The Worst Week Ever, Thanks To The Fossil-Fuel Industry

Grist:

It's a week to remember -- or better yet, forget. Who could have imagined such a confluence of terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad events, rounding up what has to be the most disheartening "Earth Month" ever?

Read the whole story: Grist

Comments

[rougebaisers]

09:49 AM on 05/04/2010

Worst week? Hell this ain't going away. Try the worst decade.

[Peter007]

11:54 AM on 05/03/2010

The reality is that every time the government does something to hinder the oil, coal or gas business, the cost of energy goes up. Those are facts. When energy costs rise, unemployment rises and the political people in power will lose the next election.

This administration can appease their granola, tree hugging base of liberal environmentalists , but they won't be in office in the next term. They know this. Being a member of the Senate club or living as a king like figure sure is nice. Maybe they can offer HOPE as a compromise. ??

[Jeremy Shere]

08:17 AM on 05/03/2010

From the point of view of the energy establishment, the recent incidents, however terrible, are part of the price we all must pay for a way of life predicated on the unceasing flow and availability of high-quality energy. And it's not just the big energy companies--we're all complicit in one way or another. Even the "greenest" among us, the most socially conscious advocates of sustainability and conservation and the like, no doubt owns not only a cell phone and computer(s) but also dozens and dozens of less utilitarian electronic "toys" that gobble electricity without pause. How many readers of this website don't own or drive a car? How many avoid flying?

My point isn't that we shouldn't drive or fly or use cell phones and computers. For most of us, there's simply no avoiding these things. But we should recognize that in using them, in going about our days and living our 21st century, post-industrial lives, we've tacitly, without any real choice, bought into a system based on an energy economy that from time to time will result in terrible accidents.

Given that global population is growing and using more energy, it's crucial that we develop and support renewable energy technologies. The trouble there, though, is that most of these technologies are still in their relative infancy, despite decades and sometimes centuries of development. Learn more about the past, present, and future of renewable energy at renewablebook.wordpress.com.

[Pandaforum]

02:26 AM on 05/03/2010

I guess it's an improvement when the finger pointers aren't blaming Americans. But we're all in it together. If everybody cut back on their carbon footprint, we could minimize these problems. gore could set an good example by going back to his 1970 levels.

[Peter007]

11:59 AM on 05/03/2010

Most of the oil we use is for gasoline used in cars.

Go and read the zoning laws with respect to lot sizes in all the communities in this country.

What is the foundation or reason that towns require 2 acre lots, or commercial land uses be built far away from residential land use.? The land use codes were written for a different time and the unintentional consequences of these regulations means we have sprawling suburbs which are energy inefficient.

There lies the problem with 60% of our energy waste.

[cezannebonjour]

10:27 PM on 05/02/2010

The "Drill baby drill" crowd should be on the beaches cleaning up their Spill baby spill!!!!

[SweetJudith]

06:42 PM on 05/03/2010

You're absolutely right!!!!!

[LMPE]

02:09 PM on 05/02/2010

April is the cruelest month. Throughout history, April gave us the Lincoln assassination, the Great San Francisco Earthquake, the Titanic, the Texas City explosion, the Martin Luther King assassination, Chernobyl, Columbine...and now this.

[Clayton139]

12:21 PM on 05/02/2010

This Oil Catastrophe and Clean Up is like the Banks ?
It is "To BIG To Fail" and it has Failed us !
American Goverment has failed the people !

[FaceReality2]

11:27 AM on 05/02/2010

We could cut our oil usage by 1/3 in the short term by switching our 18 wheelers to natural gas. It is also a ready, economic hydrogen source for fuel cells. We have 100 years of it right now. It is the bridge fuel we can use until as we ramp up solar and wind.

[LiberalTreeHugger]

11:41 AM on 05/02/2010

The republicans and corporations will fight you tooth and nail on this. If we switched our trucks over could you imagine the effect it would have on the oil industry? They would go bankrupt, and they provide jobs so we need to keep r@ping the planet in their good name. I'm sick of America, sorry - I'm moving to France.

France? Maybe not.. Maybe I'll still a little longer.

[FaceReality2]

01:02 PM on 05/02/2010

There is one conspiracy theory I believe in--that Saudi Arabia has paid off our politicians. The payoffs are probably made through sweetheart business deals that just happen to make huge returns. Why else have we made NO progress in cutting our oil consumption when economically viable alternatives have been available for years?

[OgreDaddy]

11:02 AM on 05/02/2010

This is a very loud wake up call, not only to the regulators, but to the people in general
who have blindly followed the propaganda from the energy cartels.

The fossil fuel industry has done all they can to avoid tough regulations and oversight.
They have bought congressional shills to secure their quick and dirty profits.

When, WHEN PEOPLE are we going to scream loud enough to be heard?

Not only are we looking at an ecological disaster, but now this could lead to an outright
FDA ban on gulf coast seafood due to chemical contamination.

You won't be able to let your family swim at the beaches for fear of cancer causing petroleum
by-products coating their skin.

The coal industry stand to be hit the hardest with new clean energy regulations.
There is simply no such thing as CLEAN COAL.

The nuclear energy industry still hasn't solved the problem of spent fuel storage
or given us any reason to trust them to safely handle the waste or the long term
environmental impact where they are located.

To the reps who still support cheap and dirty energy, let us begin by building
these plants in THEIR back yard.

[FaceReality2]

11:21 AM on 05/02/2010

"The nuclear energy industry still hasn't solved the problem of spent fuel storage"

France and many other countries don't have a storage problem. Why? Because they recycle their fuel rods and thereby avoid the storage problem and get more energy in the process.

"In the United States, this used fuel is stored, while in countries such as Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and India, the fuel is reprocessed to remove the fission products, and the fuel can then be re-used. While these countries reprocess the fuel carrying out single plutonium cycles, India is the only country in the world known to be planning multiple plutonium recycling schemes. This has two distinct advantages, the reprocessed fuel is rendered unusable for weapons development, and high fuel efficiency can be achieved. For their plutonium generating reactors, India has realized a burn-up almost four times as high as the typical fuel efficiency of normal commercial nuclear reactors."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Proliferation_concerns

Nuclear could help us get off fossil fuels.

[OgreDaddy]

04:21 PM on 05/02/2010

That may be, but how many times are we going to hear them say
"We can handle the danger" before something serious happens.

An earthquake, containment leak, terrorist attack, storm, explosion
or theft of waste materials on the black market, before we trust
the people who tell us they have it all covered.

[Peter007]

08:21 AM on 05/03/2010

Nuclear power plants can't exist without massive government subsidies. If the true cost of nuclear power was charged to the user, it would be non competitive.

Presently a nuclear power plant can't get liability insurance. It has to be insured by the Feds.

[pasc]

10:36 AM on 05/02/2010

THIS is so infuriating! Anti-government IDIOTS. I hope you people get it now. THIS is the friggin' unchecked "free market." Lying, misleading, abusing workers--from the mines to the ocean, you give "for profit" all the "freedom" it wants and it will abuse SOMETHING every opportunity it gets just to make a buck!!!!!!!!

[Don in CT]

07:47 PM on 05/02/2010

"Freedom" to the teabaggers means "profiteering at any cost". Not "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The high priestess of "drill baby drill" is exhibit 'A'.

[lungfish]

09:38 AM on 05/02/2010

It isn't just Big Oil, its the automakers, the plastics industry, farming, etc... they all are dependent on Big Oil and they aren't going to change their cars, plastics, fertilizers, etc... they will by lobbyists and change US instead.... tell us what kind of car we want, that we need ten million plastic lawn chairs, etc....

[dragonmaster]

08:17 AM on 05/02/2010

The Oil and Petroleum industry has tentacles like an octopus - all over the web- from one climate change site to another- spouting the same industry wide viewpoint that climate change is a fraud.

In fact there are many here at the HUFF. As the weather patterns and climate continue to become more bizarre (as predicted by reputable science- ) and those not being paid by the deniers

we will all suffer as the heat rises, there are droughts and floods.

[Shan Wells]

01:09 AM on 05/02/2010

A timeline of events following the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill belies the absurd media claim that the spill represents "Obama's Katrina." Here's a sample:

April 20 (10 p.m.): Oil rig explosion. An April 21 ABCNews.com article reported, "An overnight explosion in the Gulf of Mexico rocked the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast, sending spectacular bursts of flame into the sky. The fires were still raging today." The U.S. Coast Guard's National Oil and Hazardous Substances Response System assigns primary responsibility for cleaning up oil spills to the spiller as the responsible party.

April 21: Deputy Secretary of Interior, Coast Guard dispatched to region. An April 22 White Housestatement noted that following a briefing with President Obama, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe, and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, "Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes was dispatched to the region yesterday to assist with coordination and response." The Coast Guard announced that four units were responding to the fire, with additional units en route.

See this link for a full timeline of the Feds response up to the present. All the facts of the timeline are linked to their original sources, which include CNN, AP, Good Morning America, The New York Times, The White House, BP, EPA, and the Wall Street Journal.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201004300053

[Don in CT]

07:52 PM on 05/02/2010

Fanned!

[bluestems]

12:25 AM on 05/02/2010

Excellent summation in the article. Until we value ecological assets on budget sheets, sustainable energy will not get the full throttle it needs while oil and coal continue along with the human and environmental loss.

[farmilyman]

11:49 PM on 05/01/2010

Since the teaparty gets it's funding from the private oil refining company Koch Industries they are silent about this use of taxpayer money.