Sen. Dick Durbin to the NYT:
“BP in my mind no longer stands for British Petroleum – it stands for Beyond Patience,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. “People have been waiting 34 days for British Petroleum to cap this well and stop the damage that’s happening across the Gulf of Mexico.”
“What we need to tell BP,” he added, “is excuses don’t count anymore. You caused this mess, now stop the damage and clean up the mess. It’s your responsibility.”
The sentiment is fine, but the acronym is wrong. It’s looking more and more like BP stands for “Broke the Planet.” Incalculable environmental damage; massive death of animal and plant life; astronomical and likely irreparable economic harm to fishing and other industries that depend on a non-oil-covered Gulf of Mexico; untold quantities of toxic chemicals poured into the Gulf in a likely futile effort to “disperse” the oil, possibly causing as much harm as the oil itself; and no end in sight. No end in sight. It’s an astounding event.
The Globe has a devastating series of photos posted here. There will no doubt be much more to come. Here’s one of them, captioned “A young heron sits dying amidst oil splattering underneath mangrove on an island impacted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Barataria Bay, along the the coast of Louisiana on Sunday, May 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)”
Ya ever consider how gross this logo actually is?
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p>It is promoting COVERING THE EARTH WITH PAINT!
I see no reason for an old company to change that logo, which dates to the 1890s.
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p>What does Sherwin Williams have to do with BP?
Well, It is impossible to say environmentalism was non-existent back then, but if it was…
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p>It does not excuse the logo in this day and age. The idea of placing a coat of paint over the entire surface, every surface of the earth is gross.
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p>Hell, BP’s logo is a frickin’ sunflowery thing.
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p>Maybe S-W is an awesome corporation. Maybe they do evertyhing with the best BMPs known to humans. That logo ia awful.
It is paint, and there aint no such thing as green paint, except for green paint.
They are Bungling Petroleum.
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p>They have had this Gulf oil spill, a refinery blowing up in Texas, a leaky pipeline in Alaska, and they caused Exxon Valdez, for the most part.
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p>No oil company comes close to BP in accidents. They are Bungling Petroleum. They do not do their maintenence and then their stuff “blows up”, because they are Bungling Petroleum.
I’ve heard the question, “Where is the outrage?” a number of times (not necessarily here). In my case, I’m plenty outraged but also getting frustrated now in how to express that outrage such that it results in more than venting on a blog…
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p>I’m less interested in punishing BP (although that should happen) than the following:
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p>1) Getting the leak plugged. I don’t have the expertise to know whether BP is the proper party to do this or what, but we should consider this in the vein of a Pearl Harbor attack and do whatever is necessary to stop the flow. If BP is (as I’ve heard rumored) looking only at solutions that give them access to the oil after the fact, that needs to change immediately.
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p>Heck, if no one has any better ideas, let’s give the Mythbusters a chance.
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p>2) Cleanup. A whole lot of damage has been done that cannot be fixed. Those Globe pictures are heartbreaking. But wherever it makes sense to clean up and/or divert the flow to avoid sensitive areas, it needs to be done.
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p>3) Full-scale national effort to get us off petroleum. Again, I’ll invoke the Pearl Harbor / WWII analogy. We need to do what’s necessary to reduce our oil use ASAP (think of the sacrifices and rationing from the war) and implement a man-on-the-moon sort of program to kick-start large-scale 21st century energy production.
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p>Sorry if I’m rambling a bit here (have to get dinner ready for the family). The bottom line is what I first said: How do we effectively express our outrage in order to get anything like I’ve written above going?
Early on I read someone analogizing fixing the oil mess to Apollo 13 in complexity. The Russians have apparently dealt with petro-calamities (their word for it) before by using nukes to seal the leak. But it’s never been done at this depth and the sediment or whatever isn’t hard rock so using a nuke might make the situation worse. Assuming the “junk shot” fails, maybe there isn’t a fix. The best solution might be to stop drilling in places where we have no method of fixing a problem if one occurs.
but is it true that Congress has established a limitation on the liability of oil companies for incidents like this? Something like $75 million or so? If this is true, that strikes me as absurd. Why should there be any limitation whatsoever on corporate liability short of standard bankruptcy protections? If you cause $400 Billion in damages because you make a huge mistake then that’s what you should owe, right? Only difficulty, I suppose, is putting a monetary value on dead herons and ruined natural beauty- but the economic cost to the fishing industry would seem possible to calculate, and will surely be astronomical.
Given the industry’s sorry safety record and history of shrugging off responsibility, and given the extreme toxicity of crude oil, the idea of any limit on liability is horrendous. Take BP to the cleaners, then take them apart.
I called them Beyond Pathetic yesterday after I found a short video on treehugger.com last nght. It turns out to be the text of a diary on dailykos.com published on May 11 purportedly by someone who is an expert in the field. It is about the proper method of building oil booms to divert oil from land. If it is true, and it seems to me to be so, the information is devastating.
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p>http://www.youtube.com/v/Vx8kM…
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p>The significant information begins at about 1:50.
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p>The author of this piece, fishgrease, has continued to write diaries at dailykos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
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p>Evidently, BP has no idea what it is doing even for something as simple as booming oil; for some reason, the Coast Guard, which does know how to boom correctly, is not doing their job; the media seem to be ignorant and haven’t done their homework. I am sending this information to the enviro reporters at the Wash Post and Time mag because I happen to have their emails. I have no real hope of a response or reaction but it will make me feel better, like I tried.
If the narrator of that video could stop saying ‘fucking’ and make her likely compelling argument in a convincing way, she might get herself onto CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, NPR or ABC to get her message out.
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p>As it is, she’s just an angry person. I’d like to drop the CEO of BP into a tank filled with tarantulas just as much as the next person, but that doesn’t clean up the gulf, does it? When we’ve got a Coast Guard and Interior Secretary and President who all seem to be working for a foreign oil company, and the booming work is being done improperly (as this video claims) making a video that is heavy on ‘fucking’ but light on supporting evidence doesn’t do anyone any good.
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p>
The author of the piece, who is not the narrator of the youtube clip, does not want to be interviewed by the press. He/she has continued to write about what is happening in the Gulf from his/her informed perspective.
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p>I have some sources who are working on corroborating information now and hope that one of the reporters I’ve contacted will dig a little deeper.
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p>However, knowing how journalists work, I will not get my hopes up.
One can’t help but be moved by the harm this is causing.
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p>But maybe we’ll finally be spurred to take concrete steps that are important and implement a sensible national energy policy.
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p>Jasiu asked —
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p>
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p>Here’s my list, just my opinion —
1. Consider that after last year’s TVA Coal Ash Spill, it became apparent that Coal Ash was stored around the Commonwealth with comparable potential. We aren’t as environmentally responsible as we might believe.
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p>That disaster was estimated as 30 times the Exxon Valdez.
50% of the energy generated comes from coal which is dirty and has destroyed 500 mountains and countless streams and communities.
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p>http://middlebororeview.blogsp…
Massachusetts Coal Ash:
http://middlebororeview.blogsp…
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p>We quickly forgot and moved on.
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p>2. Consider writing a check for those working to save the birds and clean up this mess or those fighting this in court – which many of us probably already do. (What I’ve saved in energy we contribute – it’s a growing amount.)
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p>3. Consider accepting personal responsibility to reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint in our lives.
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p>You don’t have to installed photovoltaics on the roof tomorrow, but when you replace an appliance, buy the most efficient and pay the premium and most in this forum know how to do reduce their consumption without sitting in the dark. My pet peeve has always been JUNK MAIL – maybe someday we’ll finally have the equivalent of a Do Not Call List. (And how about that Bottle Bill that’s bottled up by Pepsi?)
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p>Put the vampires on energy strips and don’t forget to use them. Why should the television and computer use power when you’re not watching? Dumbest thing I ever heard!
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p>It is my understanding that Phillips just introduced a 60 watt LED that might make sense.
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p>BP and Big Oil are destroying environments and sickening people around the world in similar fashion. This disaster just came home to roost.
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p>4. How do we work to get lobbyists and Big Corporations out of government?