What a spineless article! A few local fishermen quoted who really can’t say much anyway because they work for the oil companies and a promise from Obama to make BP pay…meanwhile the oil still flows and directly into the country consuming more oil than anyone else. The Yanks should see the spill as an opportunity to directly collect their own oil by-passing the greedy multinationals who process it into gasoline.
The bit I really like is the line about paying to clean up the mess. It goes without saying that the mess will not be completely cleaned up as demonstrated by the Exxon Valdez. The long term implications are particularly dire for the local fishing industry, something Obama with all the good will in the world can do little about. Tom Leonard does well to consider their plight now but the gravity of the situation is lost amid his homespun sentimentality.
Photo by Jim Brickett
Consider what we know about the Exxon Valdez. Official estimates are that 40 million litres of crude oil escaped after the ship ran into a reef in one of the most remote parts of the world. Almost 20 years on and
the effects of the spill continue to be felt today. Overall reductions in population have been seen in various ocean animals, including stunted growth in pink salmon populations. Sea otters and ducks also showed higher death rates in following years, partially because they ingested prey from contaminated soil and from ingestion of oil residues on hair due to grooming…a team of scientists at the University of North Carolina estimates some shoreline Arctic habitats may take up to 30 years to recover.
At 800,000 litres a day and a possible three months before the well is plugged, Deepwater Horizon could leak twice as much oil into an environment already stressed by significant human activity and at the frontline are the communities that depend on the local environment for their livelyhoods. Will BP pay? Only enough to get the company off the hook, after that it will be spin and PR to hide the fact that man made environmental damage is a cost no multinational company is really prepared to pay for since paying for something irreplaceable would put them out of business.
‘This could be the worst offshore oil disaster’.
