Goddammit, it's not "Obama's" anything. That's a typical Fox News-speak construction.First of all, he's the president, and of course it's his job to work deal with crises. That's his job.
unlike Bush with Katrina, Obam hasn't fucked around waiting to do something about it.Eh, actually they waited several days before doing anything. They took BPs word for it that it was under control, not leaking, etc. And they didn't even bother doing their own assessments, it was a 3rd party group who announced the larger figure based on areal photos.
I love the ecosystem, but... equivocating this to people dying in the streets? Really?It's not just the ecosystem, this is an economic disasters as well. All fishing has stopped, and who knows when it will be able to start again. And forget about tourism, if this gets really bad towns along coastline are going to be devastated. This isn't like a hurricane where you can just rebuild, you're going to have beaches covered with toxic sludge.
Some analysis sez that hopes for an energy bill are now kaput, because there's going to be a moratorium on offshore drilling, and w/o throwing offshore drilling bones at the right, there's little change of cap and trade passing.Are you kidding? This is a golden opportunity to pass climate change laws. Also, the right doesn't need any bones, becuase they are not actually needed to pass anything. The EPA can (and is, in fact, required too) regulate CO2. They can't do it was well as with a law, but whatever.
It wouldn't surprise me if BP drags it along in court for 20 years paying nothing, then negotiates a vastly reduced settlement.You don't have to take them to court, after the Exxon thing, they passed a law mandating that the oil companies pay. The government, now, can just fine them.
The Lakeview Gusher on the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California of 1910 is believed to be the largest-ever U.S. gusher. At its peak, more than 100,000 barrels (16 000 m³) of oil per day flowed out, reaching as high as 200 feet (60 m) in the air. It remained uncapped for 18 months, spilling over nine million barrels (378 million gallons/1.4 million m³) of oil, less than half of which was recovered.[10]So it sounds like that Gusher was doing 2-4 times the volume as this leak here, but if the wellhead comes off it would end up being bigger.
In any case, that would indicate the amount delivered into the environment, if not the actual amount lost.And just think about all the oil secreted by the human beings driving on those roads. Where does all that oil go? The problem isn't small amounts of oil, it's large concentrations. Obviously skin oil isn't toxic, but at very low concentrations, the oil from asphalt isn't going to be harmful (as far as I know)
Where does the binder go?
Based on what we now know the best estimate is 5000. But go nuts. Get your rage on.If by "best" you mean "number pulled out of BP's ass like a week ago". I don't think anyone has been using that number for days.
We all share in the risk and responsibility if we willingly partake of the spoils of what industry offers us. It strikes me as an immature impulse to suddenly morph oil producers into evil-doers as soon as they slip in their rush to shovel us the ipods, epoxy, asphalt and fuel we so willingly consume. Which is a surprising feeling to find myself expressing, actually.Oh that's bullshit. How the hell are "we" supposed to get around without without buying gasoline? Last I checked, there aren't any ethanol or biodesel gas stations around. And even if I were to switch to a bicycle, that wouldn't affect anyone else.
BP did not build the containment devices before the spill because it "seemed inconceivable" the blowout preventer would fail, Rinehart said.Something about levees, something something.
"I don't think anybody foresaw the circumstance that we're faced with now," he said. "The blowout preventer was the main line of defense against this type of incident, and it failed."
is hyperbolic for two reasons. First, the Soviet government was fully responsible for Chernobyl, soup to nuts. There was no place for the CPSU to pass the buck since they stopped blaming everything on "capitalist imperialism" and "fascist wreckers." The US government shares part of the blame for this, not all.I don't think that's right. The fact that the U.S. Government allowed a private company to do this means that they are responsible, because it was their choice. The problem here is the idea that there is a set amount of "responsibility" when in fact you have a sort of responsibility hierarchy.
Except that close to 2/3rds of Americans support(ed) drilling in ecologically sensitive areas. It's not like he's pushing through some unpopular idea, he's pushing through exactly what Republicans AND Democrats AND independents want.What does that have to do with anything? I'm pretty sure that a lot of those people have or will change their minds over this. People are fickle, and ill informed. And more importantly, very few are going to change their vote over offshore drilling.
And I hate to tell you this, but we can't switch to fuel cells or Mr. Fusion in your car tomorrow. We're a generation from being able to wean ourselves off oil enough that "Peak Oil" won't cripple or eliminate our way of life.What are you talking about? Global Oil production peaked a couple years ago. No one noticed. "Peak Oil" simply means oil production peaks and begins to decline. That's it. There's no price shock or anything. That's why it's called "peak oil" and not "clif oil"
Going cold turkey would kill us, and I mean literally kill us. By the billions.This is incorrect.
So far, it seems as BP severely screwed up,That's B.S. If a company causes a shitload of damage it is the government's fault, for letting them do it. A government approval for something is not an abdication of responsibility, it's an ownership of responsibility.
I think most people realize that the government can't be everywhere.If the government passes a law that makes it legal for people to drive as drunk as they want, and a bunch of people die, wouldn't it be the government's fault? Do you seriously think people would just shrug their shoulders and "realize that the government can't be everywhere"?
Could they theoretically collapse the well by blowing it all to hell with large amounts of explosives?What? The reason this oil is flowing out is because it's under massive internal pressure, more pressure then was expected which is why there was a blowoff.
---
Justinian, they probably could, but unfortunately it would probably take a small nuclear device to do it.
Sure, but without oil, where do you get the energy to do that? A sudden oil disruption wouldn't give us the time or energy to develop alternatives and scale them up to production levels.So what? Who said anything about a sudden disruption? Why would there be a sudden disruption?
No delmoi, that's tantrum logic, as is your claim that this would have happened all up and down the east coast following Obama's decision to allow offshore drilling there.-- anigbrowlI said could, not would. The risk to the gulf coast would have been the same.
You might have a point if Obama had decided to approve 'offshore drilling, without any of those irritating environmental or safety standards'.What safety standards did Obama propose that didn't apply to this rig?
but in fact, the industry has had a consistently improving safety record at this kind of thing until this incident.Well, that statement speaks for itself, right? Just like wallstreet saying that derivatives are fine because everything was going fine until the collapse.
You're like the people who pop up after a plane crash demanding to know why people are in such hurry to get everywhere that they have to flyNo, I'm wondering why people are so desperate for oil that they'll do offshore drilling even though the amount of extra oil you get is marginal. If an airline, say, skipped out on maintenance checks on it's airplanes in order to cut costs by 5%, and then the planes crashed due to an overlooked problem, I think it would be fair to blame the airlines.
But blaming Obama for it, as if somehow his words caused or allowed it to happen, is like claiming the old lady who lives up on the hill is a witch because your milch cow ran dry after she said 'nice cow'.I'm not saying the spill is Obama's fault. What I was saying was that Obama instituted a policy that could have caused the same problems all up and down the east coast. There would have been the same risk to those coastlines as there was in the gulf coast.
Um, cold turkey? Cold turkey means stopping suddenly, not gradually. :) -- MalorAh. well, I think most people would take that to mean, "stopping as quickly as possible", as opposed to "stopping immediately." There are still tons of oil in refineries, just sitting in storage, and of course the strategic oil reserves, etc. Which think hold a 6-month supply. The comment I was replying too was a sort of hyperbole stew.
No, that would be the fault of the idiot driving drunk. Just like when some drunk driver kills someone now nobody claims it's the government's fault. -- wierdoThat's because drunk driving is illegal. But what if the government legalized it? Wouldn't the excess deaths be caused by the government? (also, have you heard of MADD?)
Whats' the problem with taking him to task for things he is actually doing? Like, I dunno, opening up offshore drilling.Obama is not a monolithic superentity who has been the embodiment of the whole of "the government" since the beginning of time.Would you mind if I made a macro of this and just posted it every time someone wanted to take Obama to task about not doing something about a thing? -- Kid Charlemagne
The administration pledged an "all hands on deck" approach to the spill, but maintained its support of offshore expansion. "We need the increased production," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. "The president still continues to believe the great majority of that can be done safely, securely, and without any harm to the environment."Drill baby drill! Yeehaw.
But by Friday morning, the White House had shifted its stance a bit...
So you're saying Katrina wasn't Bush's Katrina because he didn't actually cause the hurricane?Yeah, because its his fault that the machine that was supposed to stop the oil from leaking broke.
First of all, he's the president, and of course it's his job to work deal with crises. That's his job.
I think he's going to get in a wet suit and dive down there and seal it himself.
they were expecting BP and the Coast Guard to handle it, and it doesn't sound like Jindal is AT ALL happy with the Coast Guard.To be fair, Jindal is kind of an idiot.
These operations never involve just one company. On any rig, you'll see workers from all sorts of companies, working side-by-side. BP is the responsible party in this -- by that, I mean there is no doubt that they are the ones to pay for the cleanup. This is a matter of (I believe maritime) law.There was a law passed after the Valdez making the oil company responsible for the cleanup. Before that, the company had to be sued, and dragged the case out for decades.
Um. Can you point out some current civilizations which don't use oil?these guys? But the point was not people who don't use oil, but people who are not dependant on it. If oil disappeared from the earth today, the taliban probably wouldn't have as much trouble as us. People living in rural areas around the earth are generally not as dependant on modern technology (they probably can't even afford it). People in the cities, who need their food trucked in, would be screwed (In the event of an IMMEDIATE shutoff. I think we could transition off oil pretty quickly if needed. I mean it's not environmentally friendly but there's the whole liquid coal thing. The Germans had almost no oil at the end of WWII but they were able to use liquefied coal)
Alabama Attorney General Troy King said tonight that he has told representatives of BP Plc. that they should stop circulating settlement agreements among coastal Alabamians.I think BP knows they're in deep shit.
The agreements, King said, essentially require that people give up the right to sue in exchange for payment of up to $5,000.
i think it's just part of the evolution away from the bush mentality, when 'weapons' referred exclusively to guns and explosives, and not to logic and science; and 'tactics' referred exclusively to assassination and attack, and not to negotiation and compromise.-- fallacyof the beardThat doesn't really make sense, IMO. It sounds like some stupid DC jargon that crops up every once in a while. I've never heard the term used that way and while I get the metaphor, it's somewhat confusing. What's wrong with "rapid response" team? Also SWAT origionally stood for Special Weapons Assault Team, but Daryl Gates, who came up with the idea was forced to change it, because it sounded too militaristic.
Going cold turkey off of oil isn't just about everyone buying bicycles, a great deal of our current level of productivity in growing food is a direct cause of "cheap" oil. I'm willing to live in a world with no modern conveniences (to save the species) but I'm not willing to be one of the billions of people that will die when the taps are turned off.Well, there are two separate issues here. One is the absurd hypothetical situation where we completely stop using oil for anything in a very rapid timeframe. Obviously if it were immidate, there would be huge problems. If we stopped importing oil there would still be plenty left for agriculture, etc. And I think we could ramp up production of liquefied coal pretty quickly, which would be horrible for the environment but would still work for most purposes. This is what the Germans had to do in WWII.
So, since almost all of these companies are based outside of the US, does anybody think this can be actually sort of economically good for us? All the money that will get spent (by others) on this should have some sort of stimulus effect, right? The same way it can be good Good if you ran over by a well-insured wealthy person?These are publically traded companies that anyone, anywhere can buy into. You can go out and buy BP stock today if you want, although shorting might make more sense. But the benefit politicians talk about usually means jobs, and cheaper oil overall (the cheap oil thing is a red hearing, for the most part, though). I think the oil drilling companies do need to pay for the right to drill in those regions, though.
I don't know what floam was getting at exactly, but while in the US coal mining is pretty safe, annual deaths from coal mining in China number into the thousands (6,027 in 2004 alone). Chernobyl, by contrast, killed several dozen people promptly and caused something like 4,000 additional cancer deaths.It's just like 9/11 vs. automobile accidents. A big event seems a lot more scary then lots of little, anonymous accidents. And people are just radiation phobic. I actually do think that nuclear reactors can be made a lot safer then oil wells, especially when the shutoff mechanism is as simple as they sometimes are. For example, you'll have the rods held up by magnets, so if the power is lost, they'll fall. With a pebble bed reactor there's no way to ever have a meltdown unless the laws of thermodynamics change.
Delmoi, you seem to keep missing the fact that Obama has suspended that plan.He suspended the plan after this leak. But if this thing hadn't blown off now then his plan would have put the entire eastern seaboard at risk. I don't know why you think I'm "missing" that he suspended the plan.
This whole seemingly impossible to kill "Obama lies" derail may be one of the most insulting things a gulf-state resident like myself is having to put up with -- saulgoodmanDude, the person who said that was defending Obama. I had said:
What he said was that offshore drilling was a good idea on the merits. Do you think he was lying about his motivations?And lupus_yonderboy followed up with
Yes, absolutely. This is someone who has repeatedly lied to us about his intentions on important things (FISA, single payer, Guantanamo, etc). Generally, politicians, even ones we (sort of) like lie rather a lot more than your average person does.Are you saying that you think Obama believed offshore drilling was a good idea on the merits, and not just trying to win republican votes? And if so, doesn't that make him a reckless idiot, who's mistakes could have had similarly catastrophic effects up and down the east coast?
In the same way that it makes more than 60% of Floridians and the population in general "reckless idiots," maybe.Well look, there has been a massive amount of marketing going on to support offshore drilling. And people are persuadable. But I would be surprised if many of those people actually studied the issue, or cared about it very much. There is a difference between being passionate about an issue, and simply answering a question when someone calls you up to poll you.
Generally speaking, assumptions--even bad ones--that are shared by more than 50% of the population shouldn't be dismissed as "unreasonable," "idiotic," etc., unless there's a compelling argument (other than hindsight)Hindsight? If people say "X is dangerous", and people do X, and it causes a ton of damage, that doesn't make the arguments originally made only valid "in Hindsight"
The fact that something approaching 70% of the population, by recent counts before this event, supported offshore drilling prior to this incident similarly suggests that the idea that drilling might be a good idea isn't exactly some crazy fringe belief that can be judged self-evidently absurd.It doesn't make it "fringe" but it doesn't make it right either. The president's job isn't to follow the public off the cliff.
Another major oversimplification. Public opinion was extremely variableRight. Public opinion is extremely variable.
Before this, very few people would have argued it was reasonable to view approving some new restricted offshore drilling alone as "follow[ing] the public off a cliff."Well, for me it's hindsight, sure. But I'm not an oil drilling expert. I expected the housing bubble to burst, but I didn't expect the huge bank runs/bailouts/etc. I had no idea that was even a possibility. I thought it was more a question of continual small leaks or something.
Selfishly, one good thing that might come from this event is that maybe now, finally, the Florida legislature's plans to allow near coast drilling truly are deadDefinetly. And on top of that the incentives for states to do so will probably be stripped from the energy bill that they're working on in congress. Politically, this will probably kill offshore drilling for a while.
The explosion was part of a dread plot by Obama to enable him to socialize the National Guard; the NATIONAL Guard.Wow.
Or the robot couldn't get to the blow-off preventer, it being buried under an oil platform.Would the acoustic preventer have worked in that scenario either? Anyway, you can see that the robot did make it to the switch in that picture (Which I'd seen earlier). Also, I don't think the rig fell directly on the wellhead, rather, it's fallen down kind of like a tree that's been knocked over, with the rig wreckage sitting pretty far from the wellhead.
Some people don't grasp that their preferences, no matter how much more factually based and generally better than the majority opinion, are not shared by the majority.This is just not true. You're ignoring issue intensity Some issues will cause people to change their votes, others won't. Democrats are not going to abandon the party and vote for Sarah Palin because they like the idea of offshore drilling and nothing else.
I'm sorry, but Obama can't just go against the will of the people willy nilly and hope to get re-elected.
and some other research testing effects of several dispersants and oil types on water life
Effect of Crude Oil and Chemical Additives on Metabolic
Activity of Mixed Microbial Populations in Fresh Marsh Soils (PDF) J.A. Nyman
Numerous observations that crude oil reduced microbial numbers or diversity in sea water and terrestrial soils [2, 3, 6, 34, 60], invertebrate abundance [7], and diversity of emergent plant communities [39] suggest that lack of toxicity was unlikely. It therefore appears that activity was maintained by tolerant species that could metabolize substrates normally used by sensitive species.
The results indicated that Corexit and Corexit-dispersed crude oil stimulated bacterial production by serving as substrates and/or by inducing the release of organic compounds from the indigenous phytoplankton population. Highest bacterial standing stock was observed in the enclosure treated with a mixture of Corexit and crude oil, in which a large fraction of the predominant bacterivores were eliminated.All this "burst" of life arrives in the middle of a horribly toxic environment; while there may be a short term boom with slightly more hardy life (think weeds, which aren't nearly as good for feeding higher trophic levels), once the boom is gone, there is only left a shattered ecosystem.
See, I think you're the one out of your mind with hysteria over this spill. You insist that everything bad that can possibly happen as a result will happen. You're attempting to predict the future with certainty. -- weirdoI don't really know what you're talking about. All I said was that public opinion had changed as a result of this, and it has. And I wouldn't consider that a "bad thing" So again, no idea what you're trying to say here.
Barring that, we'll see the public react positively to the situation. They will more likely take away the message that we can clean up these sorts of messes instead of the message that we're too focused on cost-cutting to drill in deep water responsibly. That is, of course, predicated on the weather remaining on our side. -- weirdoUh huh, now who's trying to predict the future? I think the idea that people are going to just shrug their shoulders and go back go chanting "Drill baby drill!" because "we can just clean up the messes" is a little delusional. Especially the ones who live in coastal areas. Even if this doesn't cause much damage, the next spill could.
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF THEE LITTLE PIGSposted by caddis at 7:01 AM on May 26, 2010
* Frequency - the big bad wolf blows with a frequency of once per piggy lifetime.
* Consequence - If the wolf blows down the house, the piggy is gobbled.
* Maximum justifiable spends (MJS) - A piggy considers it's worth $1000 to save its bacon.
* 1/0/piggy lifetime*$1000/piggy life = $1000
*Which type house should the piggy build?
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