Offshore Oil Drilling = Bad Idea?

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For all we know, he could be colourblind and call it pink.
 
Jiro said:
stock market. classic business 101.

here - oil price rose when the Hurricane Katrina damaged oil rigs in Gulf of Mexico.

and now - BP's stock price got stung - about 8% (link). BP lost its oil rig and will be spending billions. It costs Exxon-Mobil about $4.5 billion for Exxon-Valdez oil spill to cover lawsuit settlements, fines, clean-up, etc. Since this disaster is putting a hurt on BP, its competitor like Exxon-Mobil is "salivating over the prospect of increasing gas prices."
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:gpost:

koko, read this post.
 
deafskeptic said:
It's going to devaste the the fishing industry and tourist industry as many come here to to do recreational fishing. Plus it will have a negative impact on wildlife tourism cuz many hunters come to hunt there during the hunting season.
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I just saw on the news some bird coverd in oil! This is so up setting! There is about 300-400 species that are will harm by this oil spill! This the worst time for this happen, the news said birds are nesting right now and they're going right into coast line where the oil is! We need to stop drilling off shore!
 
a great video to show you what happened (captioned, diagram, etc) and what action will be taken (skip to 0:05)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLiqvZOP8TY]YouTube - US oil spill explained[/ame]
 
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4yz-3aBQlc]YouTube - Graphic: Gulf of Mexico oil spill[/ame]
 
to show you why this problem is extraordinary difficult to fix -

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF0Ke_x8vH4[/ame]

you see how ocean is so vast and how so little we are?
 
Ex-FEMA chief blasts Obama on oil spill
(CNN) -- Former FEMA director Michael Brown is not backing off his charge that the Obama administration wants to use the Gulf Coast oil spill as a plot to put an end to offshore drilling.

"They want a crisis like this, so that they can use a crisis like this to shut down offshore and gas drilling," he said Tuesday night on CNN's "AC 360°."

His remarks came a day after he told Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" that the oil slick is "exactly what they want, because now he can pander to the environmentalists and say, 'I'm going to shut it down because it's too dangerous.' While Mexico and China and everybody else drills in the Gulf, we're going to get shut down."

Pressed by CNN for evidence to back up his claim, Brown pointed to an interview that then-Sen. Barack Obama gave to The San Francisco Chronicle in January 2008. Obama told the Chronicle editorial board that he wanted cap-and-trade legislation to be as strong as possible.

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted," Obama told the board, after discussing the importance of figuring out how to use coal without emitting greenhouse gases.

Brown told CNN that he didn't mean to imply the administration wanted the slick to spread, but he suggested that the White House was exaggerating the ramifications of the spill by claiming the damage would last forever.

"Look, when you have an administration who is leading the country, and their political position is that we want to move away from a carbon-based energy supply to something else, this crisis occurs, the Rahm Emanuel rule No. 1 of never letting a crisis go to waste kicks in, and they have done that," Brown said.

At the daily White House news briefing on Tuesday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs slammed Fox's "very special and unique interview" with Brown, which he said "didn't appear to be pushed back on real hard."

Gibbs' criticism came after Fox News reporter Wendell Goler started to ask a question about critics referring to the spill as Obama's "Katrina."

"Can I say this?," Gibbs interrupted. "You opened both the double doors and, voilà, here I am."

Goler pointed out that the networks' reporters and television personalities are not one in the same.

"You should call headquarters, my friend," Gibbs said. "Ask for somebody who makes the decisions to put people like that -- because I've got to tell you, Wendell, I'm not entirely sure that a factual answer that I might give to any one of your questions is going to change the notion that your network put out the former FEMA director to make an accusation that the well had been purposely set off in order to change an offshore drilling decision."

Brown headed FEMA under the Bush administration and resigned in September 2005, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. His resignation came 10 days after President Bush famously told him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
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does anybody see anything comical with this picture? I mean.... this is coming from a guy who grossly mishandled Katrina disaster. Who can ever forget his email conversation?

"Can I quit now? Can I come home?" LOL
"I'm trapped now, please rescue me" LOL
"If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god" LOL
"I got it at Nordstroms. ... Are you proud of me?" LOOOOL

this is too much
 
Michael Brown need to shut up.
 
let's see....

Alaska fishermen still struggling 21 years after Exxon spill
Cordova, Alaska (CNN) -- For third-generation fisherman John Platt, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill is a financial and psychological nightmare that won't end.

Three years after the 11 million-gallon spill in Prince William Sound blackened 1,500 miles of Alaska coastline, the herring on which he and other Cordova fishermen heavily relied disappeared from the area. Platt and some others stuck around, fishing for salmon and hoping things would improve.

The herring never returned to Cordova. Platt's income plummeted, severely straining his marriage and psyche. He dipped into his sons' college funds to support his family.

"People's lives were ruined," Platt said. "There were damn good fishermen here in the Sound, and they just said, 'Screw it' and left, and tried to make a living elsewhere."

As for Platt, who stayed: "I wasted 20 years of my life," he said.

Platt and other people in the Alaskan village of about 2,500 people say they still are suffering economically and emotionally 21 years after the oil disaster. About 3,400 miles away, an oil leak that started last month in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening the Gulf Coast.

"Here we go again," Platt said of the oil leak in the Gulf. "I feel real bad for the people who are going to potentially go through what we did here."

Reporter's notebook: Exxon Valdez revisited

The herring loss alone has cost the region about $400 million over the past 21 years, according to R.J. Kopchak, a former fisherman who is now developmental director at Cordova's Prince William Sound Science Center.

The average fisherman suffered a 30 percent loss in income after the spill, but those who specialized in just herring lost everything, Kopchak said.

Sociologists who spent years around the Sound after the disaster concluded that a fifth of all the area's commercial fishermen suffered severe anxiety, and as many as 40 percent suffered from severe depression.

"People went bankrupt. People lost things," said Mike Webber, a Cordova fisherman. He said perhaps 30 to 40 families have left Cordova since the disaster.

Webber, who fished for herring and salmon before the spill and continued fishing for salmon in the years after, said he began drinking heavily after 1989. He then lost his marriage.

"I blame my divorce on Exxon -- the oil spill," Webber said. "It was just aggravation and frustration that tore us apart."

The surface oil from the spill had largely disappeared within three years of the spill, according to studies conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Response and Restoration. But oil residue still can be found on the shore.

"It is a lingering problem, as they say, with no easy solution," Kopchak said.

Money from Exxon hasn't made the fishermen's problems disappear. Besides the $2.5 billion that Exxon is estimated to have paid for the cleanup, it reportedly paid $300 million soon after the disaster to 11,000 fishermen, fish processors and others affected.

In 1994, a federal jury ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages, but appeals reduced that award to $507.5 million. Last year, a federal court ordered Exxon to also pay $470 million in interest on the punitive damages.

Platt says he has received about $600,000 from Exxon. But most of it was used to clear liens on his fishing permits and boats, he said.

Is the current oil spill affecting you? Share your story

Before Exxon's successful appeals, fishermen were expecting a lot more, Platt said.

"I think the general perception is that we were compensated a long time ago, that everything is rosy. That's not the case," Platt said.

Exxon says the spill had nothing to do with the herring disappearance. In a statement, Exxon said the herring catches were outstanding for the first three years after the spill, and that scientific studies showed that the subsequent decline was caused in part by ocean factors that led to poor nutrition, and perhaps by disease. Other studies, Exxon said, pointed to competitive interactions between young herring and young salmon, and to predators.

"The Valdez oil spill was a tragic accident and one which ExxonMobil deeply regrets," Exxon said in a separate statement. "We took immediate responsibility for the spill and have spent over $4.3 billion as a result of the accident, including compensatory payments, cleanup payments, settlements and fines."

"As a result of the accident, Exxon undertook significant operational reforms and implemented an exceptionally thorough operational management system to prevent future incidents. ExxonMobil has a long history of community support throughout Alaska and we continue to expand that focus," the statement said.

For Platt, the nightmare continues.

"We got hosed here in Cordova, and nobody cares," Platt said.
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looks like the people in Gulf of Mexico will be experiencing same agony and hardships. :(
 
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