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Quest for Oil Leaves Trail of Damage Across the Globe
Like many of her neighbors, Celina Harpe is angry about the oil pollution at her doorstep. No longer can she eat the silvery fish that dart along the shore near her home. Even the wind that hurries over the water reeks of oil waste.
Baloa Gbone stands at the site of an oil spill in Nigeria's Delta region. (Shashank Bengali / MCT) "I get so mad," she said. "I feel very sad."
Harpe, 70, isn't a casualty of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She lives in a remote corner of Alberta, Canada, where another oil field that's vital to the United States is damaging one of the world's most important ecosystems: Canada's northern forest.
Across the globe, people such as Harpe in oil-producing regions are watching the catastrophe in the Gulf with a mixture of horror, hope and resignation. To some, the black tide is a global event that finally may awaken the world to the real cost of oil.
"This is a call to attention for all humanity," said Pablo Fajardo, a lawyer in Ecuador who's suing Chevron over oil pollution in the Amazon on behalf of 30,000 plaintiffs.
"Oil has a price," he added, "but water, life and a clean environment are worth much more."
Others say previous oil disasters haven't changed things much, and this one won't, either.
"We're addicted to oil, so the beat will go on," said Richard Thomas, an environmentalist in Newfoundland, Canada, where drilling rigs pepper the coast. "Oil companies will make absolutely sure we don't check ourselves into hydrocarbon rehab anytime soon."
There's no denying that the rust-red plumes of oil and tar balls in the Gulf of Mexico are a potential ecological calamity for American Southern shores. More than half the petroleum consumed in this country, however, is imported from other countries, where damage from exploration and drilling is more common but goes largely unnoticed.
No one's tallied the damage worldwide, but it includes at least 200 square miles of ruined wildlife habitat in Alberta, more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater spilled into the rainforests of Ecuador and a parade of purple-black oil slicks that skim across Africa's Niger Delta, where more than 2,000 polluted sites are estimated to need cleaning up.
"The Gulf spill can be seen as a picture of what happens in the oil fields of Nigeria and other parts of Africa," Nnimmo Bassey, a human rights activist and the head of Environmental Rights Action, the Nigeria chapter of Friends of the Earth, said in an e-mail.
"We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the USA," Bassey added. "In Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments."
Despite calls for more domestic drilling and new sources of energy, America's reliance on foreign oil has climbed steadily over the years, from 44.5 percent of consumption in 1995 to 57 percent in 2008.
"Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oil fields all over the world, and very few people seem to care," said Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and the author of "Amazon Crude," a book about oil development in Ecuador.
"No one is accepting responsibility," Kimerling said. "Our fingerprint is on those disasters because we are such a major consumer of oil."
The United States burns through 19.5 million barrels of oil a day, one-quarter of the world's consumption, more than China, Japan, India and Russia combined. That's 2.7 gallons a day for every man, woman and child, one of highest rates in the world.
The biggest hope for paring the nation's dependence on foreign oil lies in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Alaska and California coasts, but that treasure remains largely untapped. Offshore production has dropped in recent years, from 2.3 million barrels a day in 2003 to 1.8 million in 2008.
The Gulf spill is likely to shrink output even more and increase foreign imports. "We must find a way to do this more safely," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said at a Senate hearing last Tuesday.
If oil production moves abroad, Landrieu said, "We will export some of these problems to countries less equipped and less inclined to prevent this kind of catastrophic disaster."
Others, however, say that such drilling closer to home is too risky. In California, where imports of foreign oil are a record 48 percent, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently pulled his support for an offshore project, citing concerns over the spill in the Gulf. Similar shifts have occurred elsewhere, including Florida and Virginia, where some lawmakers who once supported drilling now are distancing themselves from it.
"You turn on the television and see this enormous disaster, you say to yourself, 'Why would we want to take that kind of risk?' " Schwarzenegger said at a news conference.
In poor countries such as Ecuador, people don't have a choice.
"The impacts here have been enormous," said Esperanza Martinez, Ecuador coordinator for the international environmental group Oilwatch. "We calculate 1 million hectares" - 2.5 million acres - "have been deforested."
Four decades of spills and leaks by oil companies there, including some from the United States, have fouled thousands of miles of jungle streams and wetland zones.
"What does this all mean to the people? It means high levels of illness in the petroleum zones, where they have 30 percent more cancer," Martinez said. "The worst indicators of poverty are right next to petroleum sites."
For its part, the Western States Petroleum Association, which represents U.S. oil companies, argues that tapping America's offshore oil is more responsible, but the Gulf spill will only make that more difficult, said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the group's president.
"We have to re-earn the confidence, relearn the lessons and move on to explore and access these resources domestically, so we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil," Reheis-Boyd said.
Much of California's disdain for drilling stems from a 1969 well blowout near Santa Barbara that killed some 3,700 seabirds and captured nationwide attention.
By historic standards, it was a significant but not gigantic spill: More than 3 million gallons leaked, compared with 11 million from the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989 and four million gallons so far from the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf.
The Santa Barbara spill had a super-sized impact, however, jump-starting an era of environmental activism and helping to inspire the first Earth Day a year later.
"A lot of the oil ended up on the coast, where people are highly sensitized to their environment and activist by nature," said Tupper Hull, the vice president of strategic communications for the Western States Petroleum Association.
"Oil spills are terrible things to see," he said. "They have a visual and visceral and emotional impact on people that cannot be trivialized."
The Santa Barbara spill "set off a chain of events that created an orthodoxy on this issue," he said. "It was a game-changer, not unlike what's now taking place in the Gulf of Mexico."
The pollution-control efforts in the Gulf are said to be unprecedented. They include the deployment of more than 100 miles of protective booms and the use of more than 400,000 gallons of chemical dispersant to break up the oil. Scores of state and federal agencies are helping, too, including the Army National Guard.
That doesn't happen in Nigeria, the fourth-largest source of foreign oil in the U.S., according to Bassey, the environmental leader.
"Officially, there are over 2,000 oil spill sites that need environmental remediation," he said.
In Nigeria, oil firms "wield the big stick and work with state security to silence complaints," Bassey charged. "Pollution impacts fisheries, agriculture and human health. Thanks to the industry, life expectancy is lowest in the oil communities."
Last year, Amnesty International published a report on the Niger Delta region, saying, "Oil spills, waste dumping and gas flaring are endemic."
Shell, one of the major operators in the Delta, acknowledges that conditions are difficult. On its website it says that most pollution isn't its fault, however. "Most oil spills - 98 percent by volume in 2009 - are the direct result of militancy and other criminal activity," the company said.
However, Omoyele Sowore, a Nigerian environmentalist in the U.S., called West Africa "the wild, wild west of pollution. It's lawless."
Oil companies pollute "with impunity," he said. "There are no consequences."
In northern Alberta, where oil companies are mining tarlike sands, converting them to crude and piping about 830,000 barrels a day south to the United States, indigenous people such as Harpe have complained for years about pollution, illness and the destruction of wildlife habitat.
"It doesn't matter what we say," Harpe said by phone from her home along the Athabasca River in the booming "oil sands" region. "It seems to go in one ear and out the other. We are being ignored."
"What we're seeing in the Gulf is very acute, whereas what's unfolding in the oil sands is much more chronic," said Dan Woynillowicz, the director of external relations for the Pembina Institute, a Calgary environmental group. "As a result, the scale and consequence are not catching the attention of the U.S. media, public and politicians, despite the fact that U.S. oil demand is driving the expansion of oil sands development."
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says the disturbance is manageable and the mined areas can be reclaimed. "We will mitigate our impact on the land while maintaining regional ecosystems and biodiversity," the group says on its website.
In the Third World, oil companies operate differently from the way they do in Canada or the United States, activists say.
"When they go into a country like Ecuador or Peru, where there is no meaningful regulation, they take advantage of that," charged Kimerling, the law professor. "They are more careless, and go in with an attitude that they can do whatever they want.
"The U.S. government has not shown any interest in the environmental disasters that are being caused by our companies in other countries."
"I think they should," she added. "When we have oil spills in this country we care, we respond, we do everything possible to try to minimize damage.
"But when our companies spill oil in other countries - and those governments don't respond - we don't, either. It sends a chilling message that we don't care."
(Knudson is a staff writer for The Sacramento Bee. Bee Photographer Hector Amezcua contributed to this report.
87 Comments so far
Show AllThe Tar Sands the most polluted place on the planet. The amount of water and natural gas to heat and wash the oil out of the sand is huge. Lakes had been drained so Harper ( PM of Canada ) can please his American masters.
Time Canadian voters changed the direction the country is heading and hand the oil companies the clean up bill TODAY
Exactly!
This is not only being tolerated, but encouraged, by PM Harper, who IS an Alberta Oil Thug. Alberta is filled with Oil Thugs who use their $$ to keep him in office.
Harper needs to be kicked to the curb and clean up legislation made a top priority.
Two-thirds of Canadian voters DIDN'T vote for him.
The Problem is that when the Liberals were in power, they too promoted the Tar Sands and the High Artic as future sources of energy.
Ignatieff at the controls will do NOTHING to turn this around and given Natural resources a Provincial responsibilty it the people of Alberta that have to be woken up first.
How that to be done is beyond me. Can people working in the Auto Industry making 40 bucks an hour and more in Ontario dictate to people working in Albertas Oil Industry, this is not right and should be ended?
What we have is a whole lot of people in Alberta whose livelihoods depends on the Oil Industry. In Ft Macmurray many people make 100k a year and more with little more then a High school education. Many of these people (fully 2/3rds) come from Eastern Canada and especially the maritimes.
These people once faced a lifetime of on the dole in Eastern Canada as fishing and other industries died out and can suddenly "make an honest living again".
How the heck can they be convinced they would be better off working for 1/4 the pay by shutting down the Tar Sands?
Now do not misunderstand what I am saying here. I would like to see tar sands exploitation halted , but it an issue a lot larger then what Political Party is in power. Enviromentalists have to face the facts that when they fly in to these regions demanding the shutdown of the Industry a whole lof of people are going to fear thier jobs and livelihoods should that happen.
Again I use the example of Paul Macartney flying in to protest the Seal hunt. He is worth over a billion dollars. Th epeople who hunt seals make less then 30k a year. The optics of him demanding an end to such are not very good.
I agree, but it is hard to ask them to do that when we are
doing what we are doing.
It is kind of like asking the Drug Cartels to quit selling
drugs to America, when we are the problem
I have seen several requests to boycott BP. Kinda absurd.
Americans should have been boycotting all oil companies when
the first drop of blood spewed out in Afghan and Iraq.
Even this oil gusher doesn't stop Americans.
This probably doesn't apply to many CDers, but..
STOP YOUR FUCKING DRIVING, NOW.....except back and forth
to work, Go to the store twice a month a the most.
That is the only power we have to stop this insane madness.
The media won't help, the Chomsky's don't help with solutions, just paper after paper written about imperialism.
Ones like Scheer, E. Robinson and others that have the access
to millions should, instead of being a mouthpiece for the Dems, organizing mass boycotts of gasoline, and strikes against our government.
I think you mean niggardly. I hope. I like this post, except I do not understand about the beans.
Joe
IMO, US oil addiction has led to defiling the entire planet. Is it any wonder that some of these countries resort to terrorism as a response? Rather than an offensive attack, they are defensive attacks. The US doesn't give a damn about other countries.
I am a non-violent individual and I certainly was horrified by 9/11.
The WTC was the high altar of greed. The US has never even considered the WHY of 9/11. IMO, the US was NOT victimized, but retaliated against. All the 9/11 targets were responsible for the defiling of the planet and occupation of other countries to feed the US Oil addiction.
What did the US learn from 9/11?
Absolutely NOTHING!
US arrogance and sense of entitlement continues. The only difference is that, this time, the US is feeling the damage on its own shores. Will the US learn anything this time? I doubt it. The US has not enforced its own regulations and now will pay the price for generations to come.
Oil spills happen, and swept under the rug, when possible.
But Florida beaches are worth billions per year to the state economy , and this is where Americans come to vacation, retire, grow and die. Why?? The weather and the beaches.
And sea food industry in Louisiana are worth billions. They supply 25% of the states in seafood.
Drill baby Drill is kill baby kill.
Kill the environment, kill opposition to any new technology's that improve gas mileage on cars ( they have been doing that for years), stop our government from making serious investments and laws regarding solar and wind power advancements,
etc.etc.etc.
Oil company's have been allowed to buy control of the planet, now thats a monopoly.
A GLOBAL MONOPOLY OF ENERGY CONTROL.
If we added an additional 50 cent per gallon federal gas tax now, and made it the law to do the same every year into the future, the public would get the idea that consumption must fall, and lifestyle changes will be ultimately necessary. Income taxes on the first 50k could be eliminated. A common sense approach such as this, will happen someday. I hope it is soon.
A gasoline tax at the pump is a regressive tax that punishes lower income Amerikkkans the most. If we're going to initiate more taxes they need to be on the windfall profits that the oil and gas industry has benefited from during the past 30 years.
In addition tax credits could be issued to businesses that create renewable energy sources. This would encourage the development of new and efficient energy and ween the world off the oil tit.
How about a Manhattan Project type of effort that would gather the best scientists in the world in one location and let them focus on ways to reduce our addiction to oil and find alternative sources?
Your ideas are fine, but probably limited in scope. The regressive nature of the energy tax can be alleviated to some extent with credit programs, giving money to every adult. For those who don't drive much, they could make money on the deal.
We are, dying a slow death.
In the beginning of civilization, the rich nobility were revered and often worshipped as their superior leadership was admirable and no visible or permanent damage did they do.
But that was six thousand years ago, and now everything the rich get their hands turns to pure crap, completely visible and crap irreversible.
For High Society is a super-intelligent race of beings who own all wealth giving them control of all power.
NEW LAW
No one on earth shall own
more then $1 million of wealth.
Being rich does not mean one is smart, let alone super-intelligent. A lot of wealth is inherited or spread around the good-ol-boys club. And, in fact, even if they are smart, a lot of them are only smart about how to keep and expand their wealth. They still lack wisdom, the ability to see the big picture, how everyone and all life is connected, and how their actions impact future generations and the health of the planet.
Ability to achieve is in direct proportion to the speed at which you can rationalize a problem and take corrective action. Some would call capitalism an intelligence dictatorship, some an ambition dictatorship, but to stay neutral on the issue: Ability to achieve in capitalism, like sex-appeal, wealth and High Society breeding, surely it does pass from father to son.
For ability to achieve in capitalism depends on the brains to know, what you know, who you know and the capital and resources you can apply to the project. Most certainly not a fair playing field and no matter what kind of fake morality you are addicted to, capitalism is anything but honest, upright or good.
A tax on gas is going to do nothing to slow consumption in the way we need it to.
People who live in rural areas( like myself) need to get to work -at least for now. Other wise, if we just quit working,we look like lazy do for nothings. Finding a job close to home that pays for the mortgage etc, is not doable. Don't tell me I have to go live in a city or move to a more job lucrative area, because I've been there done that. I'm not going back to it. I bought my home so I could grow my own food, have my chickens, etc.
So, I really get annoyed when there is a blanket statement about not driving and a tax being put on gas. It's expensive enough now that if it goes much higher, I WILL be forced to quit my job because it won't pay... Any job much closer I do to replace it won't come close to paying what I make now, which is 23, 000 a yr. So it's not like I'm living high on the hog to begin with.
I actually would be happier if I didn't have to drive to this job and could stay home and live sustainably, raising my own food etc. But so far that isn't feasible.
You forgot to mention the preferable alternative to taxing gas, and other polluting energies. I realize inconvenience (sometimes severe) is a fact. I live in the country too. In my area of SE MN, some buses have been organized to run from small towns to jobs in Rochester. It is easy for me to talk since a gas tax would merely pinch my finances. But I know of nothing else to cut our usage of oil. There would be benefits such as less congested roads and farmers like myself would be pushed to reduce tillage, saving soil.
They need to tax fossil fuels at the source, which will increase your gas cost. However, this should be revenue neutral, so you get a monthly check from the gov't: your share of the money made off this tax. You're still behind, because you drive long distances to work. I don't have a solution, except look into high mpg vehicles, carpooling, etc.
theinitiate - you are already making life choices that make a difference. I thank you for that.
In my experience, the people with the lowest incomes always do a better job of setting a budget and sticking to it. We have no other choice. When our money is spent, that's it until next month. We are obliged to save if we need to replace large household items, rather than using a credit card, because our budget does not allow for another monthly bill.
I shop once a month for groceries. That requires advance planning and sticking to the shopping list. I do not have a car so, I must arrange for my groceries to be delivered. That provides a job for another member of my community. I am fortunate to live in a community that is free of fast-food restaurants. We are obliged to do more cooking from scratch. That is always healthier and better tasting anyway. I don't buy bottled water. I filter the water from my own well. No paper plates or cups are used in my home.
It takes dedicated personal effort to change the way we live.
Many people in my community NEED SUV type vehicles. We don't have freeways but an abundance of bush roads. SUV's on freeways make no sense to me at all.
Everyone can't live in the boonies, like me. That is no excuse for overconsumption, waste & pollution.
A friend of mine (an environmental scientist, actually, but not involved) said he figures this will be a record hurricane season and the entire south coast of Red-state America will get this oil dumped right on top of them.
That will be a gift and thanks from their people, neo-con-fundamentalist-christian-capitalist-wing-nuts Cheney-Bush, and of course, Reagan, who started us down the road that ended with Dubya. Hope the southern Red states appreciate all that their heroes have done to them...uh..for them.
Pssst! It didn't end with Dubya!
Thanks Tom Knudson for such a marvelous perspective on this lust for oil.
NOW, after turning a blind eye to the environmental ravages of drilling for oil all over the world, the U.S., with the current oil disaster in the Gulf, is squealing like a wounded pig.
I hope this current disaster serves a bonafide wake-up call for a vast majority of Americans. The original wake-up call was from Pres. Jimmy Carter, but the great savior for American greed and self-indulgence, Ronald Reagan, took care of that.
President Reagan was elected because he caressed our national "goodness". Since then, the oil industry and its rich Wall Street cronies have suckered and plundered the vast majority of Americans and waged war on the world, all in the name of oil.
The lavish American lifestyle is the cause of a lot of misery in the world. As a nation, we must begin to think about it!
As Eckhart Tolle stated: "The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness".
I guess we're still waiting for that "greatest achievement" then.
Exactly! The dysfunction itself precludes this "achievement."
Anne Wilson Schaef wrote a book way back in 1987 called, "When Society Becomes an Addict." She nailed it 23 years ago, and I have seen no evidence of change:
"When we think of what it means for an entire system to be oriented toward nonliving, it is almost too much to bear. When we realize that this attitude is the orientation of the system in which we live, it is truly terrifying. When we see and know that our major policy decisions are made by people who do not understand or admit to their own addictive processes, and these decisions are made by persons whose thinking processes are the same as the distorted stinkin' thinkin' of the addict, we rightfully fear for our lives and those of our children" (pg. 132).
Add to this Joel Bakan's revelation in "The Corporation" that corporations, if they were diagnosed as individuals (and why shouldn't they be, since the law recognizes them as individuals), would meet every single DSM-IV criterion for psychopathy, and you have a sense of the scope of this problem. Civilization is not civilized, it is insane. We're going down...
Some of us have been saying that humanity's greatest task is to face its madness and insanity for 30, 50 years. The psychedelic 60's were a Gaian Revival, but few understood then, or now.
"squealing like a wounded pig"
Excellent phrase. I WILL quote you.
I hope this current disaster serves a bonafide wake-up call for a vast majority of Americans.
just like the S&L crash 1987
just like the OPEC oil embargo 1973
just like the dot com bubble burst 2000
just like the nyc terrorist attacks 1993, 2001, 2010
just like the iraq invasion 2003
just like the global financial meltdown 2008
yea... i can hear the masses whooshing out of their comfy abodes RIGHT NOW... to proclaim ENOUGH!...
The biggest significant contribution we all can make toward reducing our dependence on oil is to get behind the electric vehicle. If you don’t know anything about them, Learn! Write to your Senator and at least one Congressman and ask them to make sure that the Government will help subsidize the public purchase of these vehicles when they come out this year. Until they have been around awhile, they will be expensive and it will be hard to get enough of them on the road to make a difference.
The Electric Car will make an enormous difference in so many ways. They will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, thus helping our economy big time and allow us to revise our foreign policies toward the Middle East. They will reduce pollution in our cities and cut down on health care costs. They will contribute greatly to the reduction of global warming CO2 emissions. They will reduce our transportation costs and give us more incentives to modernize our electrical production and distribution.
The Big Oil Companies have been using tremendous power to delay the coming of Electric Cars. They know they will come, but they want to pump as much oil as possible before they give in. Only the people can stop them and get our government behind pushing this agenda to the forefront.
Great things can only be achieved by everyone believing it can be done. How do you think the second world war was won? Our energy future is choice, not fate. Oil dependence is a problem we need no longer have—and it’s not only cheaper not to, but we can reduce the trade deficit dramatically. Our oil dependence can be eliminated by proven and attractive technologies that create wealth, enhance choice, and strengthen our security, while giving the public perfectly acceptable and even preferable alternatives.
By halting our persistent procrastination, we can make remarkable progress in just 10 years. Most experts agree with this.
When the US last paid attention to our dependence on foreign oil between 1977–85, we cut our oil use by 17% while GDP grew 27%! Oil imports fell 50%, and imports from the Persian Gulf by 87% in just eight years, and remarkably by using simple existing technologies!
"The biggest significant contribution we all can make toward reducing our dependence on oil is to get behind the electric vehicle." Oh really?
Try these quotes on for size:
"The current American way of life is founded not just on motor transportation, but on the religion of the motorcar, and the sacrifices that people are prepared to make for this religion stand outside the realm of rational criticism. ... The fatal mistake we have been making is to sacrifice every other form of transportation to the private motorcar -- and to offer, as the only long-distance alternative, the airplane."
Lewis Mumford, The Highway and the City, 1963.
"Soon we will see traffic jams of automobiles that don't use oil as fuel; so what? ... A vision of millions of Americans driving even solar-powered cars is a vision of people disunited, solitary, debt-ridden, obese, and bleary."
Peter Gelman, Oregon Cycling Magazine, April 2003.
"All cars -- hybrid, electric, biodiesel or gas-guzzling -- contribute to urban sprawl; all cars demand asphalt-paved roads and parking lots; and all cars require polluting and resource-depleting industries for their production and upkeep."
Robert Simms, 2004.
Agreed.
Considering that due their limited range per charge, the electric car will generally only be practical for local urban ans suburban transportation. But if we returned to traditional urban design, cars would not be needed much at all, walking and public transportation works fine.
I find it very suspicious that the phrase "suburban sprawl" has been replaced by "urban sprawl". But definition, "urban" areas are not what are contributing to sprawl - most are still depopulating, it is the suburban model that is contributing to sprawl.
Excellent post! There are short term steps that can be taken. Unfortunately, there are trillions of dollars in profits at stake and the corporate fascists hold all the levers of power. Given that ugly reality, I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
Long term, we must develop a rapid mass transit system that would border on the efforts made to develop our current interstate highway system. No small task there.
From the article: "The United States burns through 19.5 million barrels of oil a day, one-quarter of the world's consumption..."
I'm wondering what percentage of this 19.5 million is used by corporate farming and the military.
----------------------------------
"We must find a way to do this more safely," Sen. Mary Landrieu.
This is the troubling attitude I see coming from congress. Not, how do we wean ourselves from the black goo, but how to make it "safer".
2.7 gallons a day for every man, woman and child. I guess I don't really get it. Is that gasoline for our cars or does that include oil for heating purposes and industry? 2.7 gallons of gas will get some about 60 miles. At $3 per gallon roughly $8.50 a day for transportation to and from work. Some might find that too costly. There again I wonder how much a pack of cigarettes costs? How much per day on average do we pay to heat and cool our homes? How many of us are really aware of the ways we budget our household expenses and where we prioritize such costs? Gives me food for thought and introspection.
BP's new story...
They inserted the pipe...
and loading a tanker...
but moments later.....
the robots ran into each other....
partially knocking out the pipe...
the robots were sending video....
so now they can say , they have no video....
and on and on and on...
The same MSM that reported this...
also reported the spill to be..
210,000 gallons a day.... They might as well have said, 210,178.005 gal a day
everyone knows that is not true...
so why did they say this ??????
now does anyone believe the pipe story..???
they can claim now ,,, we have no video...
HOW CONVIENIENT...
The oil cartels and the rest of corporate world control will eventually murder our planet we all live on. And the good old USA will lead the way to our certain deaths.
The US "government" cannot control any vital segment of our vile, totally corrupt corporate rulers. In fact they, our "representatives," in our "Democratic" congress have given in to the corporations who are more than willing to give congress millions of dollars and other "perks" to insure "agreeable" legislation. The "government" has recently given trillions of dollars to corporate entities to insure those corporations will continue to enslave the people of, not only the United States,but other countries as well.
The auto industry,not only here in the US but world wide, is responsible for the global warming that is helping to kill us all. And they continue to produce the primary cause of global warming;the internal combustion engine. By the millions every year. And to think the auto industry has the alternative to the internal combustion engine locked up in their corporate offices and has had for years.
Bill Lear produced an engine that was used in automobiles, trucks and buses that he manufactured with alarming success. And scared the auto industry to death. A STEAM engine that was powered by almost any liquid. Nothing was emitted from the tail pipe except water vapor!! Where are the plans for such an engine and why has'nt it replaced the internal combustion engine?? Lets all ask the auto industry!! Since Detroit bought the concept from Lear in the seventies there has'nt been one mention of his engine since. The auto division of our corporate government has successfully defeated any effort to replace its present automotive technology.
How much electricity would have to be produced to power 4 or 5 hundred million autos in the US, if this type of engine will ultimately power our future autos. And what fuel will be used to power the turbines that would produce that electricity?? Coal or natural gas???...........and the beat goes on.
"The auto industry,not only here in the US but world wide, is responsible for the global warming that is helping to kill us all."
The auto industry would not be selling vehicles with internal combustion engines if Americans refused to buy them. It's so easy to blame the big bad corporations. Most of us need to look in a mirror to see who's really to blame ".........and the beat goes on."
Yes, the MIRROR is the magic that reveals the monster. I also got a kick out of the 'number' guy you responded to. He is obviously a true conspiracy lover.
Individual actions are ineffective for solving SYSTEMIC problems. Systemic problems require systemic solutions. Fossil fuel use is pervasive, hardly limited to cars. That you would divert blame from the "big bad corporations" and by extension the capitalist economic system driving the quest for ever greater profits (regardless of the damage) shows that you have no clue as to the source of the problems. If everybody stopped driving cars would that change things? Yes, but you wouldn't be talking about looking into a mirror. You would have to see organized collective action on a massive scale, a mass movement, whose aims were nothing short of revolutionary. The "big bad corporations" with the political system, military system, financial system and media systems that they OWN would do everything in their power to stop it. At present moment the American populace is no where near the political CONSCIOUSNESS, let alone organizational capacity necessary to make that happen. If you want that change to come about (as I do), looking in the mirror is not going to help. You need to understand the systems (not human nature) that create the damage to humanity and the environment that they do. A critical understanding of capitalism would be a good place to start.
Most certainly a holistic approach is best, but avoiding the individual choice problem is oh, so convenient for most of us.
The problems we are facing will not be solved via "lifestyle activism". Certainly, we should consume less, but we live in a system that promotes over consumption (in the rich world - that's us). We may be able to choose what we buy, but we don't have a choice about the system that provides us those "choices". Most of the vast array things that that we can choose don't represent substantive choices (e.g. Coke vs Pepsi). You can't even buy computer made in the US. Going back to the land isn't really a choice for most of us either. While we talk of looking at the mirror most people in the world can't afford a mirror. Our "choices" come at the expense of the majority of the world's population. Lifestyle activism or "individual choice" does not and will not threaten the system. And, it is the system that we should be challenging.
I agree with your arguments here. To understand the system, we need to look at the power that holds it in its present form, enforces its direction, and punishes its detractors and/or opposition. Looking at the system from the point of view of power relationships reveals that the first thing to do is start dismanteling corporations and stripping them of their power. That's what my mirror tells me.
I, of course, agree that it's the system - and it needs to be changed. The questions are: how, and how much. It's much easier (and safer) to pretend that our government is not thoroughly corrupt - even when there's overwhelming, contrary evidence staring us directly in the face. What are we going to do about it? For example, what is to be done about the 62 senators in the U.S. Senate who rejected Vitter's Amendment to Audit the Fed? The go-along to get-along crowd would probably say 'vote them out of office.' But we need to go way beyond that - in a not so polite, but rational manner.
"Most of the vast array things that that we can choose don't represent substantive choices (e.g. Coke vs Pepsi)." Or Dems vs. Repubs. The obvious choice for me is to reject them both. One of our goals should be to help people become aware that there are more than two choices in just about everything in life.
What other major products are no longer made in the U.S. besides computers? Many. One of the main reasons our economy is NOT coming back is because Congress allowed the offshoring of our manufacturing jobs.
And everyone can afford a mirror. Natural mirrors have been around for eons.
Individual choice WILL threaten the system. Here's a hint: "Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes." Alexander Haig, U.S. Secretary of State, June 12, 1982. Hmmmm...
My feeling is that most of us commenting on CD have not been able to make the hard choices (for whatever reasons). Not yet anyway.
"Our "choices" come at the expense of the majority of the world's population." Not my choices - or maybe I don't understand your comment. If you fail to appreciate the choices made by the individual, we'll not get very far.
Here's a good summation about the great majority of Americans, and suggestions about how to connect with them:
Signs That You Might Be Part Of The Herd
http://waronyou.com/topics/sheeple-signs-that-you-might-be-part-of-the-herd/
>>What other major products are no longer made in the U.S. besides computers? Many. One of the main reasons our economy is NOT coming back is because Congress allowed the offshoring of our manufacturing jobs.
I should look in the mirror because CEO's of major corporations figured out that cheap, wage slave labor could be had for the taking? I have been screaming about Wal-Mart long before it became fashionable and it fell on deaf ears. I couldn't figure out why people weren't boycotting Wal-Mart like I was. Then I had an epiphany: the majority of Americans aren't the yuppie well-to-do simpletons your link makes them out to be. They struggle to put food on the table, pay their rents and mortgages, send their kids to college, try and retire with fifty cents. All the yelling in the world wouldn't stop these people from saving money because I told them not to. Gut survival instinct told them otherwise, consequences be damned. Your inability to grasp the systemic problems this country faces and your juvenile south-park links are merely symptoms of a society which lacks critical thinking skills and wallows in the mire of its own capitalist mud pit. If you look carefully in the mirror, your self will tell you that capitalism must be destroyed. How that happens in a system where corporate fascists hold all the levers of power remains to be seen.
"If you look carefully in the mirror, your self will tell you that capitalism must be destroyed. How that happens in a system where corporate fascists hold all the levers of power remains to be seen."
Okay, let's say that we all look in the mirror and see that capitalism must be destroyed. What follows is that we cede all the levers of power to the corporate fascists and wait to see "what remains to be seen?"
This is impotence. It is also not really seeing all that is reflected in the mirror.
Perhaps the only lever you and I have is the one to the trap door directly under the corporate fascists. They still haven't figured out a way to force us to consume what we don't need. And they haven't prevented us from creating alternatives. To date, they have merely tricked us into buying all the stuff that comes back to hurt us, but they haven't forced us into it. Yet.
We'd better get busy pulling the one lever we do have instead of pointing at all the other levers that we don't have.
I agree that Americans need to strive hard to consume less. At the same time, I am not delusional to the point that I think the global corporate fascist empire is going to collapse if people consume less. They can do quite a nice job of keeping themselves in the lap of luxury providing essentials like food and water. Big AG and water privatization anyone?
You need to put some of your ideological eggs in some other baskets Ted. Seriously. Think bricks, bottles and barricades.
I'm confused about this response. Does your "epiphany" excuse the people who shop at Wal-Mart because they can't afford to shop at better quality stores? Do you ever stop to think that maybe it's the consumption itself that's the problem?
The link I provided does not only refer to "yuppie well-to-do simpletons," but to simpletons in general. Please define "juvenile south-park links" as I have no idea what "south-park" means.
Forget the "CEO's of major corporations" for the time being and look in the mirror. Who are you, and what do you want and really need?
I see many contradictions in your comments. For example, you hunger for your own electric car, yet you seem to feel that "capitalism must be destroyed." What gives?
I don't know what to tell you Al. I was born and raised in a large urban area and I don't see all this wild conspicuous consumption. I see people being laid off and being foreclosed on. I see people who go to Wal-Mart to buy essential items. I unconditionally view my fellow citizens in a positive regard. I don't view them as simpletons and sheeple. If you think division and arrogance are going to change this system, I wish you luck.
As for my preoccupation with the electric auto, I replied to the post above.
The old biblical saying, "throwing pearls at swine" comes to mind.
"The problems we are facing will not be solved via "lifestyle activism". Certainly, we should consume less, but we live in a system that promotes over consumption (in the rich world - that's us)."
Wrong.
The problems we are facing will ONLY be solved via "lifestyle activism."
Asking the system to reform itself is madness. When we realize that WE ARE the system, or rather, the energy that fuels the system, we change. If we don't realize this, we keep demanding the impossible.
"And, it is the system that we should be challenging."
And how do you propose to do that? By asking someone else to change while we keep living the same way? That will never work...for obvious reasons.
Most people in the world can't afford a mirror. Yeah, but then, they're not the ones who need to change. You and I, sitting in the lap of luxury with energy enough to type into our expensive computers (probably made in some part with Nigerian oil) on the Internet can afford a mirror. We should look into it with honesty.