BP, the environmentally sensitive oil major, today agreed to a 18 billion dollar settlement to end litigation over the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
The stock markets responded by goosing BP shares up almost 4% on the day.
The settlement means that folks around the Gulf are SOL on collecting more compensation for lost livelihoods and catastrophic health repercussions that are bound to haunt them for generations.
The market obviously thought this was a good news story for BP.
By definition, that means it was a bad news story for the millions of regular folks who used to make their living from the Gulf.
That's justice in America...
Showing posts with label 2010 BP oil spill Gulf of Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2010 BP oil spill Gulf of Mexico. Show all posts
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Saturday, August 2, 2014
The suicide stage of capitalism
Capitalism's glory days are fast fading in the rear-view mirror. All the low-hanging fruit has been plucked. The easy oil, the easy timber, the easy gold and silver are long gone.
But capital needs to be deployed somewhere. Therefore, once the possibility of more Oklahoma gushers was exhausted, you got offshore drilling. That got us underwater gushers, which sometimes kept gushing even when equipment breakdowns prevented the capture of that oil.
BP's Deepwater Horizon catastrophe may have destroyed the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem for the next thousand years, but that was an accident, not a deliberate strategy.
That is where it differs from the next stage of exploiting ever higher hanging fruit. With offshore drilling we may have been taking foolish risks, but we were still basically drilling a hole in the earth to let the oil come out.
Fracking is an entirely different matter. We are not drilling a hole to "let" the oil and gas out; we are using industrial-scale technology to drill holes, into which we pump poisons under tremendous pressure, to force out oil and gas that doesn't want to come out.
How any person with an ounce of sense can let this pass is a mystery. Maybe it's the reassurances of all those industry experts. Maybe it's the promise of easy money. Maybe it's the promise of jobs.
Whatever it is, entire national economies are doubling down on a process that entails grave long-term risks in return for short-term gains.
UK PM David Cameron recently declared his country wide open for fracking. Poland's Tusk has gone down the same road. Hopefully local opposition can stop the madness.
Fracking is also part of the salvation strategy being foisted on the hapless Ukrainian people by their "friends" in Washington. No less a Washington insider than the son of VP Biden is helping to bring fracking to Ukraine.
While industry shills continue to deny it, there is a rapidly accumulating body of evidence linking fracking to contamination of groundwater and to seismic events in American states that have permitted the practice.
We can survive without oil. We cannot survive without water. Water resources must, in a sane world, trump the need for capital to maximize its profits.
But capital needs to be deployed somewhere. Therefore, once the possibility of more Oklahoma gushers was exhausted, you got offshore drilling. That got us underwater gushers, which sometimes kept gushing even when equipment breakdowns prevented the capture of that oil.
BP's Deepwater Horizon catastrophe may have destroyed the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem for the next thousand years, but that was an accident, not a deliberate strategy.
That is where it differs from the next stage of exploiting ever higher hanging fruit. With offshore drilling we may have been taking foolish risks, but we were still basically drilling a hole in the earth to let the oil come out.
Fracking is an entirely different matter. We are not drilling a hole to "let" the oil and gas out; we are using industrial-scale technology to drill holes, into which we pump poisons under tremendous pressure, to force out oil and gas that doesn't want to come out.
How any person with an ounce of sense can let this pass is a mystery. Maybe it's the reassurances of all those industry experts. Maybe it's the promise of easy money. Maybe it's the promise of jobs.
Whatever it is, entire national economies are doubling down on a process that entails grave long-term risks in return for short-term gains.
UK PM David Cameron recently declared his country wide open for fracking. Poland's Tusk has gone down the same road. Hopefully local opposition can stop the madness.
Fracking is also part of the salvation strategy being foisted on the hapless Ukrainian people by their "friends" in Washington. No less a Washington insider than the son of VP Biden is helping to bring fracking to Ukraine.
While industry shills continue to deny it, there is a rapidly accumulating body of evidence linking fracking to contamination of groundwater and to seismic events in American states that have permitted the practice.
We can survive without oil. We cannot survive without water. Water resources must, in a sane world, trump the need for capital to maximize its profits.
Friday, August 31, 2012
A message from BP
How ya'll doin' folks!
I'm here to tell ya'll that as we approach the second anniversary of shutting down that ole rogue well out there in the Gulf, things are better than ever!
BP has committed 23 billion dollars to making sure that the Gulf area is cleaner and more prosperous than ever!
And it is!
The fishery has come back better than ever!
Tourism is setting records!
Here at BP we'd like to remind tens of thousands of you where your paycheck comes from! We create hundreds of jobs on the gulf coast, and through multiplier effects known only to professional economists that translates into tens, even hundreds of thousands of jobs!
Yup, things have never been better here on the Gulf Coast!
God-damn, I'm thinkin' we done ya'll a favor with that oil spill!
I'm here to tell ya'll that as we approach the second anniversary of shutting down that ole rogue well out there in the Gulf, things are better than ever!
BP has committed 23 billion dollars to making sure that the Gulf area is cleaner and more prosperous than ever!
And it is!
The fishery has come back better than ever!
Tourism is setting records!
Here at BP we'd like to remind tens of thousands of you where your paycheck comes from! We create hundreds of jobs on the gulf coast, and through multiplier effects known only to professional economists that translates into tens, even hundreds of thousands of jobs!
Yup, things have never been better here on the Gulf Coast!
God-damn, I'm thinkin' we done ya'll a favor with that oil spill!
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