Excuse the witty but obvious pun.
It is currently day 70-something of the BP Oil Spill, or as it is also called, the "Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill" (bit more innocuous), and very little has been made in the way of progress towards ending it. It has become the worst oil spill in human history, and will likely become the worst, if not one of the worst, ecological disasters this planet has ever seen outside of the ice ages. So, the burning question on everyone's mind is likely "Who burns at the stake for this?"
First, BP. During congressional hearings, BP employees testified that parts supplied by subsidiary companies such as Halliburton were to blame (as if Halliburton didn't cause enough grief to this world already); Halliburton shunted the blame elsewhere, and, in the end, no one carried the brunt of the blame. Still, there is confusion as to where, what, and at whom to point fingers.
Obviously, BP is largely at fault. They committed over 200+ safety violations over the past 3 years, all of which were allowed to pass by the MMS (Minerals Management Service). Members of the MMS, if I remember correctly, received over 1,000,000$ in campaign funds and other miscellaneous contributions from oil companies. In fact, there are stories that members of the MMS and directors on the boards of oil companies went out and had parties with cocaine and prostitutes. So, what is the punishment for this mismanagement of power? As quoted on the MMS website, "Secretarial Order 3302, issued June 18, 2010 renames the Minerals Management Service to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE). The name change is effective immediately." Hey, it's a good tactic in some ways; you can't blame an agency that doesn't technically exist anymore. Either that, or coke is a hell of a drug.
There will be some people who blame Obama for such reasons as authorizing the oil spill to "promote green energies" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l9U6Cjodho), or those who blame George Bush, Bill Clinton, Reagan, etc. While each of those names does share a portion of the blame for this crisis, the ultimately culpable person is the American electorate. As a whole, we elected incompetent, immoral men without fact-checking, are relatively dispassionate about serious developments in clean fuel, and allow people who seem knowledgeable to sway our opinions on any subject. Wake up call? Maybe. Call to action? Probably not.
The American electorate is classically apathetic in all matters of politics. Maybe if we paid more attention to politics than to, say, Justin Bieber and his entire life, this disaster could have been averted. Now, in the words of Peter Griffin...
That's all for now,
Das Flüg
Showing posts with label oil spill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil spill. Show all posts
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Avatar
I only recently watched Avatar (don't be surprised, I'm pretty sure that I might have had something else to do when it was out, don't remember what though) and enjoyed it. Sure, I could criticize Sam Worthington for being a terrible actor, but this isn't a movie review. Rather, it's what I'm taking away from the movie itself.
The movie, as most people already know, features a Native American-like people called the Na'vi who, as is the lore with many Native American tribes, have a spiritual connection to their planet Pandora and the animals around them. Humans, having overrun and pillaged all the resources of Earth, travel to Pandora in order to mine the rare ore Unobtainium (an old sci-fi movie joke) and must force the Na'vi from their sacred home. The ore, as reported in the movie, is worth "$20 million per kilogram"-enough to make any oil company CEO wet himself in euphoria. The question is, would you sell your conscience to become rich?
An almost perfect example is the current British Petroleum oil disaster which has ravaged the Gulf of Mexico and thrown the balance of wildlife into disarray. Over the last two years, BP has collected over 200 safety violations that had not been addressed until the spill. There was a certain group mentality to this: since nothing had gone wrong yet, and everyone was making money with relatively no repercussions, no one would feel the need to point out the glaring safety issues which caused this spill. While there may have been some who would have sought to rectify BP's safety record, social influence from complacent co-workers would have stifled any complaints. Obviously, the CEOs would not want to hear any information that proved to be contrary to their success, and collective ignorance would continue.
Sorry for the psychology spiel, but it was necessary.
This leads into the implicit danger of drilling for oil, especially in an ecologically-sensitive area such as the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf features several rare marine species and coral reefs, all of which have been in immense danger since the spill. Is it essentially immoral to risk the natural balance of the ocean and nature itself in order to mine an expensive and essential resource?
And no, this is not Obama's "Katrina." There was no sort of forewarning like there was for Katrina; it would be much appreciated if people could actually remember history as it really was.
That's all for now,
Das Flüg
The movie, as most people already know, features a Native American-like people called the Na'vi who, as is the lore with many Native American tribes, have a spiritual connection to their planet Pandora and the animals around them. Humans, having overrun and pillaged all the resources of Earth, travel to Pandora in order to mine the rare ore Unobtainium (an old sci-fi movie joke) and must force the Na'vi from their sacred home. The ore, as reported in the movie, is worth "$20 million per kilogram"-enough to make any oil company CEO wet himself in euphoria. The question is, would you sell your conscience to become rich?
An almost perfect example is the current British Petroleum oil disaster which has ravaged the Gulf of Mexico and thrown the balance of wildlife into disarray. Over the last two years, BP has collected over 200 safety violations that had not been addressed until the spill. There was a certain group mentality to this: since nothing had gone wrong yet, and everyone was making money with relatively no repercussions, no one would feel the need to point out the glaring safety issues which caused this spill. While there may have been some who would have sought to rectify BP's safety record, social influence from complacent co-workers would have stifled any complaints. Obviously, the CEOs would not want to hear any information that proved to be contrary to their success, and collective ignorance would continue.
Sorry for the psychology spiel, but it was necessary.
This leads into the implicit danger of drilling for oil, especially in an ecologically-sensitive area such as the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf features several rare marine species and coral reefs, all of which have been in immense danger since the spill. Is it essentially immoral to risk the natural balance of the ocean and nature itself in order to mine an expensive and essential resource?
And no, this is not Obama's "Katrina." There was no sort of forewarning like there was for Katrina; it would be much appreciated if people could actually remember history as it really was.
That's all for now,
Das Flüg
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