I had a meeting last Friday with the chief software designer from a US firewall manufacturer, good meeting, nice bloke. He felt compelled to bring up the topic of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, because he had flown across the Gulf on the 4th of August en-route to Blighty. What he saw knocked him for 6, frankly. Apparently the authorities there are still not too keen on passenger flights over the area, and with reason. The chap told me that the captain of the flight pointed out the slick and it is gigantic, “the size of a State” to quote his words.
They may have capped the well and scooped up some of the oil, but this is in reality is the biggest ecological catastrophe in modern times. I have looked at various sources on this and it just gets worse and worse. BP used three variants of a chemical called Corexit, which is both an oil dispersant and, it is said, a “neurotoxin pesticide”. From Wiki: “Reportedly Corexit may be toxic to marine life and helps keep spilled oil submerged. There is concern that the quantities used in the Gulf will create 'unprecedented underwater damage to organisms.” I’ve read that the oil is indeed submerged, in up to 5 different density layers. Now we have reports of shoals of dead fish washing up on beaches as far north as New Jersey; even the seagulls won’t eat them, and that’s a first. But New Jersey! How far from the Gulf is that?
Take a look at this picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Golfstream.jpg
Now tell me that we aren’t going to be hit by this. It is scaring the bejaysus out of me, it really is.
And he used an aeroplane to fly to you, which consumes enormous amounts of oil and creates ever-greater pressure to drill more wells like this one? Oh, the irony :hehe:
I hope you pointed that out to him at the time, and extolled the virtues of email, video conferencing, etc. He’s only got himself and others like him to blame.
Unless attitudes like his change, we’re just going to see disasters like this one repeat, over and over again. And each new one will probably be bigger than the last.
Americans are always quick to forget the disasters they cause.
Don’t know why you’re beating up on the guy, are you telling me you’ve never made a business flight? We’re all oil consumers, directly and/or indirectly, we’re all pretty much tarred with the same brush imo.
The point I’m making is that this is an incredibly large, bad event which may impact all of us in the West some way or another, not to mention the non-human damage, and everyone’s gone into denial about it, at least at a government and media level. The guy saw a giant slick on the 4th, US Federal scientists on the 5th said “only 25% left, problem almost solved”, but the Washington Post reports on the 16th “Georgia scientists say 80% of the oil still there”, and then Obama goes swimming… on a virtually land-locked beach beside the Gulf to show it’s ok haha.
It’s. All. Lies. Don’t believe the hype. This is not over, by a long way.
Future generations who are going to have to deal with the consequences of this spill, the slashing of the forests etc etc are going to judge our generation as a bunch of total c*nts for not getting as outraged and upset as we should be about this spill - instead we all just carried on as if nothing had happened.
Me included.
We are treating this planet like a f*cking toilet.
Slightly off topic. I don’t see the point of flying out for business meetings when you can skype for free and save the planet some fumes and your company some money.
You can’t really blame the Americans for the mess when it was BP who caused it.
BM
I totally disagree. BP, as a private company, is accountable to its shareholders first and foremost, who want to see big profits, so BP’s interest in safety and prevention of environmental incidents like this will by default be a secondary concern for them, so they cannot regulate themselves. It makes no economic sense to take expensive precautions against incidents that only ever have a very low probabilty of occurring. If it was left down to them, they will take big risks with lives and the environment. In the absence of an effective regulatory system, this would be an economic necessity for an organisation in a competitive market which is driven by profits.
The American Government, on the other hand, has a duty to prevent companies like BP from taking such risks, by regulating their activities. Its obvious failure to do this is the ultimate cause of this disaster.
Read this and this for further info.
Did you see the enquiry with Tony Hayward vs US senate the guy made Brits look complete idiots. He pretended to know absolutely nothing about the company, or he really knew nothing about it’s ground level operations. The US had the guidelines in place, BP had the relevant safety officers which followed those guidelines which BP chose to ignore.
Sorry mate but the US should have chucked BP out of the country completely!!
BM
If you’re not going to read my links then please at least read this bit:
“MMS’s regulatory decisions contributing to the 2010 oil spill included, in negligence, the decision that an acoustically-controlled shut-off valve (BOP) would not be required as a last resort against underwater spills at the site, MMS’s failure to suggest other “fail-safe” mechanisms after a 2004 report raised questions about the reliability of the electrical remote-control devices, and the fact that MMS gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that assess threats to endangered species and to assess the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf.
The Obama administration failed to reform the corruption in the agency that was endemic under Bush.”
