BP Now Admits It’s A “Catastrophe”

(8PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Well, that sure didn’t take long.  We’ve had more than a month of watching oil gush from a broken pipe a mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico.  We’ve watched BP, which has Ken Salazar’s foot on it’s hydra-headed neck, take every possible step to save oil it could sell while it dithered about blocking the leak and invented sci-fi machines to capture oil.  And we’ve watched in horror while enormous amounts of oil flow into the sea and onto beaches and through marshes, and we’re seeing pelicans covered in oil and drowned turtles and fishing bans and devastation in the tourist industry.  And now, after all of that, as if we don’t already know that we’re watching something that foreshadows the impending death of the Gulf of Mexico, BP has revised its characterization of the spill from having a “modest” environmental impact to being an “environmental catastrophe.”

What a sickening development.

CNN has the story and video. So does Crooks and Liars:

And the result is that while the Gulf of Mexico is being ruined everyone is now officially “frustrated.”  The President. You. Me.  We’re frustrated because all of the smart people in the world in convocation apparently cannot put this Humpty Dumpty together again.  Or haven’t.  So at long last, according to TPM, DFA is now calling for a boycott of BP.  What else, I ask, can we do to express ourselves?

There are really two issues.  The first is the leak.  But the second, and over time it might be the more important, is collecting, containing and then cleaning up the mess.  That process is sadly long overdue and it does not depend on stemming the flow.  It depends on the government mobilizing the resources necessary to contain and clean up the oil.  And if you think that blocking the leak is/was a challenge, the clean up is a far larger one.

Can we please get going on that?  Every day that we wait on this is a day of more suffering and death in the Gulf.

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simulposted at The Dream Antilles

23 comments

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  1. Thanks for reading.

  2. BP spends 1/2 of it’s daily profits on oil spill response.

    The spill has cost BP a total of $760 million, or about $22 million a day, the company said May 24. Average daily profit last year was $45 million a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

    On April 30th, Obama promised a:

    “robust response.”

    How much money does the government claim it spent?

    100 million. To be reimbursed by BP.

    That’s a robust response?

    They just authorized 60B for Obama’s wars.  

    • Edger on May 28, 2010 at 19:11

    has the video, David. The embed code for it is on the right sight of their page here…

  3. “. . . . free from suffering.”  Yes, if only, if only . . . . , but I’m sure there is so much “quiet” suffering going on that we may well imagine, but have no grasp as to the magnitude.  They’ve even found oil on the Gulf ocean floor.  How can the “life” endure the fumes, the oil and the dispersants — all toxic and now, widespread!

    They’ve now found a 22-mile long plume under Gulf near rich waters — see here.

    I cannot begin to express my grief — as I’m sure most feel.

  4. The National Wildlife Federation is involved

    http://www.nwf.org/

    as are other large wildlife organizations. They are funding and training local facilities to help with wildlife.

    The best resource I have found is from NOLA.com

    http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-

    But, I have heard unconfirmed reports, that BP is not allowing volunteers in some areas hardest hit…. you know hazmat suits, pictures and all make for bad PR.

    • RUKind on May 29, 2010 at 02:56

    1.  Round up the BP board of directors and all executive level employees.

    2.  Drop them in the Gulf a mile from shore in the thickest spill available.

    3.  If any make it to shore, book ’em, Dano.

    Mr. Hawaii 50/50 doesn’t seem to get the rage part of outrage. Yet.

  5. at least nothing more than superficial, showpiece type  efforts, probably located near upscale marinas and high-priced waterfront residential developments.  The mess is already beyond the scale  on which human cleanup efforts  can happen, and the massive use of dispersants guarantees our inability to track it all and the inability of our recovery systems to capture it when located.

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