Oil Protest

[Zoe Mal Doran]

Using a banned chemical dispersant "because it's cheaper" even though it will cause as much damage as the oil (if not more) is as low as a company can get.

Oh, and forgive my geographical ignorance, but where in America is Yellowstone?

[nachtjaeger]

Yellowstone National Park is in the northwest corner of the state of Wyoming, not far from the Canadian Border, just east of the Rocky Mountains.

It's famous for its hot springs and geysers. Turns out all the geothermal activity is because the Valley of the Yellowstone (aka sulphur) is actually the caldera of a massive supervolcano. If that beast wakes up (which it may) we're in serious trouble.

[tempman]

I agree that life will go on one way or another, even in the Gulf of Mexico, though it will take years or more likely decades for the ecosystem to recover. Even so countless living beings will have suffered and died because of what man did there, and for no other purpose than maximizing profit by cutting on safety precautions.

Countless animals already do suffer, day after day. The US has one of the highest incident records for hitting wild animals with cars, and just like this oil spill they'll also be "wasted" (not fit for consumption). Hunters kill thousands of animals yearly, food processing plants and outlets throw out perfectly good meat for the most minor of reasons.

And when Yellowstone does eventually go up it would mean an end to our current way of life. Of course it would continue, but globally temperatures would drop by 10 degrees, anything within a thousand mile radius won't have sunlight and would just cease to exist under the metres of ash. I'm sure there are others but it's been an awful long time since I last worked in a geography research team!

All I'm saying is that this is bad. Yea. But as a collective we've done so much worse. What about the poisonous gas spill in India? That was run by a US company. We also had an oil tanker disaster here in the UK and France years ago, which was US oil in a US tanker. In neither times did anyone else hold their hands up to help - the affected countries were the only ones trying to fix the problem. But that's a separate argument...

We're so terrible us humans

[Zoe Mal Doran]

We're so terrible us humans

Indeed we are. Kinda makes that line in The Matrix about humanity being a disease seem a whole lot more plausible.

[Aiko]

That just seems all the more reason to put some effort into improving our track record.

Oh, and one thing I completely forgot to mention over the whole discussion...
Great drawing, Zoe!

[Zoe Mal Doran]

Thanks, Aiko *hugs*

[Mynock]

Aiko makes a good point. It is a nice drawing.
On a rather humerous side note....so America's oh-so-wonderful CIC and company has done nothing but verbally ass-rape BP for the last several days right? I was flicking around the TV and stopped on History. They were airing a documentry on Air Force One. I'll give you guys three guesses as to which company logo was on the side of the fuel truck gassing up the jet.

[nachtjaeger]

An online buddy of mine in the "tinfoil hat crowd" says this is a ploy to loot BP. He says that the idea is to run up enough damages and fines to break BP, so they have to file bankruptcy. Current BP stock will be worthless, investors will be ruined, and BP's assets will be owned by a new company. Stock in the new company will be issued to BP's creditors- the largest of which will be the President's oil spill compensation fund. Ba-da-boom-ba-da-bing, the US government owns an oil company to go along with their automakers and banks.

What a loon. That couldn't be why all this is happening.

[Zoe Mal Doran]

So he thinks it's a case of the US government saying "We've been owned by the oil companies for long enough. Let's sabotage an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico so we can turn the tables and take over an oil company. Sure, we'd be raping the environment, but that doesn't matter as long as we have the power"?
While I wouldn't put anything beyond the reach of human greed, that seems a bit... far-fetched. Still, conspiracy theories can be a fun diversion. The imagination of the "tinfoil hat crowd" can be admired to an extent... though any times they turn out to be right would be scary indeed


Oh, and thanks, Mynock

[nachtjaeger]

No, this guy thinks that this was all post-accident, hence the perceived slow response.

Before the details of how bad BP, Deepwater and Haliburton screwed this up came out, I was leaning towards the cause of the explosion and fire being a torpedo from a Cuban mini-sub, given the recent oil deal between Raoul Castro and Vladimir Putin.

So he thinks it's a case of the US government saying "We've been owned by the oil companies for long enough. Let's sabotage an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico so we can turn the tables and take over an oil company. Sure, we'd be raping the environment, but that doesn't matter as long as we have the power"?
While I wouldn't put anything beyond the reach of human greed, that seems a bit... far-fetched. Still, conspiracy theories can be a fun diversion. The imagination of the "tinfoil hat crowd" can be admired to an extent... though any times they turn out to be right would be scary indeed


Oh, and thanks, Mynock