The Midmorning Refill: Despite oil spill, runaway cars, Jersey Shore, 2010 may have not been the absolute worst year ever

Today’s Flickr photo:

Flickr photo from BP America

If you read one thing today…

Dave Barry’s annual year in review is out. How did 2010 measure up? It wasn’t pretty. From the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico to Toyota’s runaway cars, 2010 was a rough year.

On the BP oil spill:

The perfect symbol for the awfulness of 2010 was the BP oil spill, which oozed up from the depths and spread, totally out of control, like some kind of hideous uncontrollable metaphor. The scariest thing about the spill was, nobody in charge seemed to know what to do about it. Time and again, top political leaders personally flew down to the Gulf of Mexico to look at the situation first-hand and hold press availabilities. And yet somehow, despite these efforts, the oil continued to leak. This forced us to face the disturbing truth that even top policy thinkers with postgraduate degrees from Harvard University — Harvard University! — could not stop it…

…the Deepwater Horizon oil spill officially becomes, according to the news media, the worst thing that has ever happened, with environmental experts reporting that tar balls have been sighted on the surface of the moon. Just when all appears to be lost, BP announces that it has stopped the leak, using a 75-ton cap and what a company spokesperson describes as “a truly heroic manatee named Wendell.” Although oil is no longer leaking, much damage has been done, so this important story remains the focus of the nation’s attention for nearly 45 minutes, after which the nation’s attention shifts to Lindsay Lohan.

If you have a better attention span than that, feel free to check out Public Citizen’s work on the BP oil spill from throughout the year.

At the very least, Barry can make you laugh, shake your head, and then hope that 2011 will bring us some better news. Let’s see what the new Congress and the Obama administration have in store for us this year…

Read Full Post »

The well might be plugged but the BP news still flows

Some updates on the Gulf spill:

• Three-fourths of the oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico has been contained (evaporated, skimmed, collected, burned off, dispersed or dissolved), according to the Obama administration.
• The costs associated with the spill are estimated to be $6.1 billion, “including the cost of the spill response, containment, relief-well drilling, static kill and cementing, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid and federal costs,” BP said in a statement Monday.
• As federal investigators continue their probe, the oil industry is trying to figure out how to deal with the undertrained and overstretched workers on rapidly increasing number of oil rigs.
• Researchers amp up their lobbying for funds to study the long-term effects of the spill.

But our fight here is not over. We must hold BP accountable for its actions, both leading up to and following the oil geyser that polluted our water, ecosystems and lifestyles. Keep checking Public Citizen’s spill page, Beyond BP, for updates.

Read Full Post »

A month after the oil spill started, still no solution

Happy anniversary, BP.

It has been exactly one month since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig started a full-force environmental crisis. And yet, officials still have no effective solution to stop the oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, and we are no closer to an organization (whether it be BP, Transocean, Halliburton or the Minerals Management Service) owning up to the responsibility of the spill.

To learn what we have learned during this month, check out Public Citizen Energy Program’s blog, and especially Tyson Slocum’s post today on the one-month anniversary.

As an anniversary gift, how about a solution? No need for a gift receipt.

If we don’t get a solution, BP can consider itself sleeping on the couch, as we gain support in our boycott against the oil company. Sign the petition. Join the Facebook group. Tell a friend.

Read Full Post »

Spill, baby, spill

It doesn’t stop.  The oil from the spill, the stories about the environmental effects and BP’s blatant disregard for safety — it all keeps pouring out.

The Boston Globe‘s “The Big Picture” put out breath-taking, absolutely horrifying photos of what’s happening in the Gulf, including the one featured above. It’s really worth taking the time to scroll through them. And just think — those pictures were taken nearly a week ago. How bad is it now?

What else is happening down there?

• “Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots,” reports The New York Times. “The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.”
• “Two refineries owned by oil giant BP account for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors over the past three years,” according to the Center for Public Integrity. OSHA classified most of the violations as “egregious willful.”
• “It’s no longer mere speculation – the spill is far worse than the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska,” wrote the Troy Media Corporation.

What can we do? We can hold BP accountable. Join Public Citizen in boycotting BP for three months. Sign the petition. Join the Facebook group. Make a difference.

Read Full Post »

There will be blame: Oil spill meets The Daily Show

Nobody can say it quite like Jon Stewart. The man has a gift for pointing out the absurd and capitalizing on it, granted, sometimes for a cheap laugh.

The absurdity he highlighted in last night’s episode focused on the oil spill in the Gulf — discussing plans to stop the oil from pouring into the water, and trying to pinpoint who is responsible for the spill and the aftermath. (WARNING: Stewart’s humor is a bit risque in this clip.)

Here are the plans to stop the oil geyser: Top hat. Hot tap. Are these solutions or anagrams, Stewart asked. Next up, the junk shot. (You can use your imagination on Stewart’s take of the solution.) But yeah, let’s throw golf balls, debris and other waste at the well, hoping to clog it up. Seriously.

As for accountability, was it BP? No, they only leased the rig. Was it Transocean? No, concrete blocks failed, not them. Who made the concrete blocks? Halliburton. The list goes on and on.

Now, it’s We, the People’s turn to hold BP accountable. Public Citizen urges drivers to boycott BP and fill up elsewhere. Join the Facebook group, sign the petition and tell your friends!

(Full disclosure: Joe Newman promised me a penny for every person who joins the Facebook group, 1,000,000 Strong to Boycott BP. That means if a million people join, I get $10,000. If you don’t do it for the environment, do it for me!)

Read Full Post »