Oil Is A Curse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

According to Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks.  In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month....According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2629678120090227

A rupture in Ecuador's second largest oil pipeline has polluted the Santa Rosa river in the lush Amazon jungle and shut off the flow of crude to a Pacific port in the city of Esmeraldas....Repeated oil spills by foreign companies and the country's state oil company, Petroecuador, are a threat to rare species of jaguars and river dolphins in the Amazon jungle, where most of the Andean country's oil operations are located.

Oil is a curse: its possession subverts democracy, impoverishes the local population, and destroys the environment.   But we - we Canadians , that is,  intend going to get every drop out of the tar sands and sell it to Asia regardless of any risks.

 http://dcnonl.com/article/id39094

“The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project will open important new markets for Canadian crude oil,” Enbridge president and chief executive Patrick Daniel said in a statement last week. “It will create jobs and a substantial long-term boost to our nation’s economy as well as the communities through which it will pass.”

And we're in the process of weakening environmental protections that might prevent oil spills.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/05/31/OilSpillPrevention/

Many British Columbians watching the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are wondering what safeguards are in place to ensure such a disaster does not happen here. What they don't know is that the federal government recently made sweeping changes to the primary advisory panel put in place to ensure that a major oil spill does not occur on the B.C. coast.

Are we insane?

Please write to the Prime Minister and to your local MP and register your protest against this insanity. Think about walking to work. Or biking. Or taking the bus. Get involved with  your local environmental group. Or create your local environmental group.  Educate yourself and your family and your friends. 

A Visionary Ad by BP Oil - 1999

Costs of Cheap Oil

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/may/27/cheap-oil-cost-developing-countries

Big Oil is holding its breath. BP's shares are in steep decline after the debacle in the Gulf of Mexico. Barack Obama, the American people and the global environmental community are outraged, and now the company stands to lose the rights to drill for oil in the Arctic and other ecologically sensitive places.  The gulf disaster may cost it a few billion dollars, but so what? When annual profits for a company often run to tens of billions, the cost of laying 5,000 miles of booms, or spraying millions of gallons of dispersants and settling 100,000 court cases is not much more than missing a few months' production. It's awkward, but it can easily be passed on....Big Oil's real horror was not the spillage, which was common enough, but because it happened so close to the US. Millions of barrels of oil are spilled, jettisoned or wasted every year without much attention being paid.
If this accident had occurred in a developing country, say off the west coast of Africa or Indonesia, BP could probably have avoided all publicity and escaped starting a clean-up for many months

Ethically, if we (that means you and I) don't press our governments to invest in alternative energy, we are complicit in oil spills like Deepwater Horizon. If we don't lobby for and use rapid transit we are complicit. If we do nothing to prevent Enbridge building a pipeline to the BC coast from the tar sands, we will be reponsible for spills from oil tankers carrying oil down the coast.  If we don't work to change the system, we will be complicit in climate change.

Deepwater Horizon on Fire

Deepwater Horizon on fire  - photo release by the US Departtment of Energy and first published on TPM  (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2010/05/fire-in-the-gulf-new-pictures-of-the-deepwater-horizon.php?img=1)

No wonder  11 people were killed when this thing exploded.  And saving that $ 500,000 or so on that safety shutoff seems  so worth it now, doesn't it? 

Maybe we should do something about our addiction to oil.

Peak Oil - Again

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/jeff-rubins-smaller-world/drilling-and-spilling-for-all-the-oil-thats-left/article1548522/

Most forms of unconventional oil and gas (including, by the way, shale gas) are invariably very hard on the environment. Although tar sands production draws most of the world’s criticism, we are quickly discovering that deep-water wells and the pressure surges they engender run the risk of wreaking even greater ecological and environmental devastation. ...Why is this so potentially devastating to America’s oil future? The Gulf of Mexico was the only area of the country where there was any reasonable hope of expanding domestic supply. Production in the lower 48 states peaked in the early 1970s....If you’re wondering why we’re risking catastrophic environmental consequences by drilling wells miles below the ocean floor, the answer is simple enough. It’s the same answer to the question of why we’re pouring billions of dollars into the tar sands.

It’s all that’s left.

Addicts usually deny they have a problem.  When an individual persists in use of alcohol or other drugs despite problems related to use of the substance, substance dependence may be diagnosed.  As a society, we're addicted to oil. We don't care that our use of fossil fuels destroys the environment - or the freedom of whole peoples.  (If you don't believe me, do some research on the Ogoni in Nigeria.  Or on Ken Saro Wiwa ring a bell.)   We don't care that we're running out - we don't wnat to plan an energy descent.   We just want to continue doing what we're doing......consequences be damned.

We're addicted to oil.

OIl Rig Disaster

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/30/oil-spill-reaches-us-coastline

The Wall Street Journal reported that the well lacked a remote-control shutoff switch required by some oil producing countries, including Norway and Brazil. BP was at the forefront of recent lobbying of the US government against stronger safety controls for offshore drilling.  Fund managers and analysts in the City of London said they were deeply worried about the financial cost to BP of the kind of legal action that could be taken in the US by those damaged by the accident. More than £13bn has been knocked off the oil company's stock market value since the rig caught fire.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/oil-spill-bp

Under George Bush the need for lobbying muscle was minimal, but since the arrival of a new president in the White House, BP has poured millions into Washington, mainly through third-party lobby groups. Organisations such as the American Petroleum Institute, funded in part by BP, have done the company's dirty work for them. Supposedly spontaneous citizen demonstrations against climate legislation have sprung up around the US, before journalists revealed they were actually populated by employees of the oil companies themselves....What BP will never admit, among their glossy corporate brochures and extensive environmental assessments, is that its entire business model is predicated on an ever increasing demand for oil, decades into the future. These growth predictions rely on a world in which there is no collective action to tackle global emissions, no concerted effort to transfer clean technology to the developing world, and almost no chance of maintaining anything like a stable climate.

The oil spill is washing up on Louisiana's shores amd destroying the fragile ecosystems there as I type - and fund managers are worried that BP will face legal actions! 
  
Do we really want a world in which BP can profit?  That would be a world in which democracy is subverted by lobbying -  one where the developed world continues to hog most resources - and a world where no one does anything meaningful about climate change because fossil fuel extractors might not be able to make a profit.