Is it OK to bash BP? Or ourselves for buying the oil? If so, anyone who wants to do it here is welcome.

My main concern with off-shore drilling is that over time, whether we squelch this particular well or not, we're going to kill our oceans.

Today I heard on CNN that some of the tar balls being found on gulf beaches aren't from this current "spill", but from the general pollution caused by so much drilling in the area.

Well, time to stop! Think we can do that before we kill all the kelp - and every living being suffocates from lack of oxygen?

According to this website, 70% of the world's oxygen is produced by kelp:

[www.acfnewsource.org]

Geez, and all those poor ocean critters. Just makes me mad and sad.

Don't like to say the sky is falling, but seems like if we don't wise up, the Mayan 2012 prediction could come true out of just this kind of thing.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2010 10:41PM by suncloud.

from what Ive read, it seems the out dated technology, and lack of any real oversight seems to be the main issue, as with current technology they can actually set up oil rigs that don't even leak, and its done by other countries... safely, with literally zero pollution, personally though, I believe we should be investing more time and effort into making alternative energy a more viable option, there are some parts of the world in which there is so much solar energy just waiting for us, that more than a third of the worlds energy consumption, including what would be lost during the transfers over the thousands of miles of cable that would be needed, would be taken care of with current technology, who knows what we could do in 20 years...or 50! but there just doesn't seem to be much dedication to the research...

the whole thing sickens me everytime i see it on the tv

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Here's a pointed cartoon about BP, done by our Detroit Freep's wonderful Mike Thompson, that illustrates this company's mendacity:

[www.freep.com]

The disconnect between the cute car with upbeat tune and the billboard messages is fantastic. Excellent cartoon. Thanks for posting this.


My favorite raw vegan

Trive,

You're welcome! I love Mike Thompson because he can be merely clever to downright livid, and when he juxtaposes things so well that way, you know he's really, really outraged about the subject.

Curator,

We are at a tipping point with the POTUS--he's in office already, and cannot now be removed by the special interests. He can turn coat on them and do the moral thing if just chooses to. Cross fingers.

jk,

I just got back from the Daily Kos, and reading the comments from engineers/environmental scientists that are aware of what's going on and the odds of fixing it was so demoralizing, I started to cry. And I don't often cry. But I am more angry than sad, which is strengthening. Despair is the enemy.

Sigh, the huge cost of corporate greed,
as the oil continues to gush,
But PB doesn't want to us to see
how much they caused the earth to bleed.
they would rather keep it hush!
and let the poison blend with the sea!


Here is a link to the live feed of the gush, BP wants to shut off the transmission of the disaster so we don't see what the caused!

[globalwarming.house.gov]

lol Now I wonder what the "reputable" talk show hosts will say as the true facts come out...

[news.yahoo.com]

Greed is as Greed does!

I've heard that there are LOTS and LOTS of solutions being proposed for plugging the leaks. One of the suggestions is to plug the pipe with petroleum executives.


My favorite raw vegan

ROFLMAO trive!!! best suggestion ive EVER heard!!! lol...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

phillipe cousteau ponders whether the dispersants were a good idea or not .. this shows his dive ..

its pretty sickening and just seems to get worse rather than better :/
[vodpod.com]

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Thanks for the video Jodi.

Hoping they plug that geyser today! The mess already seems so huge, and there aren't enough trained workers or equipment to handle it. Of course. So much for humans screwing around with the forces of nature.

So so sad about the critters - the birds, the fish.

If we can just plug the thing today......

"Personally I dont think there is any conspiracy here, just a bunch of idiots that keep doing the wrong thing (or nothing at all)"

Probably, but I like the conspiracy angle...

I have heard that there are other oil companies in other parts of the world that are experienced at deep sea drilling & do have the equipment/know how to handle this sort of thing...

Is BP/Federal gov't. going to step up to the plate & ask them for assistance?

Hell no!!!

We would rather our pride stay intact while we work it out on our own & destroy the planet...

If B.P. would stop presurizing the other wells in the Gulf, the flow could be stoped. read B.Ps history yes a dirty consiracy. Exxon Valdez was B.P. read your history.
thanks Bryan for not censoring this post, I will private Coco with my respone you censored. on me.

BP’s History of Gambling with Lives for Sake of Profit
| Author: Taradacktyl


The Daily Beast has uncovered a BP memo showing that five years ago, as opposed to blast-proof lodgings, they put workers into cheap portable trailers right next door to dangerously explosive facilities solely to cut corners and save money. The result became known as the Texas City Refinery explosion where 15 workers died and 170 were injured.

This disgustingly tasteless internal document justified BP’s callous, greed-centered, cost-cutting as “The Three Little Pigs.” Ironically, it is the capitalist pigs who gambled with the lives of its workers by building cheaper housing for workers after comparing the cost of housing fellow human beings in blast-resistant buildings versus flimsy trailers.

Once again, when corporations gamble, it is the people who lose and pick up the tab.
Why should our “betters” care? To them, the lives of dumb Plebeians are expendable!

People died on that well platform this time around, you or me it would be manslaughter, just heard today commercal fishermans group spoted an island full of birds walking around like zombies in the Gulf, Made me cry, its one air one water one earth one big web and we are ripping it apart in the name of greed and power. Im scared for our oceans and children, MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2010 11:07PM by riverhousebill.

Oil
By Nordette N. Adams


That bird don't know me.
If I met that bird
on a beach, it might christen me.
That bird might drop bombs like karma
on my head or peck my ankles with its long beak
if I cornered it, if I limited
flight.

Look at its eye!

Look at the tinge
of affliction managed.
A human closes fingers around a feathered neck,
siphons out a throat,
helping, hoping to help,
healing.

Humans.
We like making holes in the deep blue sea.
We like seeing illustrations of our compassion
in the aftermath of chaos.

We like fixing things that need to be fixed
because we like fixing problems like
our shortage of fossil
fuels.

That "bird is normally white with a yellow head"
but now it's slick. It's black,
but not cool like jazz trumpet grooves.
It's denigrated.

We like fixing things
like ravaged wetlands,
and chem-soaked rivers,
and polluted groundwater,
like Gulf Coast oil spills,
and polar ice caps melting,
and holes in the ozone layer,
and almost blown to bits soldiers,
and that other country's genocide,
and horribly caged fat chickens,
like third world babies starving,
and ammonia in our ground beef,
and fall-out from enhanced corn,
and obesity, and levees,
and savage inequalities,
and hatred, and memories
of history, and air,
and we like to save
cash,
and the Confederacy,
and baby whales,
and penguins,
and fetuses,
and hope
to restore
all things
that come
from the
fix.

Fix that bird!

It has an eye
like the
blues.

it sickens me at this point to be a car driving oil consumer, i am going to find a way to hugely HUGELY reduce our use on oil when i get back home, i plan on making every sq.inch of space work for me at home producing some sort of food, and plan better trips to town as we live rural but looking back on last year there was so many wasted trips to town due to poor planning.

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Jodi, thanks for the reminder. Vehicle use is definitely a big one. Whatever we can do to conserve and/or make use of alternatives, we need to do it!

Thanks for the poem Riverhouse. Those poor birds. We sure did fix them, didn't we.

yeah, I used to walk everywhere, but at least for another few months im going to be carpooling or taking the bus... luckily most stores and stuff are near where I live.

i think im gonna send a small note around to several blocks around my area offering car pooling rides on certain days and try to fill the beast at least and help a few seniors out around the neighborhood

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

that sounds like a good plan!!! just make sure people know that trips have to be planned out ahead of time, or people will take advantage "ohhhh can we go over here? I know it wasnt where we planned on going, but I really want to stop here...and there, oh and over there..." that happens allot sometimes if people dont realize that your doing this to try and save gas, reduce emissions, even possibly save some money, and not to just give them rides everywhere and anywhere if they dont absolutely need them...

lol i hear ya Curator, it could be a bit of a pain but with some carefull planning i think it might work

i have a friend of mine who has never driven and i take her into town at least once a month and we discuss her agenda the night before . usually she reminds me of the things i need to do in town as well so it works out well, ie: liabrary books back, grocery shopping, recycling depot (she doesnt have garbage pickup where she is) ,

i dont know it just drives one nuts when you look around and see so many cars on the road with (1) person in it

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Latest reports -

BP now saying that it could be until August until this thing is stopped. Why?!? Why are we turning down other countries offers of assistance when they supposedly have experience in this sort of disaster?

It still smells fishy/conspiracy to me...

yes epic failure once again

i say they should make a giant finger and stick it in the hole

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

the fact that the EPA is asking for idea on their website for how to fix this shows how poorly the idea (offshore oil drilling) is implemented [www.epa.gov]

seriously?! so someone thought hey lets go drill oil out there (x what? 500 rigs out there offshore or more?) and lets hope and cross our fingers that we dont have an accident?

all offshore oil drilling should be shut down untill they find a solution to this problem?

every rig out there has the potential for the same problem!

this world and the oil companies are FARKED with a capital F

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

From what I gather, ideas on how to contain the oil spill are flooding in but BP isn't listening to outsiders. The top kill idea sounded more like a stall tactic. Did they really think they could plug the well with "junk"? They had a vacuum connected to it which caught 900,000 gallons of oil but disconnected it for their latest cap ideas. Why do a questionable cap when a more sophisticated vacuum type of containment and collection has been shown to work at least in part? A mile long steel conduit making its way to tankers above might at least contain the relentless influx of oil. Just improvise and complete what the drilling platform would have done had it not gone up in flames.

Remembering Chernobel, the disaster was terrible but the response was massive.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2010 03:51PM by loeve.

loeve,

That's why I'm beginning to think this is not just gross incompetence on BP's part; they may have another object to allowing the geyser to persist. The arrogant dismissal of subsurface oil plumes by BP suggests this, you know, nothin' to see, people, just move along . . .

..regarding BP and oil plumes, deny, deny, deny to protect the bottom line.

I'm actually encouraged a little by the latest contingency plan of BP. They've customized the top half of a new BOP (blowout preventer) and are getting equipment in place to trim the mangled old riser and lower this cap on top of the existing BOP. Why did it take so long to customize this part?

[www.bp.com]

I did the math and if the oil is gushing out now as they say about 15,000 barrels/day that's about 500 gallons per minute, roughly like when someone crashes over a fire hydrant (also designed to supply 500 gpm minimum).

It's a hassle no doubt working a mile down but doable.