Like most Americans, I am horrified by the unending catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Even with the latest containment cap in place, oil is likely to hemorrhage from BP's ruptured well until August or beyond.
As I try to convey in my new video, "The Fix," I am appalled by what this spill is doing to Gulf fishermen, families, communities and wildlife. But I am also disgusted by what it reveals about the oil industry's role in American political life.
With their deep pockets, oil companies have purchased loose safety regulations, slack oversight and support from key lawmakers. Last year alone, the industry spent a $168 million on lobbying -- $16 million of which came from BP. The blowout on the Deepwater Horizon is a symptom of this undue influence.
It is time for the collusion to stop. As long as it continues, Americans will pay the price in the form of devastated ecosystems and a fossil fuel addiction that benefits oil companies, not ordinary citizens.
I know what it's like to have a job that depends on towing the line.
I worked in the oil fields when I was a teenager, and my dad worked in the accounting department of Standard Oil. I remember the uneasy feeling that resulted when I heard company representatives claim oil exploration was great for American society, yet that contrasted with what I was actually experiencing on the job. The truth was that oil exploration was great for the oil industry.
Long after I left the oil fields, I felt disgusted by the way oil companies advertised themselves as conservationists. BP plugged itself as "Beyond Petroleum," yet oil still accounts for the vast majority of its business. BP claimed its technology was safe, yet 11 men are dead and oil still permeates the whole coast years after the "cleanup." Furthermore, the company has a long history of safety violations that have resulted in other deaths and environmental destruction. BP also said in 2008 it could handle a spill 10 times the size of the current disaster, yet its attempts to end the gushing in the Gulf have failed.
We need to stop buying into these fictions, and the BP spill is our reality check -- a reminder that the oil industry looks out for Number One in the Gulf, in the Arctic and in Washington.
Recently, President Obama announced several measures that will reign in Big Oil's influence. He strengthened regulations governing offshore operations and called on the Justice Department to examine BP's role in this fiasco. He also imposed a moratorium on new offshore drilling while a commission investigates the spill. And although I welcome the president's initial steps, some of these measures need to be stronger.
Ultimately, the only way to break the industry's hold on political decision making is for America to shift to more fuel efficient cars, more public transit and other technologies.
These are the solutions that will break America's addiction to oil and put more money in consumers' pockets. Right now, there is a clean energy and climate bill before Congress that could help unleash these solutions. The time for passage of this bill is NOW, not later.
I urge you to use your political influence -- your right to contact your elected officials -- and click here to tell your senators to vote for it. Citizen outrage and citizen action are some of our best tools for combating Big Oil's dirty influence.
You can also learn more about it in this short video I produced with NRDC:
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BP supplies the US military with the majority of its oil products. That's why Obama has stayed out of its way. He's not likely to change.
We need another plan. What was it Dave Brower said......"the only thing polite environmentalists have to show is the destroyed land they might have saved"......something like that.
Americans are like meth addicts. They will do anything to get the thing which is killing them. They will give up everything to get what will kill them. Until Americans line up like blacks did during the sixties and say no more, the corporations will rule and the people will pay willingly. There is no Rosa Park to end oil consumpton. There is no walking rather than riding in the back of the bus to end the dominance of corporations over the people. Americans can easily email all their elected epresentatives at the local and the national level and demand solar power and demand a return to public transit. They can pay more and use less but if you talk to a meth addict you will find he will beg, rob and steal to get the thing that will kill him, Americans wanted cheap gas and now they are looking at the cost of cheap gas. There is no such thing as a free lunch and until Americans understand this there will be more drilling and more disasters. Does one person give a damn about the future of to-day's children. No. Let them watch tv and eat fattening food. The important thing is for Mommy and Daddy to have a car which makes them feel important. It's the American way.
Out of my frustration to this disaster and wanting to protect our oceans, I started researching ethanol made from industrial hemp.
For those that don't know, hemp is not the same as marijuana; you can't get high off of hemp. Most folks are aware of hemp bags, cosmetics, oil, and clothing. I discovered that Lotus made a car out of hemp plastics. Yes, hemp can be made into plastics. Hemp can be used as a building material, concrete. Houses can be made out of hemp. One can fill the tank with the ethanol made from hemp. Hemp can be grown in all states, makes a wonderful rotation crop, it is drought tolerant, grows quickly, and doesn't require pesticides. I was elated to learn that hemp is a wonderful green commodity. But I was upset to discover that there is a ban on growing hemp in the US. I asked why aren't we using this green commodity here in the USA. We could help the farming industry. Factories here in the US could manufacture the hemp into plastics, concrete, and cars. JOBS. All made in America. Research industrial hemp, write to Washington, and inform others. Just another alternative that could be used.
House Bill 1866, The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2010.
End prohibition on industrial hemp production to help move US forward.
why were drilling platforms put on a moratorium for what, 60 days?
it was so inspectors could get out to each platform and do the inspections they should have been doing all along. whose fault is that? will more and bigger regulation fix that problem?
Talk to addicts Bob, not to enlightened folk who have a choice. We have no choice dude - that is the definition of addiction - no more choices.
BTW did you know that BP is so busy doing Iraq oil that they will get back to us on that gulf of Mexico thingy?
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/06/bp-is-too-busy-in-iraq-to-help-gulf.html
The President unfortunately has limited authority over such a creature. For all the tough talk about what the President can do in reality, BP will just file for bankruptcy, restructure, and the lawsuits against them will be appealed into ad-infinitum.
Their laughing their way to 8 billion a year and no country can stop them. In reality we do not live in free market economies because to have a real free market you must have an equal footing for products and services. We would be 30 years ahead of our time if it was not for large corporate policies using the economies of scale to crush innovative new services. THEIR is a difference between Adam Smiths invisible hand and an all out destructive Chess game were mega-corps crush or obstruct smaller businesses with new technologies that would help our societies.
They could take there 8 billion and spend a little on those fusion reactors such as the ITER tokamak
http://www.iter.org/
1. Stagnant wages
2. high inflation
3. pay check to pay check
4. no benefits, or pay for more benefits
5. and you middle class paid for the bankers and might be doing it again!!
6. no jobs, oh! you might find a 10 hour job
7. bachealor dont mean nothing, to bad for you student loans huh?
8. the rich is running circles around you all and sucking you all dry
9. our economic demise is longer than Japan's
10. Bush and the re-thugs got everything they wanted (illegal wars, tax cuts for the rich, de-regulation, over rule states rights in bajamas, energy policy in the oval office, and corporations didn't pay any taxes from 2000 to 2005) and we progressives scratching our heads since 1/2009 saying WTF!!
Are you reading to register as an independent yet?
NASA had a contest on new technology inventions. It turned out to be an information collecting operation. Inventors sent their specifications etc.. to NASA and never got them back. I would suggest you read The Secrets of Anti-Gravity by Paul LaViolette, PHD. (http://www.etheric.com/LaVioletteBooks/Book-Secrets.html) as well. Perhaps if we encourage other inventors in America world-wide to do an open-source anti-grav projects then the government wont be able to arrest all od us.
Big Oil/Military-Industrial Complex/General Electric will fight tooth and nail for humanity not to gain this technology. It's all about control and power. Corruption of the politicans worldwide go part and parcel in keeping this stuff out of the limelight. Moreover, if government actually enforced and enhanced current regulation the Gulf Oil spill would have been avoided.
Keep Up the Fight!!
Love Your Work,
Regards,
SamSeven
I have been a fan of your acting work since the film "Brubaker" and "Sneakers." Brubaker character you played help me land my first instructor's job and has shaped my leadership skills since. "Sneakers" is another phenominal flim which I always inspired by after watching it.
Mr. Redford to add to your ammunition in getting America off the oil habit. The US/Pentagon has been sitting on free energy for over 60 years now. There are 6000 patents sitting at the Pentagon which could free humanity from this oil addiction. (http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/the-squashing-of-free-energy-inventions-1636788.html and http://www.articlealley.com/article_1320878_22.html)
Part 1
However, there is now over a century of oil cartel/banking direct corruption of government. When the Rockefeller/JP Morgan/Rothschild syndicate seized control of the government processes in 1913 with passage of the Graduated Income Tax Act, The Federal Reserve Act and the Foundation Law Act, the U.S. was awashed in oil and government corruption as a result.
The wealthly elite shielded and protected their wealth using the Foundation Law and their relentless assaults on the income tax act enabling them and their corporations to avoid taxation.
Standard Oil held a 95% monopoly on oil refining by 1913 and that monopoly has yielded a century of control over the Federal Government. Study the Bilderberg Group if you do not believe this statement.
You will never take away profit from Exxon (Rockefeller), Royal Dutch Shell (Queen Beatrix) or British Petroleum (Queen Elizabeth) via public criticism or with the government process because those 3 corporations and the array of banking and law firms that support them cannot be stopped.
They can however be put out of business with the release of the Hydrogen Economy where there is more renewable energy in a barrel of water that their is in all of the oil and gas reserves on earth.
Mr. Redford, study the Hydrogen Economy and direct or resources into calling for its release, please.
Hydrogen can be made from geothermal energy, from extreme height splitting it from water. It might be useful for Iceland or Hawaii. But little hydrogen is made that way; most is extracted from natural gas, and you end up with less energy than you get from the natural gas (but the carbon is gone, so it's cleaner).
Hydrogen is not a viable source of power.
It is the most common element in the universe and is not "made"... it is. (1 on the table of elements)
I ain't no "physicist", but even I know more than to say it isn't a viable source of power.
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/FCX/station/
You can make it from water and sunlight in your back yard.
As far as nuclear energy goes, I hope you live in the blast zone of a power plant, because otherwise, you have no right to jeopardize the health and lives of other people so you can use the power generated. Go to your neighborhood school and ask to see the emergency plan for nuclear contamination and then imagine all those children exposed to radiation.... All systems fail. It's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when." If you have doubts, take a look at the Gulf of Mexico.
For another, it's really not a big deal to store it. And in 50 to 100 years, we'll be at the point where we can simply put it into space. It's not like we have to store it for all eternity.