my friends who write here. The carbon producing industry want to burn every resulting carbon atom they can release, the atomic energy plants will continue mining uranium and its horrendous amounts a carbon produced to provide the fuel and the last tree in the Amazon will be cut as well as every other rain forest.

Bali will end with vows to create better adherence to the extension of Kyoto but like the RIO conference in 92, which I attended there will be lack of adherence and the levels of CO2 will surpass those allowed by the treaty. After Rio we were to cut emissions by 50% by now they have doubled. Climate change and its feedback loops will accelerate and the possibilities for future generations will continue to decline.

Regradless of who says what in governement or the news, we don't have more than one and half degree of warming for the feedback lops to begin, if they already ahve not. The changes we have made are melting the poles with that which we pump into the atmosphere. Most of the carbon we put into the air lasts 100 and the remaining amount lasts 1000 years. the UK plans to build enough coal fired electric plants to increase their footprint in sufficient ways to help Bali appear to be a wimper.

Why isn't the Guardian talking about that? Is is that the Guardian wants to stay away from the issues that are really important in the UK? Below find the conclusion of JIm Hansen's letter as a private person to the government of the UK. This should make you all sit up and think!!

THE FINAL PAGE OF JIM'S LETTER

Further actions will be needed to achieve a rollback of the net climate forcing. These actions
(http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0706/0706.3720.pdf) include reduction of non-CO2 climate
forcings and improved agricultural and forestry practices. These actions are important and have
multiple benefits, especially in developing countries, but they do not have the great urgency of
halting construction of new coal plants without carbon capture. Power plants have long
lifetimes, and once their CO2 is released to the air, it is impractical to recover it.

Energy departments, influenced by fossil fuel interests, take it as a God-given fact that we will
extract all fossil fuels from the ground and burn them before we move on to other ways of
producing usable energy. The public is capable of changing this course dictated by fossil fuel
interests, but clear-sighted leadership is needed now if the actions are to be achieved in time.

Tipping points and positive feedbacks exist among people, as well as in the climate system. I
believe that the action with the greatest potential to initiate positive feedbacks, and lead to the
benefits that will accompany a clean energy future, is a moratorium in the West on new coal-
fired power plants unless and until CO2 capture and sequestration technology is available. Such
a moratorium would provide the West with sufficient moral authority to sit down with China and
other developing countries to find ways, likely including technological assistance, for developing
countries to also phase out coal use that does not capture CO2.

As shown above, responsibility for the first step rests with Great Britain, the United States and
Germany. Despite lack of government leadership, citizens in the United States are stepping up to
block one coal plant after another, and the next national election is less than a year away.

If Germany and Great Britain halted construction of coal-fired power plants that do not capture
and sequester the CO2, it could be a tipping point for the world. There is still time to find that
tipping point, but just barely. I hope that you will give these considerations your attention in
setting your national policies. You have the potential to influence the future of the planet.

Chancellor Merkel, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences
for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power
plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing
climate tipping points. We must solve the coal problem now.

For your information, I am sending a similar letter to Prime Minister Brown.

Godspeed,

James E. Hansen

Kintnersville, Pennsylvania
United States of America

Excuse me if you've seen this from me before, but it's a good article from a Montanan perspective:
http://www.missoulanews.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=8B8B8ABA-98F...

This is a prime example of the biggest obstacle to continued survival of our species. The BEST a market-driven system can offer is green marketing and peripheral innovation. Only accountble public ownership of recources and energy production removed from the ownership and influence of private capital can begin to address the ecological crisis in any meaningful way.

I agree with Mary Lou -- develop alternative energy and thus make oil obsolete. Other countries would follow suit. In fact, couldn't we make this a multinational endeavor? A very wise friend of mine many years ago told me that economics is the bottom line. I didn't believe her then. Further, since there is now only one party in the U.S. (the multinational/military-industrial complex), I don't see any political recourse. On the other hand, there is a reason that solar energy has not been developed.... There must be a way we could fund it on our own, that we could attract conscientious brains to this cause...

KEM PATRICK

you are right. no-one is going to do anything about global warming, but what i want to know is: why can't the bloody canadians dig it up themselves? and why does bp want more money after making 11 billion pounds profit last year? am i thick or what? have a look at this website: www.december212012.com and then look up solar storms at the nasa website.

WDMAX3

good for you. i too have given up cars now that i have re-located to southern europe. i walk to the shops and sometimes use the bus. and it's amazing the things you see whilst walking that you would have missed had you been in a car.

Mexico has better oil, better weather, better beaches and better food, better music, and better beer. Then too, they all love Americans. So, why start a war in a cold, miserable place. It's Mexico that should be our next state. Besides, half of them are already here. Their water is even better than ours is now too. ___ Remember the Alamo.

I remember when Canada used to be a progressive country now it's AmeriKKKa friend

canuckchuck asks "when does the invasion begin?"

Actually as soon as the Canucks figure out how to get that god awful smell out of that tar sand oil. The American sensibilities are offended by that stench and prefer the "sweet" Arabian crude. So get to work on that would you? We'll wait, but not for too long.

Kittyladyoregon, my comments about the continuing genocide in both the United States and Canada were to test the waters here at Common Dreams in what is supposed to be an enlightened community. Apparently from the lack of concern expressed, the Common Dreams are only for "White" people and not America's First Peoples. And so the quiet genocide continues even among the supposed enlightened. Pseudo enlightenment at it's best !

For the first time in my life I am ashamed to be a Canadian.

In a similar circumstance to the US situation, we under the thrall of hard-right gov'ts in the province of Alberta and the federal Gov't - both have absolutely no use for any environmental concerns. Again similarly, our federal opposition party (the Liberals) are completely ineffectual and instead of raising hell about this environmental disaster, they dither and worry that taking a strong position might cost them votes in the next election.

Watching our Environment Minister pushing the US agenda in Bali to favour Big Oil, his party's main financial contributor, is so cringe-making that I have to turn off the tv - the political situation here has led our honourable country to lead the world in pollution of the atmosphere and in the despoiling of our environment.

Okay, Ezeflyer, I give up. What was Malthus right about.

wdmax3: Kudos!!!!

mary lou: Great suggestion. I also think we need to do a lot more. China's increased demand for oil will make it so BP and other oil companies won't even notice if US demand is reduced.

do what you can to promote wind and solar energy in your own community. encourage plug-in hybrids and eat local food. what if bp started producing oil-sand oil and nobody wanted to buy it?

Current oil extraction in Alberta produces massive amounts of "sour gas" (Hydrogen Sulfide) as a by product. This deadly gas has been linked to a variety of illnesses, including Multiple Sclerosis. The goverment of Alberta has looked the other way as it's citizens' lives and homes are blighted by oil production.

All oil companies exploit the planet but for who's benefit, ours, we're the ones using and buying the oil products. Who is exploiting the other 50% at the site mentioned in Alberta, don't tell me, BPs competitors.

There is only one effective way to stop BP: every motorist around the world should stop buying BP petrol. A complete boycott would make the company think again.

Meanwhile, a psychiatrist is urgently needed to order that the company board undertake an immediate mental health assessment. They are clearly all certifiably mad.

A spokesman for BP added: “These are resources that would have been developed anyway.”

This equally means that the earth's forests will all be torn down and all of the carbon in all of the coal in the earth, vast 50 year reserves and more, will be put into the atmosphere.

Is your house 200 feet above sea level?

kittyladyoregon

Actually Darfur and neighboring Chad have plenty of oil. What do you think this conflict is about anyway?

doom and gloom - the rich (whites) have been committing genocide upon the native peoples of the Americas for over 400 years. What makes you think that we will ever stop? It is the money that they want and more and more and more until there is only 1 corporation left standing with all the marbles,oops - money.

The reason they care about Darfur is that they do not have oil. Therefore, they can complain and really do nothing and make themselves feel virtuous.

Just make sure that you don’t prevent the corporations that are killing millions and destroying the earth from making their profits!

What are we going to do when Bush declares Marshall Law and stops all elections, communication, email, political action and allows the corporations to do ANYTHING they want. And, of course, you know the owners of the huge corporations are the ones that control BUSH!

Malthus was right.

I have moved and I am now walking to work.

I don't have a car anymore, I figure it is best to get used to a life without a car now then forced to later.

I don't buy useless materials and live a life of minimalism.

I keep my electrical consumption to a minimum.

I know I can't completely stop contributing to the profits of the oil companies in our oil based economy, but I'm gonna cut them short of as much as I can.

Now I can protest the war occupation for oil in Iraq, bitch about the oil companies and be a better environmentalist with a clearer conscience.

rtdrury: Right on! But late in the scheme of things.

I would add that the people of the world are no longer citizens. We are just consumers and wage slaves. And generally, most of us are probably poor and probably don't consume at the same rate as the rich. Not to mention the fact that the MSM hasn't exactly been helpful in helping us make informed decisions either.

But it is true that ulimately, the power and responsibility is ultimately in the peoples' hands. Only problem is that they will not be able to excercise that power until the whole structure collapses worldwide. Peak oil, economic chaos, nuclear holocost? Those are just the precursers to the environmental collapse that will occur from global warming.

I haven't given up, but the whole scenerio seems pretty inevitable at this point. The best we can do is re-form our local communities and reestablish the commons in our own immediate vacinity. We are all going to need each other to survive in the time remaining. Might as well be in the company of good friends and neighbors.

Peace

Personally, I have bought gas solely from Citgo for about 4 years now. I have run out and still refused to buy from the criminals that have our govt's in their pocket.
Over the years more and more of us are becoming aware and making a stand. I find myself even feeling a bit of hope, we are becoming connected accross the world....the worse our governments get, the more of us are standing in unity. If we go down, we go down together and fighting !!!!!

Contact BP at

http://www.bp.com/genericFormSubmit.do

If that doesn't work, google BP, and look for Contact Us on their home page. Don't buy gas there, and in fact, stop buying gas as much as possible.

Tell your average westerner that rising oil prices make tar sand extraction feasible and that person will agree that extraction should commence. This is how the corporations get the go ahead to misallocate resources in such ways.

The flawed assumptions are that tar sands won't cost much more than conventional drilling, that renewable energy isn't viable, and that current energy consumption is sustainable. But these flawed assumptions are not arrived at independently. They are pushed upon the society by the capitalists.

So we have a population of misinformed consumers driving the environmental destruction. In economic terms this is a colossal market failure because a functional market has consumers making informed market demands in the society's better interests.

It is also a colossal civic and ethical failure. The perpetrators are the capitalists but this does not release the people from responsibility. The power and responsibility are always in the people's hands.

As long as we live in a capitalist plutocracy, we can count on corporate greed usurping human rights. The only hope we have is socialism. Long live the spirit of Gene Debs and Dorothy Day.

The economic annexation of Canada has already begun. Ameros for Dollars anybody?

interesting reading on the oil sands

http://www.house.gov/jec/publications/109/06-26-06_oil_sands.pdf

I think the USA owns most of it now. 400 years worth of oil production, second only to Saudi Arabia.

when does the invasion begin?

BP=Bastard Polluters , nothing changes,nothing will
when all the recourses of the world are stripped and wasted, once again it will be the people paying for any clean up.
thats if we live that long

we must not forget about Shell’s Coal-Bed Methane Project in Nothern BC either

"Canada’s Northern BC facing Environmental Catastrophe with Shell’s Coal-Bed Methane Project"
http://www.chycho.com/?q=bc

"This project is raising so much concern that world-renowned environmentalist are joining forces to help stop this project. One of these activists is Vancouver’s own Wade David, “a noted anthropologist and ethnobotanist whose work has usually focused on the observation and analysis of the customs, beliefs, and social relations of indigenous cultures in North and South America, particularly the traditional uses and beliefs associated with plants with psychoactive properties.”"

and this "How Canadians and the Environment will be treated when Shell Oil takes control of Northern BC"

"The following is a video on how the Irish were treated when Shell made its way through Ireland. This is exactly how Canadians will be treated when Shell’s Coal-Bed Methane Project begins operation in Northern BC."

http://current.com/items/87156551_policing_the_pollution_don_t_mention_t...

Americans including the readers and posters here still do not get it. The lands being sold and leased for tar sands oil extraction do not belong to Canada. They belong to the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, the Six Nations Peoples. They belong to them by Treaty with the Crown. The Six Nations Peoples have been putting up strong resistance to development for many years now. Too many of these people exist in poverty with no clean water and inadequate housing. According to the United Nations definitions of Genocide, these takings constitute Genocide.

I have a question for you. Why do the continuing Genocide's in America and Canada mean little or nothing to you? And why does the Genocide in Darfur mean so much to you?

Kinda reminds me of the Steven Seagal movie "On Deadly Ground"

Hey, just look at the logo. An oil company? It says it all. I really don't understand how you can be so degenerate that you could care less about the fate of the entire planet. These people should be arrested, tried, and, if convicted of the crimes they are committing against humanity, thrown in prison for an appropriate amount of time - the rest of their lives.

(soapbox mode on)
When a reduction in food and water takes the population down to a few million, tropical diseases in the mid-latitudes and melted cities underwater, we won't have any problems with the occupation of Iraq (oops, meant the Earth).
Our plans over the past century have worked well, getting the German-Shias fighting the Sunni-Merrycans. We sit here watching you destroy each other and your world, without our help mostly.
Now just keep on doing more of the same on a global scale -- battle with the Earth environment itself! Result: We get a slightly used planet to renovate with pre-warmed bearably cool temperatures.
Thanks for the movies and SciFi Tv.
(Soapbox mode off)

1. Distribute the money used for war for health care, clean water supply, raising crops and so on, on the condition of no extra children.
2. Stop shipping stuff between countries, you are using up OUR oil. Locally grown food to provide local jobs.
3. Stop eating meat! With that food going more efficiently to human digestion and not cutting down the lungs of your Amazon, you save a whole bunch of oil.
4. Begin individually to evacuate to Northern Greenland and Antarctic because, frankly, steps 1 to 3 just won't happen.
See how it just keeps coming back to the oil?

You Canadians better pull your lips of the USA's ass pretty soon or we'll all be going down the tubes. Don't think that just because you're above sea level and that you have a relatively cool climate and that you have a pseudo-liberal government that you are going to escape the global chaos that will ensue if we continue on this insane, consumerism path.
I am of French Canadian descent and used to be proud of it. As you guys get more Americanized every day, I become more ashamed.

PJD December 10th, 2007 12:50 pm -- "the corporations ARE the government"

Well, not exactly. They wouldn't want to subject themselves to the inconvenience of even nominal accountability to the electorate. It's much easier to make use of their 'legal personhood' and its accompanying rights in order to BUY the government.

Actually the only way that my province will stop the development of the tarsands is when the Athabaska river stops flowing. Our provincial gov't has had the same party in power since 1971. Nearly 40 years of single party rule, and not a single new idea in all that time. For the idiots in charge of Alberta, global warming/climate change is nothing other than a good thing. Seas rise? who cares, We're way above sea level. Less severe winters? Great, we'll be able to wear sun hats rather than toques. Desertification? That's not gonna happen here, maybe...

The problem is, the statement by the spokesman for BP is entirely corect.

Under the current system - even under Kyoto, a corporation must either prepare it's plans - short and long term - with utter disregard for global warming, or cede it's business to competetors.

For a while, under the old global social-democratic regime, governments backed by the will of their people, had the power through taxation and regulation, to manage the fields on which these corporations played. But, under the current global neoliberal regime, such beneficial actions are impossible - the corporations ARE the government, and guided by a philosophy that is difficult to distinguish from personal philosophy of a terminal heroin addict, they are all compelled to race each other helter-skelter toward mutual self-destruction.

Poor Marx; capitalism isn't evolving in the way he predicted, and unfortunately it is headed for a much more dire situation than he could have imagined.

This is a perfect example of what the term "peak oil" really means: sure, there's lots of oil out there, but the environmental and economic costs of getting it are obscene, even compared to dropping a hole into the Texan deserts 75 years ago. It is crap like this that we can expect if our dependence on oil continues.

Incredible! ___ BP does run nice TV ads though.

Well if the 110 scientists who say we have about ten years left to reverse global warming are correct, then it doesn't make any difference what BP does, because we're screwed anyway, because humanity isn't going to do anything to reverse global warming.

``'A spokesman for BP added: “These are resources that would have been developed anyway.”" which means if we don't do it someone else will, what a pathetic excuse!

And what a slap in the face, concidentally of course, to A Gore's acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize today condeming exactly this kind of me-first to heck with the planet attitude.

It's shocking, blatant, abusive capitalism at its worst and on a frightening international scale!

It think all sane people around the world really need to put pressure on our respective politicians to regulate and promote the reduction of fossil fuels. Otherwise we're lost!

the port authority of jacksonville,florida..has been bought by south korea.....the same south korea that just dumped a few million gallons of oil into the sea a couple of weeks ago.can they be trusted with the welfare of florida ?? HELL NO !!HELL NO !!DANGER !!DANGER !!!! turn back,mayor john peyton..(you dangerously stupid,masonic,greedy little prick !!!!)the south koreans also hold the patent on the waterless toilet..the plumbing that will turn third world countries into first-world utopian wonders.......there are currently NO plans to ever update the plumbing and the toilets of america(i suspect they do not believe we will need them for OUR future)

The only way to stop this is to tax the CO2 generated in the production process. It wouldn't have to be prohibitively expensive at first, but putting a tax on oil production CO2 now would raise the spectre of higher, potentially prohibitive, taxes in future. That, in turn, would make massive capital investment unattractive. No investment, no project.

However, under the current provincial and Federal governments, taking any action to stop economic activity is highly unlikely. Now you see why Canada has (newly) joined the USA and Japan in the seventh circle of global warming denial.

Another reason for the end of corporate personhood and enforcement of a corporate "death penalty" for corporations that ignore the health of the global commons and the most vital public interests.

I guess those at the top believe that whatever the result of ignoring environmental disaster they will be able to buy their way out of it. I pity the children who will be left to deal with this mess. My generation has failed miserably to teach respect for other people, other creatures and the environment.

I ask those who will be doing the work on this project (as well as working in the oil industry the weapons industry etc, etc, etc). How much did you sell your souls for and was it worth it?