Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The gusher far beneath the gulf is spouting a message that the era of easy oil is over, or they wouldn’t be drilling that deep. But there’s a response we can have other than just complaining about blackened pelicans, ruined shrimp, and tar ball beaches.
Hey kids, the circus is in town. One day, the Los Angeles Times announces the Gulf gusher is plugged. They got that news from Coast Guard clown Admiral Thad Allen. The oil didn’t get the message, it kept gushing out of the hole. BP had stopped pumping mud 16 hours previously, but nobody told the government. Even so, 24 hours later, Allen, acting as cheerleader-in-chief, said the same thing, on National TV. Meanwhile, any fool on the Net could see the oil continuing to gush out, if you could find the right camera.
Our energy subsidy from the stored sunlight in fossil fuels is gigantic. The chemical and kinetic energy embodied in the thick gooey condensed organic matter from past eons is, for all human intents and purposes, indistinguishable from magic. Once in a while, like now, we see the downsides to our dependency on this elixir, in this case the ecological degradation of increasing areas of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems, and collateral damage to other species.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Deepwater horizon
-Has the EIA admitted to peak oil?
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
The Gulf of Mexico is currently experiencing the human equivalent of metastasizing cancer, and the governor of Louisiana proposes that the activities which resulted in that cancer be resumed immediately even as BP’s underwater gusher continues to flow into the gulf.
The Obama administration and BP are using increasingly different rhetoric to describe what’s growing, along with the spill, as part of an epic clash of government and industry.
In response to the widening disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, government officials have approved a plan to intercept the oil by building a 45-mile sand berm. But scientists fear the project is a costly boondoggle that will inflict further environmental damage and do little to keep oil off the coast.
Tune into most online discussions of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the broader crisis of industrial civilization, and one thing you’re sure to hear is a flurry of abstract plans and rhetorical claims. What lies behind these is magical thinking — and if you’re going to practice magic, the Archdruid suggests, take the time to learn how to do it right.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Deepwater Horizon
-Why America should thank BP
-Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it
-BP oil spill: Shares fall further
-BP’s OTHER Spill this Week
-The real cost of cheap oil
-What Will it Take to End Our Oil Addiction?
There is a way we can stretch our oil use, decrease our involvement in the Middle East, reduce climate change, dramatically lower the number of traffic deaths, extend the life of our cars and increase neighbourhood safety all at once. It’s called driving slowly.
The [US] Materials Management Service report claims that the ecological consequences of an oil spill could be ignored because such an event was “unlikely,” and besides, “no additional mitigation measures” would be needed in the event of a spill.* We now know that this was a horrendous mistake. Here, as in many other cases, the questions people ask are instrumental in creating the future they manifest.
