According to the Federal Minerals Management, since 2001, 858 fires and explosions have occurred on Gulf Oil rigs which caused 69 deaths, 1349 injuries...there were also numerous small spills. Meanwhile the Republican Party's mantra has been Drill, Baby, Drill regardless of Spill, Baby, Spill.
Politicians NEED to be fact checked and our corporate news media has NOT been doing this. Corporate news media dispenses lies and myths so that corporations may profit at our expense.
We NEED to invest in the future with clean sustainable energy. Instead of Oil rigs we need wind farms off our coast. But then our politicians would not profit which is probably why mKKKdonnell continues the Republican's Drill, Baby, Drill mantra.
Such a disappointment. The majority of Virginians have opposed and continue to oppose off shore drilling along with all the other east coast states.
When is our democracy going to be restored? When will the people's well being become a government goal to replace the current regime's goal of increasing corporate profits irregardless of the cost to the people?
Hat Tip to Andy Singer at No Exit for the facts on Gulf Oil Drilling.
6 comments:
Unfortunately, accidents happen. Sailors have been lost at sea, astronauts die, planes crash, nuclear power plants have accidents. We learn, we correct and life goes on. Prince William Sound in AK is absolutely beautiful. Despite words to the contrary, the ecosystem has completely recovered, and quite nicely.
What we need to look at in the Gulf is why we had no burn booms, which were part of the plan devised in the early 90's as a result of the Exxon spill. Americans paid a lot of money to learn from the lessons in Alaska, and the government has not implemented them. The blame for the failure to have proper equipment in place goes to Clinton, Bush and Obama. We learned how to mitigate the damage, yet ignored the lessons.
The problem is, our government let us down with failed inspections, failed disaster implementation plans and a disregard of protocols.
We knew what could happen, we knew how to keep it from becoming a disaster, and we did nothing.
You can blame BP, or TransOcean, ro anyone else you want, but our tax dollars go to make sure something like this could not happen. The root cause was the government failures. Like it or not, Obama is president and despite failures of past administrations, the blame falls squarely on him.
And for you "clean energy" advocates, off shore windfarms are not the answer. They produce nowhere near enough power, and the wind does not always blow. We must still have 100% capacity using conventional (fossil) fuels as well as nuclear.
Like it or not, we are stuck with either rolling civilization back to the caveman days, or safely using the technology we have at hand. I vote government do it's job and keep these things from happening.
Failure to plan for a predictable category 5 hurricane in New Orleans is unforgivable. No matter how many administrations failed, Bush rightly got blamed. A Cat 5 was inevitable. And is again (and we are still not prepared).
A major oil rig disaster is just as inevitable. And we were not prepared in spite of that fact.
But Americans want to line up and try to blame each other and nothing we learn will get fixed.
Obama needs to accept the blame for failing to prepare, clean it up, and make sure other rigs are properly inspected and that the necessary tools are pre-positioned to fight the inevitable failure.
This did not have to happen.
There is NO TECHNOLOGY for dealing with these deep sea oil rigs....and we have been lied to about the possible negative consequences for decades by the folks in power--the corporations and their bought off politicians.
Sorry...but I think sanity and democracy will return to our nation when the legalized bribery that is our current election system is eliminated and all our elections are publicly financed and candidates run on a level playing field.
In the meantime the corporations who appear to own our government have had the damages capped (the big oil legislation under the bush/cheney admin capped the damages at a miniscule 75 million dollars). Without having to pay proper damages these companies operate as recklessly as Wall Street and the citizens of our planet pay the costs while a few plunder and pillage us and the planet.
This did not have to happen....we should NOT drill, baby, drill in deep waters and we SHOULD be investing in clean alternative energy.
It appears the main problem with clean, alternative energy is that it has the potential to take many of us off the grid and a few "elites" will no longer be able to profit off of us.
This damage could have been eliminated if the proper procedures had been followed. There is no doubt about that. Anti blowback containment that WORKED would have prevented most of the leak. A burn boom would not have even been necessary. But BP was given a pass by the government - Bush and Obama.
And while the "feel good" greenie tech makes people go ga-ga, it's not ready for prime time. We are still several technological leaps away from solar technology being viable - both in terms of generation via solar panels and in terms of battery technology. Our best battery technology is Lead-Acid - like a car battery. They last a few years, then must be replaced. Which means billions of acid and lead batteries must be disposed.
People that do not understand the inadequacies of green energy are the only ones advocating for oil and coal to go away.
Green technology could not even supply 10% of our needs today if fully implemented with wind farms everywhere and solar collectors on every roof. What you think is possible is the equivalent of trying to drive a 100 car train cross country on an AAA battery. It would be wonderful, but the energy required is far more than would be produced.
This does not mean we should not continue developing alternative clean energy solutions, and it does not mean we should not incorporate those that make sense. But the only result from failing to use our own energy at this time is more dollars go overseas to buy oil. Many of these are our enemies (but most of our oil comes from Canada).
Like it or not, we are not yet to the point that we have an option - other than not having energy.
I don't like that idea at all.
Tom you sound like a Big Oil man....Let's use our tax dollars for solar and wind this technology is not some far off future pipe dream other countries have already got these projects up and running...but then Big Oil and the Corporate Elitists don't own the governments that are promoting energy policies that are improving and safeguarding the environment and the lives of the people. Hopefully we will one day have publicly financed elections and eliminate the legalized bribery that makes our government an inefficient toothless watchdog that does the bidding of corporate masters. I'm tired of the corporations using their US gov to rob me blind.
I agree with Star...
Tom...you mentioned Prince William Sound but you didn't mention that Exxon has NEVER paid the damages that are still due to the people of Alaska (fisherman etc) many of whom suffered devastating financial losses....
Even more importantly....we have alternatives and VA would be better off with wind farms instead of oil rigs due to our tourism and seafood industries.
The Navy doesn't want the wind farms or the rigs. So...we have that going for us....
And those other countries that have the "green" projects up are now stating that they are all boondoggles. Germany and Spain are closing them down as a waste of money.
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