photos from the gulf

The images on this link are beyond disturbing. The reportage is excellent, but the content could hardly make me upset. Thanks for sharing the link. I'm headed down there this weekend to help one of my kids move. I'm going to see how close we can get to seeing what's going on first-hand. I'm not optimistic that we'll get anywhere near these scenes. For safety reasons, I get that.
 
Double Negative said:
I am so thoroughly disgusted by this entire situation, and heartbroken for the residents and everyone affected by it. This should NOT have happened - and certainly not gotten to this point. Completely, absolutely unacceptable.

BP should be fined out the ass for every drop that leaks out of the well (besides being 100% responsible for cleanup and compensation).
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i really don't even know what to say. i am totally stunned that one of the major groups responsible for this mess is now put in a position where they control access to public land and as a result press access?!? if i want to travel to the gulf and photograph in regions heavily effected i have to clear it with BP? have we totally lost it?
 
Bingley said:
I think we will appreciate Raid's photos of the white sands off Pensacola all the more...
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On the one hand, I don't want to think about that. On the other hand, it's just that "not thinking" that got us here in the first place.


- Barrett
 
I am glad to work from home, meaning no daily commute, meaning less consumption of petroleum. We're all partly responsible for this in our utter gluttony for oil. BP and the entire industry are reprehensible. The US government has a role in this disaster... the current president, who I voted for and his predecessor who I voted against and every US president dating back to Jimmy Carter... the only US president who ever had the balls to challenge the energy status quo (if we'd listened then, maybe this wouldn't be so bad now) ... and all of us who consume gas and oil bear a role in the disaster. It would be nice to think that this is a wake up call that will stir us from the slumber of bad, profligate habits, but, cynic that I am, I sadly doubt it. I wish Obama would use this as a lever to exercise strong leadership in delivering a tough message that we need to mend our ways. I went to high school with the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. I wish that Rahm would stop providing advice focused on the pragmatic and the political. That he'd stop worrying about maintaining Obama's re-electability and start focusing on the magnitude of this event providing an opportunity for decisive action to really alter the way Americans think about energy. Drill baby, drill inevitably will lead to Spill baby, spill. The Exxon Valdez spill area still isn't clean. This spill puts out an amount of oil each day that equals the entirety of the 1969 Santa Barbara spill. Okay, that's enough ranting from me for today.
 
I am pessimistic if this causes a change in the way people think about energy consumption. If you asked the people: cheap energy but sometimes such an accident or expensive energy but clean environment, I bet the majority would choose the first option. Most people don't even think that they are directly affected by this disaster.
Lately I read an article about an oil accident in spain some years ago. There it's said that some locals tore down oil barriers because the state promised big money for every area that has oil on the shore. Then they were standing in the bars and made jokes about all the volunteers cleaning their shores.

So I think that all people want to have a clean environment. Many people would even give money for environment when they don't have to reduce their living standard. Few people would reduce their living standard for the environment.

So nothing changes and the next accident will come definitely.
 
Let me clarify: BP is absolutely culpable for their misdeeds. In fact, I wish there were a way to throw some of their key execs in jail and to temporarily nationalize the company to make sure the citizens are able to shake enough money out of the company's coffers to cover the maximum amount of remediation for ALL the many after-effects.

The other thing that really disturbs me is the imbalance in media coverage relating to the proportions of oil that we can see (on beaches, in marshes, etc.) versus the oil we can't see (at the sea floor, etc.). What we can see is only the tip of this disaster. As a beach-goer, spoiling the sands bothers me, but that's selfish. As a human occupant of the planet, I'm far more bothered by the fact that the oil we can't see will never be cleaned up... that it might take hundreds or thousands of years for the natural actions of the gulf to restore itself.
 
Thanks for the link John.

The images are as painful to look at for me as any images of war and human suffering - these plants, animals, and people did not ask for this - yet here it is thrust upon them thanks to our (i.e. all humans) reliance on that substance..

It really breaks my heart . . .

Dave
 
Of course BP is directly responsible. But they act this way because they are allowed to. No government set boundaries because voters want cheap fuel.
 
I am not so sure the profiteers can rely on the apathy of the populous much longer. We were largely blind to the price of our lifestyle for many years however that has largely changed. Information is easily accessed and topics that were once the realm of crackpot environmentalist has become the dialogue of the masses.

I also think it's important to point out the power of the still image to add a real face to this tradgedy. Nothing I have seen so far has parlayed the immense nature of what is (still) happening like some of those photos.

Hopefully lessons were learnt from the Exxon Valdez and the fines and punishment isn't whittled away to a pittance through years of appeals.
 
I agree Tom. 100%

I have seen BP's "concern" in other regions of the world an they aren't ever to be trusted in my opinion.
 
If anyone is working on documenting any of what is happening and and help getting it packaged up or out into the world please drop me a line. I would be glad to help and know folks who would be interested.

I think the lack of media interest is due to the restrictions currently in place. It is extremely difficult to get any official access and BP is spending as much money containing the media as they are spending on efforts to stem the flow.

A few of the folks I hae spoken with are in a waiting pattern as the general consensus is that we haven't seen anything yet.
 
I am really sad about this, for all the animals dying a painful death, ecosystems which are destroyed and all the people in the US and other countries who will be directly affected and have their lives destroyed. I think we must all dig in and help America now. This isn't about one country but about our entire planet and the oceans at risk of being destroyed beyond repair. Clearly BP hasn't got a clue how to handle this and they only care about their reputation and not about the people and animals who are the victims of this disaster. The big oil companies all act shamelessly. They have destroyed many highly sensitive ecosystems all over the world. It's time we act against them and start eliminate our reliance on oil. The dominance of the oil giants has hindered innovation and technology. Petrol engines is a +100 year technology which thanks to the help of corrupt governments has very effectively put an end to the development of alternative, environmentally friendly technologies. If we don't change we will destroy the planet.
 
I would point out that this is not an inevitable cost of oil production. It is an inevitable cost of doing it on the cheap. BP (like Massey) was allowed to cut costs by minimizing safety measures at every turn, because the federal agencies charged with regulation were effectively adjuncts to the industry. It does not have to be this way.

One technology that could have been useful in the Deepwater case is an acoustic valve to shut off the well by remote control in an emergency. Such devices are required by Brazil and Norway, but not by the United States, where the oil industry successfully resisted a proposal years ago to require its use, according to Oystein Noreng, who heads the petroleum studies unit at the Norwegian School of Management.

“In Norway, for more than 40 years, we have had a fairly harmonious coexistence between a large offshore oil industry and some of the world’s largest fishing industries,” Mr. Noreng said in an e-mail message. “Nobody can say that a disaster like the one in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico could not happen in Norway, but we have invested in the additional line of defense, thanks to political wisdom.”
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Ugh... depressing pictures indeed, both more poignant and precise than anything I've seen on TV.

I agree that access should be much more open, and I as others am very skeptical about BP, having heard that they've been simply failing to employ already prepared fishing boats, otherwise idle, in the cleanup effort, leaving materials sitting unused, and generally trying to spin all of this.

We can only hope that emraphoto is right:
I am not so sure the profiteers can rely on the apathy of the populous much longer. We were largely blind to the price of our lifestyle for many years however that has largely changed. Information is easily accessed and topics that were once the realm of crackpot environmentalist has become the dialogue of the masses.
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Perhaps this will serve as some kind of turning point, a pivotal moment in an already rising tide against profiteering and corporate dominance. I don't see a really visible leader of the movement right now, but perhaps one will appear–it's the moment, I think, that people with guts will be able to gain political office by running against excessive corporate influence. Guts, though, are easily marginalized by money...
 
Laws in the future should equalize things.

If a businessman makes a mistake destroying nature and thousands of lifes for years, he should be destroyed too. That simple. Cleaning and paying money (he) and sadness (us) are nothing.

Cheers,

Juan
 
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