Worst Environmental Disaster ever - Who is to Blame

[Davin Raincloud]

I'm going to say something, and some folks won't like it.

This Oil Spill in America that's pumping out 3 million litres of oil today is set to be the worst Environmental Disaster in the world.

I blame: American Conservativism.

I've been battling them for sometime online and have seen just how deluded, short sighted and evil they are.

At the core of their philosophies is a social evil.

They don't care for anyone except themselves or their group.

Drill Baby Drill?

*SIgh*

Now let everyone tell me how wrong I am..... lol

[treegod]

I think, in general, at some level, you're right. And probably wrong. I can't be bothered to go into detail about that though.

But who or what is to blame for American Conservatism?

[DJ Droood]

I blame: American Conservativism.

I suppose the political ideology of greed that most in the elite class hold allowed this to occur, but I blame mainstream christianity for making the common folk dumb enough to think unfettered capitalism combined with a police state was somehow good for "them".

[Davin Raincloud]

*HELLO OTHER DRUIDS?*

If we don't make this disaster a hot topic, then what do we really care about?

Druid iphone apps?

I've seen some extremely long drawn out arguments induced by trolls over the last month about this or that. Where is our concern for this topic?

I know there are people here that this is really affecting.

[DJ Droood]

*HELLO OTHER DRUIDS?*

If we don't make this disaster a hot topic, then what do we really care about?

hmmm..I think maybe because you made the thread poltical right from the get-go, it may have scared some people off...folks here don't like strong emotions or blame...perhaps if you had suggested an hour of meditation on the spill, or posted a link to a wild-life group, you would get more...

Or perhaps it is because we all know the situation is so FUBAR that there isn't anything we can do or say to make it better.

[Aylyn]

For me, it is more about the title of the topic. Playing the blame game is not helping anyone, least the environment. What we should do is find solutions, not assign blame.

[Kernos]

I agree, Aylyn. Why does someone always have to be the scapegoat? Fault is irrelevant. Solutions and preventions are the only considerations.

[DJ Droood]

I agree, Aylyn. Why does someone always have to be the scapegoat? Fault is irrelevant. Solutions and preventions are the only considerations.

oh come on...fault is not irrelevant...someone (many) dropped the ball and milions of people, not to mention the environment, suffer. BP should be fined to within an inch of its life, the directors who oversaw this should be jailed and so should the officials with any government body who "partied" with BP instead of observing them. Perhaps hold fire until they fix the problem, but then there should be a full government inquiry into this. How is this any different from Enron or Goldman Sachs, or other cases of criminal misconduct in the corporate world...except for being far worse....?

I believe you will find both Exxon and the utility that ran 3 Mile Island faced criminal sanctions, and there are other examples.

[Davin Raincloud]

I agree, Aylyn. Why does someone always have to be the scapegoat? Fault is irrelevant. Solutions and preventions are the only considerations.

oh come on...fault is not irrelevant...someone (many) dropped the ball and milions of people, not to mention the environment, suffer. BP should be fined to within an inch of its life, the directors who oversaw this should be jailed and so should the officials with any government body who "partied" with BP instead of observing them. Perhaps hold fire until they fix the problem, but then there should be a full government inquiry into this. How is this any different from Enron or Goldman Sachs, or other cases of criminal misconduct in the corporate world...except for being far worse....?

I believe you will find both Exxon and the utility that ran 3 Mile Island faced criminal sanctions, and there are other examples.

EXACTLY!

Druids were the Judges of old. Someone should be accountable for this. Let's look at the causes.

It seems to me fighting to prevent things is far better than dealing with the aftermath.

As it is, BP is going to collapse as a company. This is how stupid the Conservative Greedy folk are. Safety measures would ultimately protect them from causing their own destruction.

If we aren't going to face the harsh reality and work out what's wrong - what are we doing here?

The "Blame Game" term, is a cop-out terms for people trying to escape responsibility.

I'm not playing a game, but actually pointing at who is responsibile.

[Davin Raincloud]

Sorry if I'm a bit ranty.

LOL





I guess it's one of these things out of our control.

[Twig]

I'm with you on this one, Davin. Sure, I'm practical: "Just plug up the damned hole," as Obama reportedly said. I am amazed that BP keeps coming up with "solutions" that don't work. Golf balls? Top-kill? Basically, they don't want to ruin their rig, regardless of the damage done, the lives lost, or the environment destroyed.

But someone needs to be held accountable. And the "what regulations?" Clinton/Bush administrations are ultimately responsible, especially the "free-market-cures-everything"
cronies in both of those administrations.

There was a letter to the editor in my daily rag today from a 30-year oilman from Oklahoma. He writes, "...blowouts do not just occur. They happen when the lease owner, drilling company, blowout prevention manufacturer or the completions team are grossly negligent. If the BP well had been on land, it would have been capped long ago... We can send men to the moon and build a space station, but we don't have the capability to operate one mile below the gulf's surface. Four nations already have the equipment [manned submersibles]."

"The major oil companies have more than enough funds to develop and build these submersibles capable of repairing damage, but it's a low priority because regulations covering deep sea drilling have not required them ...

I am not a Druid judge of old (OK, the old part is right), but I think it's easy to see what didn't get done and why.

[Art]

My brother has a camp on Grand Isle and I know quite a few people who are directly impacted by the oil spill. I was engaged in the petrochemical industry for over thirty years and most of that time was spent in environmental operations and spill management. I mention that only to preface what I’m about to say.

Oil wells have been in operation in the Gulf of Mexico for nearly a century and there are something in the neighborhood of 4000 wells either in production or dormant. Never before has there been a release of this magnitude nor has there ever been a situation where multiple redundant hardware failures resulted in a major spill…IF that’s what caused this one. The jury is still out and until the data from the rig is analyzed we really do not know for certain what happened and who is responsible. Certainly it could be (as it appears) a complex system of errors by BP and the drilling company or it could be a simple as someone on the rig at the time overriding the safety systems for maintenance or whatever. We just don’t know and will not for some time. Therefore it would seem prudent to refrain from assessing blame until we know for sure who did what and when…and then…refrain from belief based on the stumbled inaccurate riot mongering of some of our media experts. Some of the coverage has been horrible with the worst of all being CNN who cleverly brought to bear experts like a truck driver from Alaska who once worked for BP and a historian with no experience in the oil patch or a political advisor who has absolutely no experience in the field but merrily barks opinions as if they were fact.

What we do know for certain at this juncture is that something terrible happened and that it is an ongoing disaster of major proportions. Thus there is an immediate two part problem: stop the leak and mitigate damage to sensitive coastal areas. Quite frankly the best minds from several different oil companies are all gathered at a Shell Oil facility working on the problem. It’s not just BP trying one thing after another. There’s not one thing that a manned submersible can do that an ROV can’t do a mile down in the ocean. It’s not a question of saving the hardware…the hardware is gone as it is.
The oil spill apart from the release site is the major problem for most people at the moment. Oil in the marshes is bad news from any number of economic and environmental perspectives. The better part of valor would be to take the oil on the pristine sandy beaches where it can be managed and picked up rather than in the marsh grass where it causes untold death and destruction. There too there is no simple safe answer other than grinding toil and hard work for months and years to come.
Personally I want to see a team comprised of gray haired oil patch experts, drillers, petroleum engineers, oil spill managers, etc, at the helm working this problem and not some gaggle of politicians, political appointees and wishful thinking academics. I want to see the guy who has worked with blowout preventers, has seen slam gates in action and knows the systems and who has gotten his hands dirty capping wells in the past making the decisions rather than some well meaning Coast Guard dude who went to oil spill school once upon a time or some film maker who happens to have made films underwater. I want the guy who knows the field, knows the crude, knows the hardware and knows what he’s doing…not the theorist or guesser.
The President has appointed a commission and from what I’ve seen, not one person on it has a remote clue about what goes on in the oil patch. My expectations are not high.

In short, my thought is to reserve judgment regarding blame until we know for sure what happened and to focus on working the two problems at hand; mitigating the spill and stopping the source. For that, I’d prefer to see the best minds from the world’s exploration and production companies at the helm and not some gaggle of nitwits and political appointees.

At the moment I'm not worried about pointing a finger except for knowing who is paying the bills. The rest of the inquisition can come when the verdict is in.

[Twig]

Great, well thought-out post, Art. An example of letting calmer heads prevail... I am just so ready to nail whomever is responsible because I am upset that something of this magnitude could happen. Your approach is much more sane and much more well-informed.

However, I do still believe that sooner or later we are going to have to establish some sort of regulations, not only the safety oil rigs and mines, but in other areas of concern as well, such as the safety of our food and the gross mismanagement of the financial sector.

[Aylyn]

Druids were the Judges of old. Someone should be accountable for this. Let's look at the causes.

[...]

I'm not playing a game, but actually pointing at who is responsibile.

Okay, so let us take a good look at who is responsible. So yeah, BP drilled a hole in the ground down in the ocean, messed it up and has now to deal with the aftermath. They are investigated and will be punished if they did something seriously wrong. Art pointed that out so nicely. But if you look over the rim of your plate, then let us ask the really bad questions: Why does BP put so much money into an enterpreise like that?

And the uncomfortable answer would be: Because there is people like you and me who buy their products. I need gas to heat mty house, Twig needs electricity to run her AC, and I don't know about you lifetsyle habits down under, but I am pretty sure it involves some kind of pertoleum and oil products. So ultimately, we cannot lean back and say: It is their fault. Anyone who uses oil products is eventually to blame. If we don't admit this, we are far too self-righteous and as such have lost all credibility. But then, as druids this is something we do not trerally like to admit. We are far too concerned with seeing ourselves as guardians of the earth and the "good" people to admit our own guilt. There is that nice biblical quote: "Why do you note the Splinter in your brother's eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?" (Matt. 7.3)

Let's face it, life without oil is still impossible at the moment. We cannot go back to the olden days of wood and coal, there is far too many people in the world for that. And we have not yet reached the point where clean energy is satisfying all our needs. Granted, we need better supervision of oil production, but then we need a lot of better solutions in this world. One would be to reduce the number of people, but I do not see that for anytime soon. Call me cynical, but this oil spill is just what happens in an overpopulated world that has to exploit all its resources just to keep going. Unless we, and I mean "WE" as in all consumers, agree on a better way to make things happen, this is going to get repeated.

[DJ Droood]

Despite the compelling appeal to gospel, your argument is specious Aylyn. Simply because we use a product does not absolve the producer of its responsibilities.

[Aylyn]

Despite the compelling appeal to gospel, your argument is specious Aylyn. Simply because we use a product does not absolve the producer of its responsibilities.

And I am all for putting responsibility where it belongs, but it has to be on both sides. Being sanctimonious because you were not the one who messed up is not an option either. It was for that reason that I did not want to play the blame game, but look for solutions.

There was a saying when i was younger: If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Which side are you on?

[DJ Droood]

Which side are you on?

Across the street from the BP apologists.

[Kernos]

...But someone needs to be held accountable. ...

Why? BP and other corporations are responsible and will be responsible for stopping the leak, the cleanup and paying for damaged lives, even if it forces them into bankruptcy. Further we all who demand gasoline and other oil products are indirectly responsible.

WHy do individuals need to be identified and put in jail? What good will that do anyone? If someone purposely blew up the rig, that would be different. All evidence suggests that did not happen.

I fail to understand the need to jail people every time something bad happens.

[DJ Droood]

WHy do individuals need to be identified and put in jail? What good will that do anyone? If someone purposely blew up the rig, that would be different. All evidence suggests that did not happen.

I fail to understand the need to jail people every time something bad happens.

If something "bad" is gross criminal negligance by greedy company officers and/or government regulators taking bribes to look the other way, then stiff jail sentences might convince the president of Shell or the next political appointment to do a better job. What is the incentive for someone making 5 million dollars a year, or $150 thousand dollars a year (and all the Saints games/meth/hookers you can consume), to do the right thing rather than just shrug off their responsibilities to millions of people and walk away? Why not let murderers walk free? Why blame them? The damage is done, the person(s) are still dead....

[Aitrus]

Why is it that some are ready to nail BP to the wall, yet were ready to bail out Fannie, Freddie and others for the economic crisis? Is this a case of double standards? Is it ok to hold BP's feet to the fire on one hand while at the same time paying the bonuses of CEOs that messed up the economy?

Here's my take: what we're seeing with BP is indeed one of the results of a free market, just as was the economic bust. In the free market, mistakes and dumb decisions end the company. It's a self-correcting system. That's how it's supposted to work. Businesses are supposted to fail if they make mistakes. That's the nature of business. Does it hurt others (employees, local economies, etc) around them? Sure. Bad things happen, but all the legislation in the world won't stop it. The break would have happened just as easily in a government-run BP scenario, or if it was a wind farm that used faulty bolts that broke and let the propellers break off and go crashing down all over the countryside. No matter the business or the means of energy production, there's always a risk, even with something as simple as using wood.

Here's what needs to happen:
1- Stop the spill by whatever means necessary.
2- Clean up the mess by whatever means necessary.
3- Make BP and whoever else involved pay for it.
4- If BP goes bankrupt, then it goes bankrupt. There should be no bailouts, no rewards for failure.

This is the same line of thought we should have done with the economic bust.

As to using oil...I agree with what some here have said. We can't get away from it at this time. We need to invest step-by-step into alternate energies. If we abandoned oil outright, the world would grind to a halt because none of the alternate energies are effective enough, cheap enough, reliable enough, or available enough to completely replace oil. We're making progress, but it takes time. It took many, many years for oil to completely replace it's predecesors. Heck, in many areas the predecessors are still being used (coal, waterwheels, windmills and wood stoves). It will be the same with other technologies.

And, lest we forget...oil is a natural part of the world. It happens to exist mostly under ground, but it's still a part of Nature. The fact that some of it spilled where we can see it doesn't change the fact. Using oil is the same as using wind or sun or coal or wood or nuclear power - we are using a part of Nature to make our lives easier.

Just my 1/50th of a dollar