Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
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.
As someone who has argued that the U.S. needs to invest in more offshore drilling lest we face oil shortages and increasing dependence on other countries for our energy, I can’t make that argument in light of this sort of disaster. We may need drilling, but we also need our coastlines.
With Federal regulators approving a new Gulf of Mexico oil well and the Canadian government continuing to support deepwater drilling off its own coasts, it looks like business as usual for the oil industry despite media coverage of BP’s ongoing ecological disaster. Even if the media debate switches to the realities of peak oil and the need for renewable alternatives to declining fossil fuels – or indeed the lack of regulation of the oil industry in the US, which has been compared to the financial sector before the 2008 credit meltdown – it seems a fair bet that it won’t dull our appetite for oil.
As the leaking Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico continues to defy BP’s efforts, the crisis now looks existential for the company. This week the share price collapsed further, and commentary went far beyond the usual concerns over the fate of the chief executive and the dividend. One Clinton era official even suggested taking BP’s US assets into temporary administration…
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.
The Gulf of Mexico oil blowout carries the emotional wallop and learning potential of a near-death experience. First, it certifies that the age of cheap and plentiful oil is over. Second, it reveals that our collective faith in technology to overcome any challenge posed by nature is a dangerous delusion. Third, it may be the event that sets our nation on the path to genuine economic and ecological sustainability.
A hurricane is a dynamic system. Heat, air and water create pocket thunderstorms that come together and gather strength in a powerful spiral effect, destroying whatever isn’t prepared for it on land. A hurricane is gathering strength in the global economy, as a self-reinforcing spiral of debt, money and materials hurls toward us, with most of us obliviously lying on the beach in our bathing suits and shades on, assuming the calm weather will last indefinitely.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Deepwater Horizon
As BP’s reputation in the U.S. plummeted, the company in a new spirit of openness began releasing live video feeds from their Remotely Operated (Underwater) Vehicles “ROV”s working on stopping the torrent of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.
On Wednesday June 2, President Barack Obama called for an end to U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. Continuing reliance on oil, coal, and natural gas will, he said, “jeopardize our national security, it will smother our planet and it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk.”
-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?
