Gulf Oil Spill

[nca]

This whole debacle is outrageous minus the outrage. Where are the environmentalists?

This country is so fundamentally divided that we can’t even find common ground on an issue which is literally about the destruction of common ground.

Now the issue and my opinions of it are as murky as the Gulf itself:

-BP should have had counter measures in place a long time ago.

-The govt should have had tighter regulations in place.

-BP should be sentenced to the corporate death penalty.

-Free Market Capitalism does NOT always have the best interest of the general public and their health, safety, and well-being in mind.

-Corporate capitalism sometimes means screwing the greater number of the general population in turn for risky short term profits.

Discuss.

[Steve_White]

I am wondering the same thing nick. i have been keeping tabs on the story but i have also been thinking why isn’t this a HUGE DEAL. why is this not #1 ands always on top in the news. why is it that news reports on what is happening so “oh this is whats happening….what a shame”

This is a game changer imo. we will talking and dealing with this till most of us on here die.

http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/05/oil-spill-bp-grand-isle-beach
I offer this article.

I am just not feeling the outcry that i think there should be over a debacle of such scale.

[Trace One]

It’s a pretty huge deal in the news I read.. But what I cannot understand is people who still back drilling,(Inhofe and Mikulsky) in spite of this horror, or the BP guys saying things like “it’s pretty small compared to the size of the gulf.”

Today the NYT has a piece on the head of the MMS, who was put in place eight months ago or so, and is just quiet, not changing things, when the MMS scandal came out in 2008. I personally am moving my habits from 50% bike, 50% car (although onlly for short trips) to 100% bike, as much as I can.

Also I am alarmed that BP, in making statements like ‘it’s a small spill’, is actually aware of the usual amount of spilling going on worldwide, eveyr day..-

[Steve_White]

I think it is difficult for it to hit home for some people across the country.

This is site is a special case of people who would naturally keep tabs on it closely.

I like the obama quote “plug the dam hole”

[Anonymous]

Along with the HUGE environmental disaster, many businesses are being derailed along the gulf coast because of this spill.

If everybody was paying financially for it, would we be hearing about it more? And would we be going after BP? Maybe something would be done sooner?

Perhaps a hike in gas prices would be good for the environment 🙂

[Bob Luther]

I once had faith in the ability of science and industry to design systems to work, to identify the potential problems and develop solutions for these problems, no matter how unlikely they appear to be. I felt that drilling responsibly for oil was a good idea, now I am not so sure. I grew up in Alaska, an oil rich state, I watched the pipeline survive people shooting at it and 7.9 magnitude earthquakes, it was designed to withstand these actions against it, it was well designed. Now it seems the world of oil production is not controlled by the designers and the engineers (environmental, hydro, petrol chemical etc.), it is controlled by the CEOs, CFOs and COOs at the whim of profit…. I still think drilling for oil responsibly is a good thing I just don’t think any one wants to be responsible and act in good faith.

[Steve_White]

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/james-carvilles-oil-outburst-10746347

this is the type of reaction I would loved to have heard 30 days ago.

[Mike G]

I don’t understand all the capitalist slander.
Privatizing profits while the public pays for the consequences is not free market capitalism. The gov’t needs to step up for the people that they represent. British Petroleum needs to be sued out of business.

[nca]

I agree. But alot of people think this is truly a free market for you and I, when we are serfs in an oligopoly (oligarchy). This should be so blatantly obvious at this point.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Yeah, everyone knows that non-capatalist countries don’t use oil and are much better to the environment. How rediculous does that sound?

[Rob Halpern]

Indeed, it is easier and more comfortable to argue ideology than to wrestle with what we have done (we cannot simply put this on BP or the government while driving our cars, running our computers, listening to our IPods, etc.) or what changes we need to make.

Let me propose a different starting point for common ground:
http://www.youtube.com/homeproject?user=homeproject&user=homeproject&hl=en

[nca]

Thanks for the video Rob.

I know I’m throwing stones.

I agree that we need to be discussing solutions moreso than ideaologies. The issue I have with our current economic organization is that the system is setup to serve the needs of multinational corporations with an unlimited supply of consumers.

My solution would be to make little changes we can affect daily–designing smaller more compact neighborhoods which require less driving, less use of irrigation, and generally better planning decisions. They’re small changes, but theyre changes I can affect literally this week and bring us a step closer to being prepared for a more extensive mass transit system, locally grown food, and better air quality. I think it comes down to how much each of us push in our own work where we can. We can make lofty plans with strangers on the internet or we can make real, albeit small, steps at work.

I think we all agree that this oil debacle has been an utter atrocity with catastrophic implications. In my mond, if the oil makes it around to the east coast metropolis and still doesnt raise public outcry, then we can only take it upon ourselves to make systemic changes. The market has so much momentum supporting our current lifestyle that no one feels they have the power to affect change. We, as designers, architects, and engineers have this power daily.

[Roland Beinert]

This oil spill is just the tip of the iceberg. We are truly #ucking up our oceans. There are huge areas of floating plastic debris from all our junk and dead zones from all the agricultural pollution that ends up in rivers. And, of course, we’re overfishing. Oil use is not the only thing we need to change.

[Trace One]

If this spill keeps spilling until DECEMBER, it will be as much oil as america uses in TWO AND A HALF HOURS..
How do you feel filling up at the pump now..It made me sick to put $10 in the tank..The looming face of an oil covered gull hovered over the pumps like an apparition.

[Jason Turner]

Trace, that is probably the most graphic ‘Handle’ on this. The reason we are muted is we all know the extent of our own complicity. They wouldn’t be drilling there if we weren’t buying it as fast as they can suck it out of the ground. So OUTRAGE against the machine sounds so hollow and hypocritical. We all want it to quietly go away so we can get on with out lives in our cozy comfort zone. Hardly a news flash, is it?

The sooner we run out of the poxy stuff, the sooner we are forced to make the changes we are procrastinating on making. As Lester Brown points out in his brilliant book ‘Plan B’, Roosevelt turned the American economy around from a civilian one to a wartime economy in 6 months. Completely reinvented it and the way it functioned.

We can do it too. If we want to.
What we need is clear and committed leadership.
And that is sorely lacking.

[Author]

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