United States President Barak Obama is only moments away from me; gazing at once was arguably the most pristine, whitest beaches in the world. Today they look like this:
And for all you surfers, here’s the forecast:
I’m curious as to Obama’s response. Tonight, at 7:00 p.m. US/CST he addresses the nation on the the acclaimed world’s worst environmental disaster. Yet, how can our expectations and hopes remain high when to date all we have seen is this:
Friday, we visited one of the most protected national parks in the United States on the sunny Florida Gulf Coast. The children expected a snorkeling adventure but the park ranger was quick to caution parents and defer children away from the water,
“at least for the next twenty years,” she stated. The following day, it was reported that the oil had not only contaminated the Gulf, but was infringing upon all intercoastal waterways and had even affected the bay.
Not only have thousands of wildlife perished but so too will our children’s innocence as we feebly attempt to explain the epoch of our times with an absurd impudence of integrity. The transparency of our convictions regarding the war over environmental determinism and our contributions to forego morality for profit, comfort, and convenience will be apparent for this generation of youth and those to come.
It’s been 18 years since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro which highlighted the impact of climate change
and we still don’t get it. Where are our sustainable initiatives? Do
you drive an electric car? What about an ethanol one? How many solar panels are on
your house? My answer….. no, no, and none.
I am guilty, as indeed most of us are. So why are we pointing fingers at everyone else? The truth is environmental degradation is the fault of each of us, individually and collectively.
Time to move on for the sake of our planet and be responsible, accountable global citizens. In addition to a realistic response and expedient clean-up solution, a eco-friendly revolution should be at the forefront of our agenda.
Still, “the people” are blaming BP, BP is blaming Congress, Congress is blaming BP, Britain is blaming Obama, Obama is blaming his predecessors…… but all the while it is the ugly truth that matters:
Our Wild-Life, our Sea-Life, and our Children are blaming US.
Following is an excerpt from the the Associated Press, as cited by the Pensacola News Journal, which is inexplicably disturbing and supportive of this argument, and although does not justify blame externalization it contributes to the vindication and blatant disregard of morality for profit.
Oil company made shortcuts, blunders days before explosion
Matthew Daly and Ray Henry • Associated Press • June 15, 2010
NEW ORLEANS — BP made a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that dramatically increased the danger of a destructive oil spill in a well that an engineer ominously described as a “nightmare” just six days before the blowout, according to documents released Monday that provide new insight into the causes of the disaster.
The breached well has dumped as much as 114 million gallons of oil into the Gulf under the worst-case scenario described by scientists — a rate of more than 2 million a day… Meanwhile, congressional investigators have identified several mistakes by BP in the weeks leading up to the disaster as it fell way behind on drilling the well.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee released dozens of internal documents that outline several problems on the deep-sea rig in the days and weeks before the April 20 explosion that set in motion the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. Investigators found that BP was badly behind schedule on the project and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars with each passing day, and responded by cutting corners in the well design, cementing and drilling mud efforts and the installation of key safety devices.
“Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense. BP started drilling in October, only to have the rig damaged by Hurricane Ida in early November. The company switched to a new rig, the Deepwater Horizon, and resumed drilling on Feb. 6. The rig was 43 days late for its next drilling location by the time it exploded April 20, costing BP at least $500,000 each day it was overdue, congressional documents show. As BP found itself in a frantic race against time to get the job done, engineers took several time-saving measures, according to congressional investigators.
In the design of the well, the company apparently chose a riskier option among two possibilities to provide a barrier to the flow of gas in space surrounding steel tubes in the well, documents and internal e-mails show. The decision saved BP $7 million to $10 million; the original cost estimate for the well was about $96 million. In an e-mail, BP engineer Brian Morel told a fellow employee that the company is likely to make last-minute changes in the well.
“We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry for the late notice, this has been nightmare well which has everyone all over the place,” Morel wrote. The e-mail chain culminated with the following message by another worker: “This has been a crazy well for sure.”
BP also apparently rejected advice of a subcontractor, Halliburton Inc., in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejected Halliburton’s recommendation to use 21 “centralizers” to make sure the casing ran down the center of the well bore. Instead, BP used six centralizers. In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: “It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this.” Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: “Who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine.”
The lawmakers also said BP also decided against a nine- to 12-hour procedure known as a “cement bond log” that would have tested the integrity of the cement. A team from Schlumberger, an oil services firm, was on board the rig, but BP sent the team home on a regularly scheduled helicopter flight the morning of April 20.
Less than 12 hours later, the rig exploded.
BP also failed to fully circulate drilling mud, a 12-hour procedure that could have helped detect gas pockets that later shot up the well and exploded on the drilling rig.
The letter from Waxman and Stupak noted at least five questionable decisions BP made before the explosion, and was supplemented by 61 footnotes and dozens of documents. “The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety,” said Waxman and Stupak. Waxman, D-Calif., chairs the energy panel while Stupak, D-Mich., heads a subcommittee on oversight and investigations.
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