It’s Been A Year Since The Gulf Oil Disaster Began – Have We Learned Our Lesson Yet?

One year ago today, the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sprang a “leak” which was more like an erupting volcano after an explosion on board which killed 11 men and injured 17 others.  The underwater volcano spewed black tarry oil into the pristine waters of the Gulf of Mexico for the next 89 days, devastating marine and wildlife habitats and permanently disrupting the livelihoods, and often the health, of the people living on the coast. Have we in North America learned anything from that experience?  Has there been a sea change in attitudes, and a subsequent move by state and federal governments to decisively to wean us off of our addiction to powering our homes and industry with toxic dead things and towards renewable clean energy?  It seems not – the fossil fuel industry, and it’s mouthpiece, the U.S.(and Canadian) Chambers of Commerce, have mighty deep pockets and lots of influence with our political leaders.  But there are signs of hope. Last weekend in Washington, D.C., 10,000 young people got together at PowerShift 2011.  It was an action-packed, inspirational weekend.  Here is Bill McKibbon’s address to the young leaders, reposted from 350.org:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdF8wz4Jwm8&feature=player_embedded]

All right, listen up. Very few people can ever say that they are in
the single most important place they could possibly be doing the
single most important thing they could possibly be doing. That’s you,
here, now.

You are the movement that we need if we are going to win in the few
years that we have. You have the skills now. You are making the
connections. And there is no one else. It is you.

That is a great honor and that is a terrible burden. There is no one else.

The science is the easy part in this, grim, but easy. 2010 was the
warmest year on record. And it was warm. We were on the phone one day
with our 350 crew in Pakistan and one of them said, “It’s hot out here
today,” and I was surprised to hear him say it  because it’s usely hot
in Pakistan during the summer. He said, no it’s really hot . We just
set the new, all time Asia temperature record, 129 degrees. That kind
of heat melts the arctic. That kind of heat causes drought so deep
across Russia  that the Kremlin stops all grain exports. That kind of
heat  causes the flooding that still has 4 million people across
Pakistan homeless tonight.

It’s tough, it’s grim, but the good news at least is that it’s clear,
the science. We have a number: 350 parts per million. 350, the most
important number on earth. As the NASA team put it in January 2008,
“any value in the atmosphere greater than 350 parts per million  is
not compatible with the planet on which civilization developed and
which life on earth is adapted.”  Getting back to 350 pars per million
will be very very tough, the toughest thing human beings have ever
done, but there is no use complaining about it, it’s just physics and
chemistry. That’s what we have to do.

But if the scientific method has worked splendidly to outline our
dilemma, that’s how badly the political method has worked to solve it.
Think about our own country, historically the biggest source of carbon
emissions. Last summer, the Senate refused to even take a vote on the
tepid, moderate, tame climate bill that was before it. Last week, the
House voted 248 to 174 to pass a resolution saying global warming
wasn’t real. It was one of the most embarrassing votes that Congress
has ever taken. They believe that because they can amend the tax laws
they can amend the laws of nature too, but they can’t. I’m awful glad
a few of you went up to the visitors gallery to talk some sense to
them last week.

Even the White House. Two weeks ago, the interior secretary, who spoke
here two years ago, Ken Salazar, signed a piece of paper opening up
250 million tonnes of coal under federal land in Wyoming to mining.
That’s like opening 300 new coal fired power plants and running them
for a year. That’s a disgrace.

But you know what. We understand the physics and chemistry of
political power. In this case, it’s not carbon dioxide that rules the
day: it’s money.

Many of you are in the District of Columbia for the first time and it
looks clean and it looks sparkling. No, this city is as polluted as
Beijing. But instead of coal smoke it’s polluted by money. Money warps
our political life, it obscures our vision, but just like with physics
in chemistry there is no use whining. We know now what we need to do
and the first thing we need to do is build a movement.

We will never have as much money as the oil companies so we need a
different currency to work in, we need bodies, we need creativity, we
need spirit.

350.org has been like a beta-test for that movement. It began with
youth here at Power Shift four years ago. It’s now spread around the
planet. In the last two years, there have been 15,000 demonstrations
in 189 nations. CNN called it the most widespread political activity
in the planet’s history. But it needs to get bigger still. On the
first Earth Day in 1970 there 20 million Americans in the street, one
in ten Americans. That’s the kind of size we need.

And so, on September 24 we need your help. September 24 is the next
big day of action. We’re calling it Moving Planet and in those 189
nations, people will be in motion. Much of it will be on bicycles,
because the bicycles is one of the few tools that rich and poor both
use. Who here knows how to ride a bike? All right, September 24, I
cannot wait to see the pictures. We are not going to wait for the
politicians to move, we’re going to create the future that we need
ourselves.

But that movement doesn’t just need to be bigger, it needs to sharper
too, more aggressive.

You know what, at Copenhagen we got 117 nations to sign on to that 350
target. That was good, but they were the wrong 117 nations. They were
the poorest and most vulnerable nations. The most addicted nations,
led by our own, weren’t yet willing to bit the bullet, so that’s where
we’ve got to go to work.

That work, to deal with that money pollution, that work starts Monday
at ten o’clock in Lafayette Square, across from the White House and
next to a place called the US Chamber of Commerce.

The Koch Brothers are high peaks of corruption, but the US Chamber of
Commerce is the Everest of dirty money. It boasts on its web page that
it is the biggest lobby in Washington. In fact, it spends more money
lobbying than the next five lobbies combined. It spent more money on
politics last year than the Republican National Committee and the
Democratic National Committee combined and 94% of that went to climate
deniers.

We cannot stop their money, but we can strip them of their
credibility. They claim to represent all American business, but they
don’t. 55% of their funding came from 16 companies. They don’t have to
say who those companies are, but it’s easy to tell when you watch what
they do. They spend their time lobbying to make sure the planet heats
up as fast it possibly can.

They sent a legal brief to the EPA last year, saying that they should
take no action on climate change, because if the planet warmed, humans
could alter their behavior and their physiology to deal with the
problem. I don’t even really know what that means, alter your
physiology. Grow gills? I don’t know. But I can tell you this. I am
too old to change my physiology and you all are too good looking. But
I will adapt my behavior. Every day now I will roll out of bed and go
to work fighting them. Hell, I will go to bed at night and try to
dream up new ways to fight.

We’re going to adapt our behavior all right. We’re going to adapt our
behavior now to fight on every front. I’m sorry if that sounds
aggressive, but there we are.

Twenty-two years ago, I wrote the first book about climate change and
I’ve gotten to watch it all, and I know that simply persuasion will
not do. We need to fight. Now, we need to fight non-violently and with
civil disobedience. You will hear from my friend Tim DeChristopher in
a moment and more to come, but if you’re going to go that route, one
thing you need to make sure that you manage to get across in your
witness is that you are not the radicals in this fight.

The radicals are the people are the people who are fundamentally
altering the composition of the atmosphere. That is the most radical
thing people have ever done.

We need to fight with art and with music, too. Not just the side with
our brain that likes bar graphs and pie graphs, but with all our heart
and all our soul. Tomorrow or tonight, you need to go down behind Hall
B downstairs and help them build the art work for Monday morning.

We need to fight with unity. We need to have a coherent voice. That’s
why, last week we joined with our friends at 1Sky to build this
bigger, stronger 350.org. We need to speak with one loud voice,
because we are fighting for your future.

So far, we’ve raised the temperature of the planet one degree and
that’s done all that I’ve described, it’s melted the arctic, it’s
changed the oceans. The climatologists tell us that unless we act with
great speed and courage that one degree will be five degrees before
this century is out. And if we do that, then the world that we leave
behind will be a ruined world.

We fight not just for ourselves, we fight for the beauty of this
place. For cool trout streams and deep spruce woods. For chilly fog
rising off the Pacific and deep snow blanketing the mountains. We
fight for all the creation that shares this planet with us. We don’t
know half the species on Earth we’re wiping out.

And of course, we fight alongside our brothers and sisters around the
world. You’ve seen the pictures as I talk: these are our comrades.
Most of these people, as you see, come from places that have not
caused this problem, and yet they’re willing to be in deep solidarity
with us. That’s truly admirable and it puts a real moral burden on us.
Never let anyone tell you, that environmentalism is something that
rich, white people do. Most of the people that we work with around the
world are poor and black and brown and Asian and young, because that’s
what most of the world is made up of, and they care about the future
as anyone else.

We have to fight, finally, without any guarantee that we are going to
win. We have waited late to get started and our adversaries are strong
and we do not know how this is going to come out. If you were a
betting person, you might bet we were going to lose because so far
that’s what happened, but that’s not a bet you’re allowed to make. The
only thing that a morally awake person to do when the worst thing
that’s ever happened is happening is try to change those odds.

I have spent most of my last few years in rooms around the world with
great people, many of whom will be refugees before this century is
out, some of whom may be dead from climate change before this century
is out. No guarantee that we will win, but from them a complete
guarantee that we will fight with everything we have. It is always an
honor for me to be in those rooms. It is the greatest honor for me to
be with you tonight.

No guarantee that we will win, but we will fight side by side, as long
as we’ve got. Thank you all so much.

More links:

The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill

Power Shift 2011

Republican Senators Block Investigation of BP

The House of Representatives voted 420 to 1 to give the Presidential Commission investigating the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico full subpoena power.  The Republicans in the Senate then blocked it – no subpoena powers, therefore no real investigation. No answers from BP, Haliburton, andTransOcean for the American people.

Who are the Republicans representing? Certainly not the people in the Gulf of Mexico who have been devastated by this disaster. Could it be Big Oil and Gas, who also happen to fund the Senators’ campaigns?

*Update August 8 – As David Wilson’s comment below points out, the bill was initially blocked by the GOP when it was first voted on, but then after considering it, the Republicans supported it. For more info, check out the link to the Washington Post article that David linked to in his comment. Thanks David! However, the GOP’s stance in general seems to be to oppose any real action to hold BP responsible for the mess and the clean up – check out Climate Progress’s recent post Standing in the way of justice for the BP calamity: GOP puts political points above all else*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rORbqq_FHoM

And here’s the video “BP and Big Oil Don’t Want You To See”:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMkXA6kqNsw]

More links:

Michigan Oil Spill Prompts Local Evacuations

Unified Command: BP “cannot remember” when dispersant last used

Dr. Riki Ott alleges BP engaged in massive cover-up to hide Gulf Disaster damage

I am away this week on a low-carbon canoe trip in Woodland Caribou Provincial Park. Enjoy the videos!

Bill Maher on BP Disaster: Our Children Are Part Of The Clean Up Crew

Bill Maher on the BP Disaster:  “What has to happen before people change?…We shouldn’t be drilling offshore at all…In 50 years when there’s no fish and we’ve killed all the animals and there’s just cockroaches and jellyfish, that’s what we’ll be eating…”

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

I am away this week on a low-carbon canoe trip in Woodland Caribou Provincial Park. Enjoy the video!

BP Gusher FINALLY Capped – It’s Time to Go Solar!

I don’t know about you, but by Friday I’m ready for some good news for a change, especially after hearing that the Canadian government is planning to spend $16-billion on fighter jets, by untendered contract. This is the same government that has done nothing to address climate change, by far the biggest threat to Canadians in the coming decades.  They seem to be caught in a time warp, still wrapped up in the Cold War when enemies could be clearly identified and – possibly – fought with fighter jets.

But back to the good news:

  • It seems that BP has finally capped the oil well that’s been spewing between one million plus to 4 million plus barrels of oil a day (nobody really knows, because BP has been low-balling the numbers since the beginning and the US government doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry to clarify how bad things really are).  We won’t know for sure if the oil has stopped permanently for a while, as now a time of monitoring begins. BP engineers will be monitoring pressure gauges and watching for signs of leaks elsewhere in the well.  Apparently, there is a chance that pressure from the oil gushing out of the ground could fracture the well and make the leak even worse!

This video is from 2 weeks ago, but Robert Kennedy Jr. has some interesting – and disturbing – things to say about the economic disincentives to swifter action by BP , and why they used toxic dispersants to hide the oil:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-KF-M_fgHg]

The U.S. Climate Network has an interesting page that has been clocking how much oil has been poured into the gulf so far, and the gauge can be adjusted up or down depending on whose estimates are used. Click on their name to go the page.

Okay, back to good news:

  • Morris County, New Jersey is planning to go solar with some unique financing. The county plans to install 3.2 megawatts of solar panels on county property roofs with the help of $30 million in county-guaranteed bonds. The remaining costs will be financed in conjunction with the energy utility Tioga Energy, which qualifies for federal solar tax incentives through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Go to Green Tech at CNET.com for the full story.
  • The Solar Pebble, a low-cost solar lamp designed by three undergraduates at the University of Leeds in conjunction with Solar Aid, a UK charity which works to fight poverty and climate change, may prove to be revolutionary for families in Africa. The students’ company Plus Minus Design,

…is vying to replace unsustainable and potentially dangerous lanterns in the homes of off-grid Africans with the Solar Pebble. Engineered with the economic constraints of developing-world citizens in mind, the Solar Pebble will provide one hour of LED light for every two hours of charge, and will cost only $2.70 to manufacture…

The Solar Pebble provides light and a means of portable charging, but its implications are even greater. The lamp will ship partially assembled, providing jobs for locals who would finish assembly. Furthermore, Plus Minus Design hopes the lamp will increase radio usage, providing rural African families with HIV/AIDS prevention information.

Read the full story at Green Tech at CNET.com.  In fact, the Green Tech column written by Martin LaMonica is a really interesting resource about all things alternative – I highly recommend visiting it regularly.

More Links:

BP Stops Oil Spewing Into the Gulf As Well Tests Continue

More Than Half of New Power in US, EU is Green

Crude Awakening

Jane Fulton Alt is a fine art photographer who was moved by the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to produce a YouTube video entitled “Crude Awakening”. Fulton Alt’s dramatic pictures of people covered in oil are set to  Johnny Cash’s version of  “Hurt“.

Fulton Alt says:

Living on the shores of Lake Michigan, I am acutely aware of the disastrous toll the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has taken on all forms of life, especially as our beaches opened to the 2010 swimming season. This environmental, social and economic catastrophe highlights a much larger problem that has inflicted untold suffering as we exploit the earth’s resources worldwide.

We are all responsible for leading lives that create demand for unsustainable energy.
We are also all responsible for the solution and we must work together to protect the balance of life.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpngur4GvxA]

More links:

Jane Fulton Alt’s website

From Fulton Alt’s website, a link to ThomasFrank.org. Thomas is an artist who lives under the shadow of the BP plant in East Chicago, Indiana. Fulton Alt writes: “When I contacted him earlier in the week he was “in Detroit at the U.S Social Forum working on a response to the TAR SANDS, another horrible no good disaster BP is deeply involved in.”

Want to know how we can kick this fossil fuel habit? Check out:

KickTheFossilFuelHabit.org

or

350.org

If you are on Facebook, join “1,000,000 Strong Against Offshore Drilling

NASA Timelapse Video Of BP Spill

The next few days will consist of packing, cleaning, moving, and unpacking and more cleaning for me so my posts, if there are any at all, will be short and sweet. Have a good week!

Here’s a timelapse video of the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf from NASA, from April 20 – May 24. Remember, there’s been another month of oil spewing out into one of the world’s richest fishing areas since the last image you see.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfOinnQeHIY&feature=player_embedded]

And if that leaves you feeling depressed and/or disheartened, read the most recent article by Umbra Fisk at Grist.org, “Ask Umbra On Turning Oil Spill Depression Into Transformation“. Among other things, she points out a recent study that suggests that changing people’s individual behavior may be the best way to grow a movement. Each of us can make a difference.

If you can handle more bad news, “Bigger Dead Zone Projected for Gulf, Even Without Oil’s Effects by Tom Laskaway discusses the “Dead Zone” caused by an annual oxygen-depleting algae bloom in the waters off the Gulf Coast, that can be traced back to agrichemicals that drain into the Gulf from the U.S. Midwest.

Isn’t it about time we collectively stopped messing around with the planet? We are part of the web of life, and right now at this point in history we are a particularly toxic and deadly part of it. Go to FourYears.Go for a inspiration on a different way of being on our home, the Eaarth.

“Hole In the Ocean”

“Hole in the Ocean” was written written by Joe Monto & Steve Bartlett to keep the focus on the BP oil spill disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. This is already the largest environmental disaster in United States history, and the oil is still gushing out of the oil well.

The song is dedicated to the 11 men who lost their lives on the Deepwater Oil Rig on April 20th, 2010.

The words to  Hole In The Ocean” are:

The wave crests on fire
And storm clouds below
The oozing dark monster

Creeps silently slow
The heartache of many
The future unclear
We stand on the shoreline
Surrounded by fear

Chorus:

There’s a hole in the ocean
That’s breaking my heart
When will it end
Why did it start?

Can we ever return
To our blue watered bay
There’s a hole in the ocean
That stands in our way

2nd Verse:

For the diving birds diving
And the fish ‘neath the waves
There is so much to do
There is so much to save

With bitter tears stinging
For the ones who were lost
Is there really a way
To assess what this cost?

Bridge:

Eleven souls sailing
That April day
It happened so quickly
‘Twas no time to pray

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

Click here to send a message to President Obama to ban offshore drilling permanently.

Click here to find out how BP is quietly breaking ground on a controversial project in B.C.’s Rocky Mountains without a provincial environmental review.

BP’s Blocking Information, Not Oil Flow

Is the U.S. a democracy or a corporate-run dictatorship?  From the sounds of things, BP is controlling access to public beaches in the spill area and intimidating locals and clean-up workers to limit the information that is flowing out of the Gulf coast.  Looks like they’re way better at blocking information than they are at limiting the flow of oil out of the ruptured oil well.

Here’s a video of a reporter from New Orleans TV station WDSU trying to get access to a public beach and speak to clean-up workers:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZHnStD690U]

For more, check out:

BP Blocking Media Access to Oil Disaster Sites” PRWatch.org

Filmmaker on Media Blackout: Feels Like Oil Companies Are Running The Whole Government” on GrantLawrence.blogspot.com

If you are Facebook, join the group 1,000,000 Strong Against Offshore Drilling for ideas and information on how we can kick this fossil fuel habit.  (click here)

Or go to Tom Rand’s website at “Kick The Fossil Fuel Habit.org“.  Rand says “It’s a myth that we need fossil fuels.  We just haven’t decided to kick the habit.”

And here’s a new blog I just discovered, Monkeyfister.blogspot.com, which has links to live spillcam feeds as well as great posts on the BP catastrophe.  The byline of the blog is “It starts with planting a garden…”.  So as an act of optimism, in defiance of our consumer culture, plant a seed or weed your garden before you call your elected representative and tell them it’s time for clean energy NOW.

To do just that – contact your elected representatives at all levels,  local, state/provincial, and federal – if you’re in the U.S. click here for contact info. If you’re in Canada,  click here for contact info on Members of Parliament and Senators.

What Happens When BP Spills Coffee, and Big-Oil Lovin’ Senator Murkowski’s Bill Voted Down in U.S. Senate

  • This video is making the rounds on the net – it was posted on Youtube on June 9th and already has over 200,000 views (*update – 8 hours later, it’s up to 749,461!*).  From the folks at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM&feature=player_embedded]

Click here go to the UCB’s website.

  • Some great news on the climate change front!  From the League of Conservation Voters, this update about Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s attempt to block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide emissions, which was voted on in the U.S. Senate today:

…the Senate struck down Senator Murkowski’s reckless proposal to gut the Clean Air Act’s ability to protect public health and hold the biggest polluters accountable for their carbon pollution. LCV would like to thank the Senators that voted down Senator Murkowski’s resolution for standing up to Big Oil and other corporate polluters.

Click here to read the LCV’s press release on the vote.

Click here to go to 350.org for ideas on how to get to work on a cleaner, brighter future in 2010.