The nuke option should have been in the planning stage from day one.
Despite claims by the Russains that they have used this method successfully with their ocean oil well failures, I'm hugely sceptical - a collapsing ocean floor with a monstrously wide oil head opening with billions of liters of oil suddenly gushing out comes to mind. 
The nuke option should have been in the planning stage from day one.
Despite claims by the Russains that they have used this method successfully with their ocean oil well failures, I'm hugely sceptical - a collapsing ocean floor with a monstrously wide oil head opening with billions of liters of oil suddenly gushing out comes to mind.
Radioactive to boot.
Mother Nature is pissed already. Imagine her reaction to being nuked.
[url=http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19408]Ten Things You Need (But Don't Want) To Know About the BP Oil Spill[/url]
If I Was Running BP's Public Relations - Kevin Grandia
There is all sorts of tried and true PR tactics you can use during a crisis situation and one of the best is keeping the public buried in the details of the process versus the impacts.The first step is to give the process an impressive sounding name that looks good in headlines. I would suggest something beginning with the word "Operation," followed by an overly aggressive phrase like "top kill" or "junk shot."
Once you think up some good names, you can then start to roll out impressive looking processes (with fancy graphics) and claim that they are going to take care of the problem...
You many of the f#@$#@%#@^ media PR persons around the world should be tried for treason, or maybe even crimes against humanity.
They are so calmly reporting; " they have announced that it many be months before they are able to stop the 'oil leak'", and move along to another topic, as if that is no big deal, or issue. Thus the listening indoctrinees, stop thinking right there, and think; "0h well, I guss it can't be that big of a deal". And then they move along in their thoughts too.
Then a few mins later, on comes a commercial, selling natural gas as green, brought to the indoctrinees by, Shell, Global TV and The Sun.
Am sickened over this, as BP and Shell push for no environmental regulations in Canada.
This will have to bankrupt BP. No oil company is so rich that it can expect to clean up a disaster of this magnitude and still be in business after. The damage to the fishery down there and the claims BP will be paying out for possibly decades, not to mention how this will affect ocean ecology around the world. If there's any justice at all, BP will not survive this.
I think people concerned need to be vigilant in focussing responsibility where it lies. Already we hear strains from right wing corners about "government responsibility". This will not be put on the backs of citizens.
Isn't Gulf of Mexico an earthquake zone?
What happens to BP isn't a great concern to me. I'm really not a big fan of limited liability. I'd be very satisfied with a conclusion where several BP executives and former executives face long prison terms and the shareholders survive with a minor bruise.
where is the rage?
seriously i wanna know, why are people so obliv ious?
Is it the indoctrination , or really operant conditioning of bells buzzers and beeps?
is it a lack of caring about anything other than oneself and immediate circumstance?
Are stock portfolios really that important?
....disassociation with one's world?
Are minds too dulled by a toxic poisons to grasp the enormity of what is happening?
What.... seriously....what in the hell are people doing tolerating this crap and the rest of the corporate shit be shoved upon us?
I think it's the beeps and buzzers.
Though personally, I'd like to show outrage but I have no idea what to do. Your generation (including your peers south of the border) had rallies for civil rights, women's rights and against the Vietnam war. My generation had facebook groups declaring support for gay marriage, I don't know how to fight.
Donate money to greenpeace?
Register as an absentee voter to vote for the NDP?
Write a letter to the congressman in my district?
Talk, and talk and talk somemore to people about what the truth is, and what should have been done in the first place.
Write letters to the editor and send it to as many new outlets as you can...
write to your congressman, write to MP's in Canada and state your position to them, register to vote in Canada, donate money to small on the ground environmental organizations, as more money will go to direct fighting, as opposed to paying for administration in the larger orgs.
Like fore example, here in BC, both Shell and BP are trying to get the absolute rights to destroy the eco-systems of the Headwaters of the Skeena and Elk Valley, by extracting natural gas from coal beds. The omnibus Bill Harper and the Liberals are putting through will allow for this to happen. As welll as allowing BP to drill deep wells in the north.
Here are some links for more info about those who are trying to stop BP and Shell from doing the same thing in Canada.
http://www.sacredheadwaters.com/
http://flatheadbasincommission.org/issues/trans-boundary/coal-bed-methane-extraction-in-a-nutshell/
Above all CARE, actually CARE, and show others you care at all times.
[url=http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19408]Ten Things You Need (But Don't Want) To Know About the BP Oil Spill[/url]
9. Environmental damage could even include a climatological catastrophe
It's hard to know where to start discussing the environmental damage caused byDeepwater Horizon. Each day will give us a clearer picture of the short-term ecological destruction, but environmental experts believe the damage to the Gulf of Mexico will be long-term.
In the short-term, environmentalists are up in arms about the dispersants being used to clean up the oil slick in the Gulf. Apparently, the types BP is using aren't all that effective in dispersing oil, and are pretty high in toxicity to marine fauna such as fish and shrimp. The fear is that what BP may be using to clean up the mess could, in the long-term, make it worse.
On the longer-term side of things, there are signs that this largest oil drilling catastrophe could also become the worst natural gas and climate disaster. The explosion has released tremendous amounts of methane from deep in the ocean, and research shows that methane, when mixed with air, is the most powerful (read: terrible) greenhouse gas -- 26 times worse than carbon-dioxide.
Our warming planet just got a lot hotter.
Methane is hardly the most powerful greenhouse gas, even when its effects are averaged over 20 years rather than 100 (where the GWP of 25 come from), the GWP is only 72 (GWP of Carbon Dioxide = 1). The effects of methane are greater over a short period because its short lifetime in the atmosphere. In comparison, Nitrous Oxide has a GWP of 298 averaged over 100 years and is slightly less over a shorter period because of its longer lifetime of 114 years, and Sulphur Hexaflouride has a GWP of 22,800 averaged over 100 years. Its expected lifetime in the atmosphere is up to 3200 years, so its GWP overaged over 500 years is even higher (32,600). Not something we shold be making or using any more of. CFCs, HCFCs, and HFCs also have high GWPs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential
As for the impact of the methane emitted from the oil blowout, the speculation is that a methane bubble caused the explosion on the rig. It has also been suggested that the amount of methane dissolved in the surrounding seawater could be used to collaborate estimates of the flow rate. One story I saw speculated that the emissions were only 2% of annual emissions, most of which were dissolving in the surrounding seawater (it wasn't clear whether this was 2% of anthropogenic, or natural plus anthropogenic). Considering anthropogenic emissions exceed natural emissions and the imbalance (total emissions minus sink uptake) is currently just over 3% of current total emissions, it will be interesting to see if there is any discernable increase in the imbalance (showing up as a jump in the rate of increase of atmospheric methane concentrations).
The nuke option should have been in the planning stage from day one.
Despite claims by the Russains that they have used this method successfully with their ocean oil well failures, I'm hugely sceptical - a collapsing ocean floor with a monstrously wide oil head opening with billions of liters of oil suddenly gushing out comes to mind.
Radioactive to boot.
More knowledge on the issue is always useful.
You will no doubt hear more about the science pros and cons involved from people who know more than me during the deadly flow's days, weeks--and MONTHS (years?)--to come (Incidentally, the gusher that BP has had its camera on is the smaller of the 2 gushers according to Matt Simmons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4whiKQgnp4w ).
I don't know if the nuke is a viable option in this case, but number crunching and logisticals should have been engaged in from day one--many options should be explored simultaneously by a large section of the scientific community and industry--(this PLANETARY disaster should NOT have been left in BP's hands--in dismal government deference to the sanctity of corporate territoriality).
The geology here, and the expected fracture patterns of underground blasts, are pretty well known, and you are dealing with distances of 13000 metres below the ocean floor to the oil layer. The blast would be in the low kilotons rather than megatons to pinch off the drill hole deep down from an adjacent deep drill hole.
Here is footage from soviet propaganda film of a blast from 1966, to close a gas well (non-ocean) the blast was 40 ktons. (4 out of 5 of their gas well nukes worked the fifth did nothing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0lWbDp0OY8
this PLANETARY disaster should NOT have been left in BP's hands--in dismal government deference to the sanctity of corporate territoriality.
This needs to be stated to everyone we come in contact with, thank you for the 60 second sound bite we need to be saying to people in order that they get it and not the spin by media and corporate apologists.
Methane is hardly the most powerful greenhouse gas, even when its effects are averaged over 20 years rather than 100 (where the GWP of 25 come from), the GWP is only 72 (GWP of Carbon Dioxide = 1).
With a slight rise in ocean floor temperatures, methane hydrates will become unstable and release about 170 times its own volume as a gas at STP(standard temperature and pressure).
It is reliably estimated that the amount of methane trapped as hydrates [url=http://www.energybulletin.net/node/47505]globally exceeds by many times the total combined oil, coal and natural gas reserves that have ever existed on earth.[/url] [...]Methane is a greenhouse gas. In fact, it is 21-23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. When the methane trapped in the hydrate is released it expands by about 170 times.[1] Methane is lighter than CO2, lighter than air. As a result it rises rapidly through the atmosphere up to the lower-density stratosphere. On the positive side methane remains in the atmosphere for only about 10-20 years. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for over 100 years.
According to some scientists, the Bermuda Triangle area has been a hot bed of methane gas releases over the years. There have been ocean oil drilling platforms off Australia disappear in a matter of a short while, and gas hydrates have been blamed. I don't know though with transnational energy companies' safety and environmental records not being all that wonderful.
The Deep Water Horror Zone
to remind: I think people will start waking up to this eventually, in a mean kind of way. This thing changes the planet, and rapidly.
People will pay more attention as jobs are lost, and as seafood prices skyrocket, and as some seafood disappears off the menu altogether. Stomachs can't be switched off as easily as minds.
("What?! No east coast lobster to go with my steak? But why not?")
If this gushes for years, no ocean will be spared. Crude oil is full of carcinogens, and I believe teratogens (birth-defect causing) too.
Ya, back in the time of the first Gulf War when all the oil well were bombed and spewing into the Persian Gulf, I held a townhouse meeting in Nanaimo, and had scientist from the Pacific Bilogical Station speak at it, in respect to what oil does to marine life.
1 drop of oil in a 1 ltre container is carcinogenic, and causes birth defects in fish fry. If my memory serves me correctly.
However, the pharmaceutical companies, their shareholders and the Cancer Societies around the world will be gleeful....."more moneyyyyyyyy".
The "Cut and cap" operation is underway, with the risk of increasing the flow of oil into the Gulf.
The meter at one site is reading 1 million gallons per day now, up from the 5000 and 20,000 gallons per day previously.
One commentator said that the pool of oil this well tapped into "could flow for decades at 100,000 barrels per day"
{100,000 barrels X 42 gallons per barrel = 42 million gallons}.
That is 40 million gallons per day for a decade!!!
Link to meter/video of operations> http://tinyurl.com/29lku9t
But of course they will stop it with the "cut and cap", or the relief well, or at least the 2nd relief well if the first one misses. Right? Please be right!! But no, it is possible that none of these things will work... unlikely, but possible.
Even if it stops tomorrow the damage will be felt for years to come. It will even hasten global warming, as you'all said.
Will this end our unending trust in technology? Will the futile wars in Arab lands shake our trust in violence?
Without technology and violence as solutions to all our problems, we just might grow up a bit.
Heard an interesting interview with Tracey Ott (?) (I may have the name completely wrong) a marine toxicologist on the late night Sunday edition last night. She went down to the Gulf to share her experiences of the Exxon spill with locals down there. Among many other things, and if I heard correctly, she talked about a simple technology of using hair mats, literally mats of hair - human I guess? Not sure where you'd get them, but that hair soaks up oil readily and then the globs of oil-soaked hair can biodegrade safely. My wifi signal is a little sketchy right now, otherwise I'd research this. I guess if hair does the job, some other similar organic fibrous material could too?
This wasn't mentioned in the interview, but the solvents that BP is using, the dispersants, I'm guessing are making the situation worse. They break up the oil but only to be dissolved into the ocean water, making the pollutant less visible but more toxic, and, I would guess, less trackable, less containable.
Ott (?) mentioned the similarity of health problems the clean-up workers were facing and how Exxon was able to squirm out of liability as the initial symptoms tend to resemble mere colds and flus. That was one of her warnings to the Gulf people.
On liability vs. criminal charges, I would prefer they take the former tack. Criminal charges could take a long time and become expensive to prove, for very little reward. I also think it could be used as a scapegoat instead of going after real damages, which is what is needed here.
I found this article that suggests that liability here may not need to be capped:
Civil fine in Gulf spill could be $4,300 barrel
Sorry, that was Riki Ott.
Oh, and I guess she did talk about the dispersants.
Methane is hardly the most powerful greenhouse gas, even when its effects are averaged over 20 years rather than 100 (where the GWP of 25 come from), the GWP is only 72 (GWP of Carbon Dioxide = 1).With a slight rise in ocean floor temperatures, methane hydrates will become unstable and release about 170 times its own volume as a gas at STP(standard temperature and pressure).
It is reliably estimated that the amount of methane trapped as hydrates [url=http://www.energybulletin.net/node/47505]globally exceeds by many times the total combined oil, coal and natural gas reserves that have ever existed on earth.[/url] [...]Methane is a greenhouse gas. In fact, it is 21-23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. When the methane trapped in the hydrate is released it expands by about 170 times.[1] Methane is lighter than CO2, lighter than air. As a result it rises rapidly through the atmosphere up to the lower-density stratosphere. On the positive side methane remains in the atmosphere for only about 10-20 years. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for over 100 years.
According to some scientists, the Bermuda Triangle area has been a hot bed of methane gas releases over the years. There have been ocean oil drilling platforms off Australia disappear in a matter of a short while, and gas hydrates have been blamed. I don't know though with transnational energy companies' safety and environmental records not being all that wonderful.
You seem to be confusing global warming potential with percent contribution to the greenhouse effect, which also depends on concentration in the atmosphere. As I said, averaged over only 20 rather than 100 years, methane has a much higher global warming potential, which is why a sudden release of methane from clathrates (hydrate nodules) is such a concern. The linked article seems to slightly confuse clathrates with yedoma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yedoma, which are organic-rich permafrosts that are a source of both carbon dioxide and methane depending on whether decay of the organic matter occurs with or without oxygen. Methane clathrates are not present in permafrost, but they may be present in polar continental sedimentary rocks and very deep lakes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate
The linked article is totally wrong about methane rising quickly to the stratosphere. Like carbon dioxide and almost all other stable gases (water vapour being the notable exception because of clouds and precipitation), methane is well-mixed due to convection and other atmospheric turbulence and has the same mixing ratio all the way up to and including the mesosphere (the layer above the statosphere).
There are more than enough severe storms in the Bermuda triangle to explain most if not all ship and plane disappearances. I don't know about disappearing rigs near Australia, but they seem to have had their own disaster in the Timor Sea last year. The rig is still there though.
Yes Jas, I had heard about the human hair sponges before, perhaps some down there could form a org and get hair salons across the USA, and Canada, to send them all their hair from the day's cutting, and I am not being sarcastic here, of even nonsensical.
It would be no different in starting an organization, than let's say "locks of love".
We know the oil is going to be around destroying things for a long time yet to come, afterall.
Also, the amount of oil being spilled, or spewed, and the duration they estimate, pretty much makes a mockery of an anytime soon oil shortages, that they used to drive prices higher.
Sadly, I have heard from my religious right family members, that it doesn't matter because the world is ending in 18 months, anyway, so why waste time and money on it.
How do you combat that level of indoctrinated delusion?
The damage and pain being caused to BP should be put onto every single oil major. All that is going to happen is that BP's vast armada of oil rigs and other techy toys are going to fall into the hands of a better placed major.
The death of BP is the resurgent strength of someone even worse.
If the laws are shown to be strict and enforceable, if a cap on liability is removed, and appropriate damages are awarded, then it doesn't matter what other major takes over. Hit them where it hurts (ie; money, not prison sentences) and they'll start paying attention.
And I had the same thought, remind: what happened to peak oil?
then pigs will fly.If the laws are shown to be strict and enforceable, if a cap on liability is removed, and appropriate damages are awarded ...
I understand the cynicism, Kropotkin, but it does not help in forming appropriate expectations and agitating for them. Now is the time to set the bar higher.
Sure I will get right on begging the oil industry and their fascist allies in Washington to do the right thing. I believe that the oil industry and its security wing owns the politicians. Call that cynicism if you like, I just think it is the extremely sad reality.
I expect a moratorium on new drilling and a shut down of any rigs currently drilling that at a minimum do not have a relief well already drilled. I just know that it is useless and pointless to demand the measures that are required to ensure we don't have another catastrophe next month off the coast of Iceland.
One of the reasons Canadians don't care about the oil rigs in Atlantic Canada is likely that the current would take any spill away from us and would make it someone else's problem. Of note and more perturbing is that at the same time this spill is going on our own government is pushing through legislation to allow the foregoing of environmental reviews.
Here is a link to a group trying to do something that I support just so you know while cynical I still stand with people who fight despite the odds. No tankers on the West Coast. No pipeline across Northern BC are my bottom lines not lets set up a regime to trade the environment for wheel barrows full of funny money. I prefer to see the environment protected rather than pushing for monetary relief after the fact.
For its part, Dogwood Initiative will continue to work with its 25,000 supporters, and the growing coalition of First Nations, businesses, organizations, and prominent Canadians arrayed against the Northern Gateway project. British Columbians have been standing up and shutting down oil tanker proposals for close to fourty years. The organization is committed to helping the people of this province channel that same sentiment into this review.
Dogwood Initiative is a BC-based non-governmental organization that is campaigning for a permanent, federal oil tanker ban on the BC coast, with the aim of protecting coastal communities and ecosystems from what we feel would be inevitable oil spills. The campaign currently has over 25,000 supporters.
Yes Jas, I had heard about the human hair sponges before, perhaps some down there could form a org and get hair salons across the USA, and Canada, to send them all their hair from the day's cutting, and I am not being sarcastic here, of even nonsensical.
http://www.matteroftrust.org/programs/hairmatsinfo.html
Apparently a number of hair salons in Canada have also signed on. The trick is what to do with the hair after it collects the oil, as it is hazardous waste, but at least it is collectable. I'm not sure the hair has actually been used yet for its intended purpose.
Here is a link to video feed of the CUTTING OPERATION, going on right now { 1:30 PST June 1st } > http://tinyurl.com/368ll3a
I heard the BP CEO denying the existence of "oil plumes beneath the surface" . He said "the specific gravity of oil is about half that of water", and something about "so it has to come to the surface".
Is that a blatant, and weak, attempt to deny the problem of using dispersants, which might be breaking up the oil so that is has about the same specific gravity of salt water, and so it won't float?
I would think that BP knows that dispersants can lower the specific gravity of the oil, and in fact that is why they were so keen to use dispersant [BP kept using it even after the government demanded they stop].
BP just wanted the oil to be out of sight.
Those underwater plumes might be worse than having oil come to the shores. Biologists fear that fish will swim in it, consume it, die from it, and that the oil will flow much further, even out of the Gulf.
It is also a potential disaster in that the underwater plumes will deplete the oxygen levels much more than oil on the surface, turning large areas of ocean into dead zones. Dead zones create bigger dead zones, like an oxygen consuming monster.
Hit them where it hurts (ie; money, not prison sentences) and they'll start paying attention.
jas, love the sentiment here...but money isn't the issue here, sadly. When you're making that much dirty, dirty money the zeros in 'billions' don't add up to a whole helluva lot. Prison sentences are a must. If Conrad Black went to prison, then so too much many in BP, Transocean and other partners in this crime.
People like to call this an accident or an environmental disaster. There was nothing accidental about it. It was the continued choices of management to sidestep accountability for profitability. It may affect the environment, but this is man made.
This is America's Chernobyl and simply more spit in the face of the people of the Gulf.
It was bound to reach this conclusion eventually. Relief wells are the only option. This is a horrible crime.
Good, now that we don't need their "expertise" there's no more need to leave them walking around free ... they can now get a head-start on serving what should be, if there is any justice, a 500 year sentence.
unfuckingbelievable, the only we can do now is stop the madness from coming to Canada....
Too late, migratory birds travel through the gulf, I think I read something like 10 million a day.
Too late, migratory birds travel through the gulf, I think I read something like 10 million a day.
Likely to be a lot less soon.
If hair really soaks up oil, all hair salons around the world should start collecting the stuff for a big global stockpile.
I am totally serious about this.
It's better than hair being shipped off to landfills and certainly better than it going to incinerators. And I'd be more than happy to donate, as long as I am able to.
CBC reporting that BP has lost $75 billion in market shares.
Corporations like BP must face execution. Withdraw their corporate charter. As well, it must be clearly stated that BP does not act arbitrarily nor randomly. BP acts in the interests of shareholders. If the shareholders, the ownership, approve of the direction and management of the corporation, which they obstensibly do when they approve of them at shareholder meetings, then the shareholders are both complicitt and profiting from the crime.
In what other human arrangement are proceeds of criminal activities untouchable?
Corporations will continue to act with impunity and with total disregard for human life and ecology until corporate ownership is held criminally responsible for the actions undertaken for their personal enrichment.
That would be being tough on crime.
Yes, it's a fools game (but maybe a necessary fools game) to be asking for rules that simply react to "accidents" that corporations cause during their normal MO of "doing business".
Sure, fine their asses out of existence for this gross incompetence, but let's not forget that the business of a corporation is to make money, and "accidents" are to them simply another variable in their cost/benefit analysis ... BP (and the whole oil industry) looked at the cost of protecting against this disaster, the likelihood of it happening, and decided that the cost/benefit ratio was a good one (they guessed wrong, and now not only will they suffer for that miscalculation, but the whole damn planet will have to suffer right along with BP.)
What needs to be done is to direct some/much of our energies to working on the "front end" of this problem and making sure that a corporations' "charter" puts "health and safety responsibility" at at least the same level of priority as "fiduciary responsibility" .... corporations should not only be required to undergo financial audits, but health and safety audits as well. Corporations should be levied at least (but preferably a lot higher) the same level of punishment for failing to live up to health and safety requirements as they are for failing to live up to fiduciary requirements.
From the Boycott BP Facebook group:
You take away our Seafood we lose our way to support ourselves. Louisiana's culture going back 300 years will be gone. Our unique forms of music from Zydeco to Jazz. Our culinary traditions like Shrimp Etouffee, Seafood Gumbo and, Blackened Red Fish, will be washed away with the death of the Gulf. Please boycott Bp. Bp brands include Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, and Wild Bean Cafe, Safeway gas.
If hair really soaks up oil, all hair salons around the world should start collecting the stuff for a big global stockpile.I am totally serious about this.
It's better than hair being shipped off to landfills and certainly better than it going to incinerators. And I'd be more than happy to donate, as long as I am able to.
Gram, me too, even though it sounds ludicrous at first blush, upon consiideration it is totally feasible and doable, as per the link above by policywonk I believe.
In fact, it could be done like batteries and petroleum products, that they have to be recycled. Or indeed looked at like giving blood.
...could not give my hair, as I do not really get it cut, as I am continually growing it to give a it to 'locks of love' but hairdresers and barberd could build stockpiles of it....
What needs to be done is to direct some/much of our energies to working on the "front end" of this problem and making sure that a corporations' "charter" puts "health and safety responsibility" at at least the same level of priority as "fiduciary responsibility" .... corporations should not only be required to undergo financial audits, but health and safety audits as well. Corporations should be levied at least (but preferably a lot higher) the same level of punishment for failing to live up to health and safety requirements as they are for failing to live up to fiduciary requirements.
It should be a higher level actually than feduciary, as people who invest in corporations, recieve their own choice liabilities in a corporation, however, environmental bad practises, especially of this sort, impact those outside of the investor group..
From the Boycott BP Facebook group:
You take away our Seafood we lose our way to support ourselves. Louisiana's culture going back 300 years will be gone. Our unique forms of music from Zydeco to Jazz. Our culinary traditions like Shrimp Etouffee, Seafood Gumbo and, Blackened Red Fish, will be washed away with the death of the Gulf. Please boycott Bp. Bp brands include Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, and Wild Bean Cafe, Safeway gas.
Most of those are owned by independent franchise operators and won't actually affect BP in the US, IIRC. It was either mentioned up thread or in an article I had been reading earlier this week.
BP is the company that started the warring in the Middle East over oil resources. They have been a criminal organization since the early 20th century when they used British imperial power to enforce the first contract for oil in Iran. In most business dealings if one side defaults the other side takes them to court and if they win they are awarded damages. Only criminal organizations use armed force to enforce their contracts.
BP was also deeply involved in the coup that brought the Shah to power after the Iranian population in the early 50's actually thought that democracy meant they could elect a government to take control of their natural resources. Britain and America showed them the stupidity of that believe.
I heard a report that the US administration is looking into criminal charges because of the deaths of the workers on board the rig when it blew up. It will really tell the tale to see how far up the food chain the investigation goes or whether they settle for hanging the middle managers and foremen.
I think that shareholders should be held responsible in proportion to amount of the various companies they own. But that will never happen because then the Veil would be lifted. Imagine if their where peoples names attached to these deaths and the environmental devastation instead of just BP.
Who are the directing minds of these corporations and who owns enough stock that they control who the directing minds are the real questions IMO Follow the money and get the big crime bosses. Lets have some executives and power brokers tried and if found guilty for this gross negligence, jailed.
BP has spent over $1 Billion so far on the spill. In the first quarter of this year, BP made profits of about $5 Billion,
Even if BP spends $20 Billion on this, by compensating fisherment etc., it will just mean "breaking even for the year". No big deal financially for BP.
The oilmen are saying, to themselves for now, that a lot of this spilled oil will just be circulated into the Atlantic and never seen again.
A non-event to some, the world's greatest environmental catastrophe to others; Financial ruin for many individuals on the Gulf coast, a drop in the bucket to BP.
Lets get off oil as fast as possible.
The Invisible Hand works in mysterious ways. In Canada we are giving the oil companies a free regulatory pass as well. So far they have only killed a few rural people and destroyed a FN's territory so no need to hold them accountable. Hell we give them taxpayers money instead of regulating them. We are so fucked.
Federal officials are hoping film director James Cameron can help them come up with ideas on how to stop the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/director-james-cameron-ca...
Cameron was born in Canada and is married to an actress who starred in Kevin Costner's film Fandango
BP calls in Costner's $26m vacuum cleaners to mop up huge oil spill
The 'Waterworld' star has spent 15 years developing device to separate oil from sea water and it is now being put to work
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bp-calls-in-costners-26...
UPDATE: BP turned Cameron's offer down
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100603/entertainment/centertainment_u...
Goldman Sachs sold $250 Million of BP stock before spill
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0602/month-oil-spill-goldman-sachs-sold-250-...
http://www.eclectica.org/v6n4/skea_fiennes.html
From a review of William Fiennes' THE SNOW GEESE
"...from faint drifts of specks on the horizon, the birds flew closer until each speck became a goose and finally
whole flocks circled over the roost, thousands of geese swirling round and round, as if the pond were the mouth of a drain and these geese the whirlpool turning above it. Nothing had prepared me for the sound, this dense, boisterous din, the clamour of a playground at breaktime...
From Texas, Fiennes followed the geese north, travelling by Greyhound bus, by car and by train. Sometimes he had to wait for the geese to catch up, but each wait had its own character and interest. Each was full of surprises. Eventually, he reached the breeding ground of the snow geese in Foxe Land, on the edge of the Hudson Strait. "
Gone....
Operation Migration - Links on bird migration
What could happen to the Mississippi Delta and Gulf of Mexico coasts due to removal of millions of gallons of oil under miles of land near the New Madrid Fault?
What is a sinkhole?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinkhole [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinkhole]
During the 1812 New Madrid (AR/TN) earthquake, the Mississippi River ran backwards and church bells rang in New England. Back then there were not many or any dams, levees, bridges, highways, highrises, power lines, power plants, pipelines...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_New_Madrid_earthquake [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_New_Madrid_earthquake]
greatdreams.com/madrid.htm [greatdreams.com/madrid.htm]
Oil spill threatens total destruction
presstv.ir/detail.aspx [presstv.ir/detail.aspx]
Toxic oil spill rains
eutimes.net/2010/05/toxic-oil-spill-rains-warned-could-destroy-north-americ... [eutimes.net/2010/05/toxic-oil-spill-rains-warned-could-destroy-north-americ...]
Is it raining oil in Florida? This is just the beginning
sott.net/articles/show/209378-Is-It-Raining-Oil-In-Florida-This-Is-Just-The... [sott.net/articles/show/209378-Is-It-Raining-Oil-In-Florida-This-Is-Just-The...]
Corexit 9500 is made by Nalco which is owned by Goldman Sachs and the Blackstone Group
justinwrites.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/the-company-that-manufactures-the-tox...[justinwrites.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/the-company-that-manufactures-the-tox...]
BP & chemical dispersant Corexit
bpoilnews.com/.../bp-and-corexit-why-wont-bp-use-a-less-toxic-chemical-disp... [bpoilnews.com/.../bp-and-corexit-why-wont-bp-use-a-less-toxic-chemical-disp...]
BP Use of Toxic Chemical Corexit 9500 31 May 2010
politicolnews.com/bp-using-toxic-corexit-9500/ [politicolnews.com/bp-using-toxic-corexit-9500/]
Understanding Corexit The Untested Chemical BP is Dumping in Our ...28 May 2010 ...
British Petroleum officials say that its latest attempt to stop the flood of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is ...
newzisnewz.com/archives/2765 [newzisnewz.com/archives/2765]
BP-Corexit Japanese Connection
protecttheocean.com/bp-corexit-japanese-connection/ [protecttheocean.com/bp-corexit-japanese-connection/]
Track the Gulf Stream here. It's just a quick trip to the Maritimes, England and Europe.
rads.tudelft.nl/gulfstream/ [rads.tudelft.nl/gulfstream/]
Detonating Nuclear Bomb at BP Oil Spill Site Might Produce a Bad Result
roguegovernment.com/index.php [roguegovernment.com/index.php]
Earth Changes Maps
greatdreams.com/maps.htm [greatdreams.com/maps.htm]
If you have family living near the Gulf of Mexico - or in the USA - this might be a good time to bring them home.
Viggo Mortensen in The Road.
Watch the trailer here
youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]
I don't think things could go that way for long, though. After electricity is shut off and water is no longer pumped to maintain and cool nuclear plants, they will soon melt down and turn into Chernobyls.
