BP - The New Bogeyman

Post by **Lidless** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 7:38 pm

So, was big bad BP doing behind the scenes deals to get the Lockerbie bomber freed early so as to secure an oil deal with Iran?

I don't know what's worse - the idea that everything BP does must be tainted - or that a US Senate Committee has the temerity to ask foreign government officials to attend Their Presence and explain themselves in front of them.

There is always mini-McCarthyism that goes on every time a bad thing happens. After 9/11 almost every traffic jam, every delayed plane people thought was the fault of terrorists and good luck walking down the street looking like a Muslim. After the bank collapse every banker was seen to be a greedy, self-interested...OK I'll let that one slide.

For every action there is an equal and opposite over-reaction, it seems. Is it our nature (humans in general) to deal with it in this way to vent the pent-up anger? If so, that's a pity.

Post by **tinwë** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 8:48 pm

I have friends who still, to this day, refuse to buy anything from Exxon because of the Valdez catastrophe. They snarl and shake their fist every time they drive by an Exxon station. That's fine. I'm snarling inside at every oil company because I think they are all evil and corrupt. I have no way of knowing if BP is any worse or better than the rest. Probably not.

But I know for a fact that I have seen the enemy and the enemy sure as hell ain't BP, it's us. I do not know of one single person who has parked their SUV or taken a bus or ridden a bike since Deepwater Horizon. BP may very well be the most corrupt group of people in the world, but so what? There's plenty of corrupt people to go around. The ones at BP wouldn't make any difference if we hadn't empowered them to. The hypocrisy of our indignation is staggering.

Post by **Griffon64** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 9:04 pm

IAWT.

Post by **Dave_LF** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 9:07 pm

tinwë wrote:I have no way of knowing if BP is any worse or better than the rest. Probably not.

BP has the honor of receiving 97% of all US government citations for flagrant safety violations in the refining industry over the last 3 years. And 88% of those were described as "egregious and willful". They're all bad, but when it comes to safety, BP is by far the worst.

Post by **narya** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 9:56 pm

tinwë wrote:But I know for a fact that I have seen the enemy and the enemy sure as hell ain't BP, it's us. I do not know of one single person who has parked their SUV or taken a bus or ridden a bike since Deepwater Horizon.

I've been painfully aware that I should be doing that ever since the Exxon Valdez, but there was little I could do at the time, living in Alaska (very poor bike riding in the winter) and 3 miles from the nearest bus stop.

Five years ago I moved to California, and started using public transit to get to work. At first it was unpleasant but I forced myself to do it because it is the right thing to do. I started with one day a week, then gradually worked my way up to the point where I was using public transit every day and was peeved if I had to drive. Then I moved to within 8 miles of my work, and within walking distance of my grocery store, so that I can bike, walk, or bus even more often.

I do think about it, and wish I could be even less oil dependent.

Post by **tinwë** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 11:34 pm

I moved to a place that is less than a mile from where I work and within easy biking distance to most everything I need. It' a new development that, when it is finished, will be a mixed use transit oriented community (which is still a long ways off). I did it not just because it is close to work but because I wanted to support efforts that are finally being made to build self-contained communities instead of the sprawl that has dominated for the last 60 years.

But beyond that I try not to be preachy about it. I understand that this option isn't available to everybody and isn't suitable to everybody. And I certainly didn't expect the world to change overnight after the BP incident. What bothers me is people who seem happy to vilify BP and the oil industry, or whatever the scapegoat du jour is, without even making the effort to examine their own contribution to the situation. That's all.

Post by **vison** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:20 am

IAWT

Post by **Dave_LF** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:25 am

What's this about industrial aerodynamics wind tunnels?

Post by **Teremia** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:41 am

My hat's off to both Tinwë and narya!

You are role models. Really.

Post by **tinwë** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:59 am

Well, don't pat me on the back too much just yet. I said I live within walking distance of my work, I didn't say that I walk to work

(do you realize how hot it is out there?)

And I don't want to give the impression that BP should be let off the hook. If they are guilty, as Dave says, of egregious disregard for the environment (as opposed to just garden variety disregard for the environment, like me driving half a mile to work) then they should get what they have coming to them. I feel sorry for the pensioners in Britain who are going to be effected by it, but I guess thems the breaks.

Post by **vison** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 1:58 am

BP was allowed to get away with it. Surely there is some responsibility with the people who allowed it?

Post by **Infidel** » Sun Jul 25, 2010 9:57 pm

The Sunday Times has an article behind its pay wall that seems to suggest that BP was not the only one trying to facilitate the release of al-Megrahi:

Revealed: Document exposes US double-talk on Lockerbie
Jason Allardyce and Tony Allen-Mills
The Sunday Times
Published: 25 July 2010
UK News News The US government secretly advised Scottish ministers that it would be “far preferable” to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya. Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals that Barack Obama’s administration considered...

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/si ... tto&pf=all

ETA:
No pay wall here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wo ... 5896741041

THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.
Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.

Post by **River** » Mon Jul 26, 2010 6:22 am

I haven't changed my transportation habits since the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Mainly because it is rather difficult to ride one's bike to work with greater frequency than every day.

Honestly, I think holding BP accountable for killing the Gulf of Mexico is quite enough. Going beyond that might be tempting but it sure is tacky.

Post by **Inanna** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 2:34 am

Honestly, I think holding BP accountable for killing the Gulf of Mexico is quite enough. Going beyond that might be tempting but it sure is tacky.

I like the fact that the Obama administration is holding BP accountable to the teeth over the oil spill. The prospect of future financial hurt has already lead the other oil big-wigs to create detailed contingency plans for offshore drilling.

Post by **Hachimitsu** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 6:26 pm

I agree with tinwë!!
I sincerely wish cuty planning that increases urban sprawl (and hence car and oil dependance) just simply wouldn't get approved. Wal mart centres have come to my local area and wherever they go they build stuff very far from in each other in a country that has winter half the year. THose are the most pedestrian unfriendly shopping centre ever. To shop ther it's near impossible without a car. How does that get approved by a city?

Post by **vison** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 6:55 pm

River wrote:I haven't changed my transportation habits since the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Mainly because it is rather difficult to ride one's bike to work with greater frequency than every day.

Honestly, I think holding BP accountable for killing the Gulf of Mexico is quite enough. Going beyond that might be tempting but it sure is tacky.

BP is not alone in killing the Gulf. Chemical runoff was doing a pretty stellar job.

Post by **yovargas** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 7:41 pm

Dave_LF wrote:
tinwë wrote:I have no way of knowing if BP is any worse or better than the rest. Probably not.
BP has the honor of receiving 97% of all US government citations for flagrant safety violations in the refining industry over the last 3 years. And 88% of those were described as "egregious and willful". They're all bad, but when it comes to safety, BP is by far the worst.

I saw numbers like this elsewhere and wondered how BP was still allowed to continue operating.

Post by **Inanna** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:18 pm

yovargas wrote:
Dave_LF wrote:
tinwë wrote:I have no way of knowing if BP is any worse or better than the rest. Probably not.
BP has the honor of receiving 97% of all US government citations for flagrant safety violations in the refining industry over the last 3 years. And 88% of those were described as "egregious and willful". They're all bad, but when it comes to safety, BP is by far the worst.
I saw numbers like this elsewhere and wondered how BP was still allowed to continue operating.

I haven't seen those exact numbers, and I would love to have the source, please. But I've seen similar "X no. of violations". What I want to see is the numbers of all the other oil companies as well. And the mean over the last few years and standard deviations, and some rating on the severity of the violations given to everybody. Then, we know if this is an industry wide problem or not.

WSJ just reported that the reason the alarm didn't go off first, and caused 11 deaths is because TransOcean's rig management ordered the alarm to be switched off at night because it would just wake up everyone at 3:00 am.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 90350.html

Post by **anthriel** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:40 pm

Dave_LF wrote:
tinwë wrote:I have no way of knowing if BP is any worse or better than the rest. Probably not.
BP has the honor of receiving 97% of all US government citations for flagrant safety violations in the refining industry over the last 3 years. And 88% of those were described as "egregious and willful". They're all bad, but when it comes to safety, BP is by far the worst.

vison wrote:BP was allowed to get away with it. Surely there is some responsibility with the people who allowed it?

Good point. What kind of teeth do these US government citations HAVE? Apparently, not much. When one company can garner 97% of the US government's FLAGRANT safety violations over a three year period and still be out there drillin', methinks the citations are not particularly useful.

Unless they are being used to wallpaper the executive bathrooms, where at least they serve some environmentally friendly function. Recycling, and all that.

Post by **anthriel** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:45 pm

Mahima wrote:
WSJ just reported that the reason the alarm didn't go off first, and caused 11 deaths is because TransOcean's rig management ordered the alarm to be switched off at night because it would just wake up everyone at 3:00 am.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 90350.html

Well, it said the automatic system was disabled to reduce the amount of false alarms at 3 in the morning (were false alarms very common?), and that there was supposed to be a manual system in place. So someone was supposed to manually be "minding the store", so to speak? Wonder what happened there?