Tag: BP

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Yoda: I am wondering, why are you here?

Luke: I’m looking for someone.

Yoda: Looking? Found someone, you have, I would say, hmmm?

Luke: Right…

Yoda: Help you I can. Yes, mmmm.

Luke: I don’t think so. I’m looking for a great warrior.

Yoda: Ohhh. Great warrior.  [Yoda laughs and shakes his head]

Yoda: Wars — NOT — make one great.

Not even wars, for control and mining of strategically important geo-politcal Natural Resources — that may or may not, determine the course of the world’s future …

Honestly, I am absolutely sick of commercial air travel these days. Just dealing with security is bad enough, but then there’s the airlines, and…hey, all you really need to know here is that there has to be a pretty good reason for me to fly cross-country.

Well, I had one Saturday night, which is how I came to be in the Colonnade Room of the Fairmount Hotel, Washington DC with about 250 of my closest friends, in a classic shawl-collar tuxedo, attending one of the most exclusive “passing of the torch” ceremonies in recent Washington memory.

And when it was all over, Douglas Feith was a happy man.

The Despacho

Beyond the anger, frustration, sadness, depression and fear of the BP oil disaster there must be something else.  The Gulf of Mexico is fast becoming a deadly petroleum gumbo garnished with oil coated, dead pelicans, life in the sea is massing and trying unsuccessfully to escape the pollution, and there may really be nothing on a practical level that can be done to staunch the hemorrhage of Pachamama’s vital fluids.  We watch in horror.  And grief.  Is our mother dying?  I awoke in the middle of the night to write this haiku:

I watch you dying.

Pelican can’t fly away.

Oceans fill my eyes.

Sea creatures flee oil spill, gather near shore

by Jay Reeves, John Flesher, Tamara Lush (AP) — Jun 16, 2010

GULF SHORES, Ala. – Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange phenomena.

Fish and other wildlife seem to be fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast in a trend that some researchers see as a potentially troubling sign.

The animals’ presence close to shore means their usual habitat is badly polluted, and the crowding could result in mass die-offs as fish run out of oxygen. Also, the animals could easily get devoured by predators.

“A parallel would be: Why are the wildlife running to the edge of a forest on fire?

But, but those Sea Critters, CAN’T RUN onto the Land, most of them.

This is deeply troubling.  And beyond sickening.  AP reports:

GULF SHORES, Ala. – Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange – and troubling – phenomena.

Fish and other wildlife are fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast. But that is not the hopeful sign it might appear to be, researchers say.

The animals’ presence close to shore means their usual habitat is badly polluted, and the crowding could result in mass die-offs as fish run out of oxygen. Also, the animals could easily get devoured by predators.

“A parallel would be: Why are the wildlife running to the edge of a forest on fire? There will be a lot of fish, sharks, turtles trying to get out of this water they detect is not suitable,” said Larry Crowder, a Duke University marine biologist.

Dear Pachamama, Mother Earth, Santa Madre Tierra, Gaia, Sweet Mother, I am so sorry for what we have done and are doing to you and your creatures, our brothers and sisters, the creatures who live in and near the sea.  We don’t know how to stop the oil, and we don’t know how to save all of these beings. Please understand our remorse, our regret, our shame and accept out deepest apologies for destroying this part of this wondrous, blue pearl planet.  Please forgive us.

———————-

simulposted at The Dream Antilles

Most Companies face the common dilemma of how to best minimize their Risks, while somehow, managing to make a Profit. It’s what makes ‘Starting a Business’ a Risky proposition for most folks — there are few “sure fire” deals in the Business World.

This little “constraint” is apparently not much of a factor, in the High Tech world of deepwater drilling, however.  They have simply managed to ‘paper-over’ any Real Risks they incur for decades now.  Oil CEO’s are accustom to seeing it, as an Easy Money Gig.

Their little “risk management” charade has been coming out lately, in the Congressional Inquiries been held by Henry Waxman.

“Rubber Stamp” may take on a whole new meaning, given the way these Exec’s seem to like to ‘copy each others Homework’ …

On MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann Monday night, Marine toxicologist Riki Ott alleged that British Petroleum (BP) is trying to discourage or disallow public and media from seeing some of the horrific results of their oil leak by removing oiled animal carcasses from Gulf beaches.

“Turtle watch volunteers who walk the beaches consistently every morning at 6:00 a.m., they’re saying the carcasses are disappearing”

“People who walk the beaches at night, they’ve seen little baby dolphins wash up dead, flashlights, people descend out of nowhere, carcass gone in 15 minutes.

There’s reports from offshore of massive kills on the barrier islands from fishermen who have been working on the spill response…

BP’s response has been to use metal detectors to keep and prevent the people from even taking cell phones out to photograph this.”

There have been reports in the past few days of BP hiring private security contractors to keep the public and media away from oiled beaches.

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown June 14, 2010.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a story I originally posted in March of 2007 that seems so important right now I’ve brought it back for your consideration.

Let’s begin today’s discussion with a quick thought experiment.

What is the single most important thing necessary to ensure the survival of the State of Louisiana?

Improved government administration?

More and better levees?

The success of the “Road Home” project?

I submit it is none of these.

The single most important factor determining the future of the State of Louisiana is mud.

That’s right, mud.

BP Spills Coffee

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

For more than a century, in unison, the planets’ population proclaimed, thankfully petroleum flows.  Oil powers our machines.  The refined product has helped us manufacture massive quantities of clothing, aluminum sheet, and photovoltaic (PV) solar cells.  “Plastics.”  As was professed in a popular film decades ago, “There’s a great future in plastics.” Presently, and in the past, BP understood this and much more.  The company’s Executives knew petroleum could and would provide endless profits, power, and a perpetual presence.