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Originally Posted by JustJo
Aj, I think you've hit the nail on the head here...
We should have some major concerns about this situation, but panic-spreading "ain't it awful" scenarios isn't the most effective use of our time and focus.
I believe that we need to be doing some serious examination of safety standards and compliance with regard to offshore drilling, as well as ensure that we aren't poisoning ourselves with dispersants as we try to clean up the mess.
For me, government's primary focus right now should be to ensure that this scenario never occurs again, and that we are better prepared to handle spills in an effective, safe manner.
I don't see any evidence that BP has turned over a new leaf as a good corporate citizen...and that's a bigger concern to me than the ravings of any particular individual looking for their "moment in the sun" on the internet.
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Jo:
This is precisely my concern with all kinds of rumour and fear mongering--that it distracts from the genuine issues. From the 9/11 Truther to the Birthers to now, I dunno, the Oilers(?) the conspiracies serve as a distraction from the genuine issues. If there is, for instance, a giant methane pocket that is going to explode, release lethal levels of methane into the atmosphere and cause a Permian-style extinction there is nothing anyone can do about it. Not a damn thing. We would be as powerless in the face of that disaster as 19th century people would have been in a K-T extinction-sized rock (about the size of Manhattan island) were to have slammed into the Atlantic ocean in 1850. There would have been a day of terror and then years of eerie, eerie silence. So if that kind of event is going to happen, worrying about it does absolutely no one any kind of good.
On the other hand, we *can* do something about letting corporations run rampant across the social and physical landscape, having the pretense of personhood when convenient (being able to make campaign contributions in the name of 'free speech') but magically shedding personhood when inconvenient (liability or criminal violations). That struggle may be difficult, it may be grueling, it may even take a long time and require constant vigilance lest we are once again lured by the siren's song of unrestrained, unregulated capitalism but it is a *winnable* struggle.
I like to draw a distinction between engineering problems and hard (or scientific) problems. How, if at all possible, to prevent a giant release of methane from 5000 feet under the sea is a scientific problem. If it were a threat (and here I have to reiterate that it is not a threat in the Gulf of Mexico) there would be lots of basic science to be done just so that we could reduce the problem down to one of engineering. What to do about corporate control of the United States is, on the other hand, an engineering problem. By that I mean that we *know*, at least in broad outline, the shape of the solution and the real problem is how to get from here to there.
BP should face both civil and criminal penalties and it is nothing short of a travesty that the top brass at BP and its board are not fearing for the very future of their company. We can do something about that. But if everyone along the Gulf coast were to be panicking and trying to get away from the Giant Methane Bubble that Ate New Orleans then that energy and media attention will be taken up with an event caused by a non-probable issue while the real-world, probable events and actual crisis are ignored.
Cheers
Aj
(Proud member of the reality-based community)