Seething with anger barely touches how I feel about the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The costs that we are willing to accept borders on insanity as the fossil fuel pushers reap obscene financial gain, keeping us tethered to the toxic tit of a substance that may well prove to be our demise. Are the profits so intoxicating that otherwise intelligent people chose willful negligence over reasonable risk abatement? Are we so addicted to our profligate life styles that we prefer willful ignorance over thoughtful reflection about the choices we make?
Weekly reports of coal mine deaths from all corners of the planet are bad enough. Blasting the tops off mountains, forever rendering the surrounding areas unfit for human habitation, should be enough to revile us, too. So, too, the endless wars and military costs of "protecting" all that oil we crave which has the unfortunate circumstance of being situated under somebody else's turf. Gouging out boreal forests to dig down 100 feet for oil in tar sands is breathtakingly myopic and destructive. But saying "yes" to drilling for oil in sensitive, unstable ecosystems has to be the height of pathological, maybe even fatal, hubris.
The US represents barely 5% of the world's population yet we consume 25% of the world's energy. Contained within our boarders is about 2% of the world's known oil reserves. The math simply isn't sustainable. We are getting our addiction fed from wherever we can get the oil. Much of the Amazon Basin, the lungs of the world, has been decimated by Chevron's and Occidental's rapacious oil drilling practices. Nigeria is an ecological disaster thanks to the immoral drilling and business practices of Shell Oil. All over the world, ecosystems are being irreparably damaged because we refuse to extricate ourselves from fossil fuels. And now we are feeling the pain and helplessness that so many other countries have experienced as foreign companies invade our sovereignty and destroy our environment for their own financial gain.
What a combination! We're trashed by a British oil company leasing a Swiss-owned, Korean-built rig that is cravenly registered in the Marshall Islands (otherwise known as "flag of convenience") and serviced by Halliburton. Oh wait -- Halliburton isn't foreign-owned, unless you consider Dick Cheney an alien -- and there is a good argument for that, I'll agree. Halliburton is our very own, home-grown cancer.
During the Bush/Cheney years, Minerals Management Service employees were wined, dined, bedded and more by the oil companies. In exchange, the oil companies got to write the safety regulations. This abdication of off-shore drilling oversight by the MMS is a lesson in the dangers of legalized bribery. In 2009 alone, BP spent $15.9 million peddling influence in Washington. BP's bribes, until now, have proven to be quite successful investments. BP has been responsible for some of the worst oil-related "accidents" in our nation's history and, thanks mainly to its lead defense lawyer, Carol Dinkins, former Deputy Attorney General under Bush I and former chief of the DOJ's environment division, has been charged with nothing more than misdemeanors. Of course, if you see failure and its clean-up as cheaper than doing preventative maintenance, the consequences of that business philosophy can hardly be called "accidental" and should never be treated as lightly as a misdemeanor.
According to MMS spokesman, Michael Saucier, the oversight agency almost never tests blowout preventers. They rely on the drillers to report their tests; even BP, with its history of deliberately reckless safety violations and slap-on-the-wrist penalties, MMS took at its word. Incredible.
The Deepwater Horizon documents that BP gave to the MMS were shoddy and misrepresented the equipment used in the operation. But for a dead battery in the blowout preventer's control pod, it may have functioned properly. Though maybe not, because apparently there were multiple other malfunctions in the equipment. Over a decade ago, off-shore rig operators were warned that back-ups to blowout preventers were necessary. The fact is that what BP, et al, were trying to do was so inherently high risk, they should have had more sophisticated back-up technology than drill technology. Yet all they have is 40-year-old clean-up practices and untested crap technology that, so far, has failed spectacularly. Their last ditch "short term" fix would be comical if it were not so pathetic: stuffing the well hole with shredded tires and golf balls.
The point is that BP paid for lax oversight and softened regulations and that's what it got. Of course, it doesn't hurt BP that it is the Pentagon's number one source of oil. I'm just saying... maybe they get a little more wiggle room than, say, you or I if we were to have destroyed an entire ecosystem and region's economy, and killed 11 people.
There is NO excuse for accidentally slaughtering ecosystems for energy, so why are self-proclaimed "environmentalists" giving Big Energy a "pass" for INTENTIONALLY AND PERMANENTLY KILLING MILLIONS OF ACRES OF DESERT up-front so they can build their (cough) "clean energy" disasters?
There is more than enough rooftop already in our built environment to power the US 100%. Add in another 90% from in-city brownfields - and cover them all with super-cheap thin film PV and we can support electric cars. Not one acre of wilderness needs to be killed, not one drop of scarce desert groundwater needs to be wasted, no construction emissions, no SF6 from transmission infrastructure - just DEMOCRATIC, RELIABLE, CLEAN ENERGY RIGHT WHERE IT'S NEEDED.
Storage solutions are rapidly coming online (including clean hydrogen "batteries"), and this whole Big Solar, Big Wind Big Transmission mess is all about re-centralizing power in the hands of a few, using fuels that are available EVERYWHERE. We need to stop this massacre before it starts, and redirect our energy to the BUILT environment...
tax heavy metals and radiative pollution.
that will make fossil and nukes way more expensive, as they should be.
invest in rooftop pv solar, offshore wind and waste bio char.
these green energy sources can provide all the world energy needs several times over, within 12 years: clean, safe, cheaper in the long run 3-6 cents no, sand forever.
Everything is Bush's fault.
Fast-track commercialization is alive and well in the US.
You must be a racist.