To The Left Of...The Oil Drum

On Memorial Day I posted a rather provocative question to the Oil Drum website regarding the efforts of British Petroleum to stop the Deepwater Horizon oil leak. I got a lot of provocative answers. In fact, I felt a bit like a private detective character in a crime noir film who walks into the midst of a street brawl unawares. I took a few lumps. But here's giving a few lumps back again (as private detective characters usually do).

My question was as follows:

I have been following the Deepwater Horizon story from a bit of a distance. I am not an oil man or oil industry expert by any means. But seeing the multiple failed efforts to plug the leak, along with the continued low-balling of estimates of the magnitude of the leak on the part of BP and the U.S. Federal government, I can't help but be a bit skeptical about a few things. To me it seems that BP's efforts are constrained by its desire to protect its profits from damage at all costs. I think they're just dinking around. I wonder - not that I think this would ever happen in our country at present - but what if money was no object; how quickly could this leak be stopped?

By "stopped" I mean stopped - without any regard for whether BP could use this well afterward. How could it be that "money was no object" in stopping the leak? One of two ways - either assume that BP has unlimited resources, or assume that a government (such as the U.S. government) had the guts and the strong moral sense to seize BP's assets and liquidate the company entirely in order to pay for the quickest and most effective means of stopping the leak. In other words, someone with a backbone and means of enforcement would have to make BP an "offer they couldn't refuse." What sort of engineering solutions would be available then? And how quickly could they be implemented?

It's an academic question to be sure, since it's not going to happen. But considering such a question would at least provide us with a "delta" between what could happen if those in charge really wanted to stop this mess versus what's happening now.

You can read both my question and some of the answers here. Now here's the thing. Most of those who answered my comment attacked my lack of expertise and the obvious “silliness” of my question and assumptions. I'll have to give them a bit of credit; as I said, I am not an oil man or oil industry expert. These same people were very sympathetic to BP, stating that BP was doing the best job it could under the circumstances, a “first class effort” undertaken by the “best minds on the task.” One poster commented that “...we should all wish them luck, and after all, they really are working for the collective 'us'.” Another wrote that “the idea that BP is withholding some efforts on the basis of costs is pure nonsense. Your analysis is just not credible...” Yet another said that “right from the start BP volunteered to pay for everything although they could have hidden behind a $75 million cap for the clean-up...”

Farther down the comment thread are posts unconnected to my question, written by posters who gush (pardon the pun) about the “breathtaking skill of the engineers and technicians” now working to stop the leak. One poster writes that “we are seeing stuff akin to what NASA does.” He also writes, “We are witnessing the destruction of wealth and assets and reputation and we may never be certain if anyone really screwed up...KUDOS to the people in the petroleum industry. You all rock!” There's more obsequious frothing at the mouth in praise of the petroleum industry, but I'll let you all read it for yourself if you're interested.

Once again, I admit that I'm certainly no oil production expert. But I also have experience in witnessing the mismanagement of problems in engineered systems, along with the inevitable lying and cover-ups that occur afterward. In fairness to the many fine experts at the Oil Drum, I promise to read up on the tech talks that have been written about the efforts to stop this leak. I am sure they are all fascinating. However, I think the following points are still worthy of mention:

• BP's low-balling of the magnitude of the leak, from the very first days after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon until now;

• The attempts to cover up the extent of the environmental damage and of the spread of the oil, as I documented in my last posts on this subject;

• The use of a toxic dispersant chemical (Corexit) by BP in an attempt to break up some of the oil slicks, instead of more expensive, yet more effective and environmentally-benign chemicals used by other companies;

• And lastly, the lies that were published in the mainstream media (such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp outlets) about the “progress” being made by BP in bringing the spill under control (such as the ship that was supposedly sucking 5,000 barrels of oil per day from the leak).

These things all make me question (and frankly gag over) the party line that BP is a wonderful company that just happened to be the victim of an accident that's nobody's fault and that nobody caused, and now BP is exerting superhuman efforts to try to clean up the resulting mess. It is still a valid question to ask whether the most effective engineering solutions are being employed here.

I'm also wondering a bit about the Oil Drum. When I first started visiting that site, I was drawn into participating in some of the online discussions, driven by a fascination with the Peak Oil story and wondering how it would all play out. I made the “mistake” of announcing that I was a Christian once when I ran across an online discussion that was critical of Christians, in which most of the posters assumed that we were all like Sarah Palin or Pat Robertson. Because of my admission, I was treated to another round of “private-detective-gets-jumped.” Nowadays it's ironic that I, the moralist, the believer in an absolute standard of right and wrong, should suddenly find myself to the left of ... the Oil Drum! For not only am I lately finding a curious reluctance to discuss anthropogenic climate change over there, but I am also finding posters who are horrified at the thought that the Federal Government might ever force BP to make full restitution for the mess they have caused.

But true restitution is a sign of true repentance (Luke 19:8). Not only does BP not seem repentant, but the entire oil industry seems reprobate – what with Shell Oil winning leases for offshore drilling near Alaska and Canada issuing permits for drilling off its coasts – all in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon leak. Morality won't stop these people from continuing to make a mess. Our only hope for oceans that retain even some semblance of life is for another sweeping credit crunch that destroys the ability of oil companies to finance deepwater projects.

As to credit crunches, a curious thing has been happening. In 2008, as oil prices spiked to nearly $150 a barrel, credit markets crashed. Some argue to this day over whether or not the two phenomena were related. As a result of the crash, oil prices fell to nearly $30 a barrel. Now they are back over $70 a barrel. But we recently saw another credit crunch, this time involving not just banks, but the countries of the Eurozone. Oil had been trending above $83 a barrel just before that crisis. Now the price of oil has fallen to the low $70's (and is starting to rise again). But notice that this credit crunch did not deflate prices to nearly the same extent as the 2008 credit crisis.

To me this is a validation of Oil Drum analyst Tony Erickson's earlier prediction that there would be a significant decline in global oil production throughout 2010 – for oil prices are remaining stubbornly high even as deflationary events continue to happen throughout the world. (Tony Erickson is one of the good guys in my opinion, by the way.) But that's just my guess. As I am not an expert on oil, I don't pretend to be an expert on money matters either. ;)

Good Water From Other Wells

I've been reading some great blog posts lately from some of my fellow writers, thinkers and doers. I thought I'd share them with you all.

First, Stormchild, author of the blog Gale Warnings, has written a good post titled, “Complexity vs. Complication.” It is a look at the dynamics of human systems, where complexity is the result of the connections between various parts of human systems and complication is the result of human “cussedness” or contrariness or indwelling sin. Complex systems can be fixed when they go wrong. Complicated systems can't, because there are people in those systems who don't want a fix. That insight can be applied to many of the large scale societal systems under which we suffer just now.

Jerry, author of SoapBoxTech, has a number of good posts. “SoapBox Thoughts on Arizona” presents intelligent commentary on the recent Arizona immigration law, while “Salvation, For Now” discusses the need for some locales to shift to dryland farming techniques as part of adapting to climate change. As to the viability of modern industrial agriculture, “How Technology Almost Killed Mixed Farming” is a good read. And “Transgenic GMO's Causing Bee Crisis?” discusses how genetically modified crops may be contributing to colony collapse disorder among honeybees.

Speaking of bees, Aimee of New To Farm Life has been writing about her experiences in learning to keep bees. Her latest bee post is “The Bee-Man Speaks”. Aimee and her husband are impressive in that while I might write about doing a thing, she and her husband both do it and find time to write about it. In addition to bees, they also keep goats and chickens (and who knows what else ;) ).

And for those trying out urban homesteading, I want to welcome a new follower of my blog, namely Heidi, author of The Itty Bitty Farm in the City. It's nice to meet another person who is learning to practice preparedness and sustainable living in an urban environment.

Davy Jones Disturbed - One Month Later

This will be a short post – my schedule has suddenly become much busier. I will say, though, that I have some good interviews lined up, and hopefully you will be seeing them over the next two months. I also owe you all a transcript of my “post-Peak health care” interview with Holly Scholles of Birthingway College of Midwifery.

Today let's talk about the ongoing oil leak caused by the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. I want to list the lies that have been told so far by British Petroleum (BP) and its allies in the mainstream media:

• Residents of Texas who discovered dead sea turtles washing up on their beaches soon after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting oil spill were told that there was no connection between the oil spill and the dead sea turtles on Texas shores. This assertion was heavily implied in coverage of the event by Fox News. However, the truth is that the numbers of dead sea turtles are triple the normal amount for this time of year. A more accurate picture of the environmental damage can be found at the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and similar sites.

• Tar balls are now washing up on the beaches of Florida. The U.S. Coast Guard recently asserted that “lab tests show conclusively that the the Florida Keys tar balls are not linked to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.” The funny thing is that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration requires that all water, tar or oil samples collected in the area affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill must be sent to TDI-Brooks International's B&B Laboratories, located in Texas. TDI-Brooks' biggest clients are multinational oil companies such as British Petroleum, owner of the Deepwater Horizon. Clearly, there is a conflict of interest here.

• The “official” size of the leak has never lined up with reality. The official figure being bandied about is 5000 barrels per day. In the early aftermath of the disaster, that figure was far lower, as the official estimates of the severity of the leak were being published by...BP, of course! Estimates were revised upward from a mere 1000 barrels per day to the current 5000 as it became quickly obvious that BP's figures were unrealistic. Now some very respectable sources are saying that the 5000-barrel-per-day figure is also wildly optimistic. According to these sources, the figure should be closer to 70,000 barrels per day. (See “Daily Kos: Deepwater Horizon: The first 30 days” and “Gulf Oil Spill May Far Exceed Government, BP Estimates : NPR” for instance.) According to one estimate, the resulting oil slick now covers more area than the state of West Virginia.

• Descriptions of BP's effectiveness in stopping, stemming or containing the leak have proven time and time again to be very exaggerated. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp outlets, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, have regularly and uncritically published BP's pronouncements that progress is being made in stemming the leak (see “FOXNews.com - British Petroleum Caps One of Three Gulf Oil Leaks”, and “Spill Fight Shows Progress - WSJ.com” for instance). Yet these statements are being regularly disproved. BP's recent statement that they were siphoning off 5000 barrels per day from the leak via a specially-equipped ship had to be revised downward, as reported here.

The situation is improving for people who want to get at the truth of the seriousness of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. There is now a live camera feed showing the leak in real time, via both satellite imagery and underwater cameras at the leak site. This live feed has been overloaded, showing just how many people are interested in learning the truth. There are also independent experts who are not friends of the oil industry, who can also provide insight into the magnitude of the disaster.

The truth that emerges is not a pretty picture. What is being seen is that BP who were incompetent in managing offshore oil drilling, are just as incompetent in managing the cleanup from an offshore well blowout. Either that, or they are unwilling to mount the sort of effort needed to stop the Gulf oil leak in a timely manner due to fear of reducing their profit margin. It is high time to bring in more competent agencies, even if this means we have to ask for help from foreign governments. This will of course tarnish the myth of American exceptionalism, as well as exposing BP to increased civil and criminal liability (for many more people will see the evidence of the magnitude of the mess BP have created). That's just too bad. Time is of the essence here. Otherwise, we face the prospect of 70,000 barrels of oil per day polluting our oceans for months on end, while BP dithers about and expends most of their energy protecting their stock value instead of taking responsibility for their mess.

Pravda Moments

This is not the land that was promised me,

Even as far as my eyes can see...

– Not The Land, Derek Webb

There is a series of articles about Soviet history at the PBS website. One article deals with the function of propaganda in the Soviet regime, specifically mentioning Pravda, the former official news organ of the Soviet Communist Party, which is now an independent news/editorial organization in its own right. The PBS article states that, “When the Bolshevik party came to power in the October 1917 revolution, it immediately began creating the world's first modern propaganda state. This is not at all surprising...The means of communication...were ordered seized as a priority. To hold the means of communication denied them to enemies. Public opinion mattered; making sure rivals could not get their message out mattered more.” The purpose of seizing all means of mass communication was simple: to reform and re-structure a society comprised of many heterogeneous traditions and traditional sources of authority into a cohesive unit under a strong central authority.

Thus the Bolsheviks attacked any rival authorities, including traditions of elders, ancient yet heterogeneous cultures, parental authority and religious faith. In place of these authorities they inserted themselves and their party structure, and they created a new collective of “saints” and heroes to legitimize their reign in the minds of their subjects. The constant hammering of their message through state-owned means of mass communication was another means by which they sought to legitimize themselves.

From the start, the Bolsheviks wanted to turn Russia into a new, modern, scientifically advanced techno-utopia. This was the Soviet ideal. Lenin's administration achieved the widespread electrification of the Soviet Union in a very short time. The rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union continued under Stalin, along with the breakup of family farming and the rise of collective farms. These things took place alongside the massive indoctrination of Russian children and youth in order to displace the influence of local, traditional culture and the authority of elders.

For a long while, this strategy worked. Soviet life began to improve and modern technology became widely available to a large percentage of the population. World War Two validated the propaganda depiction of the Soviet Union as a utopian experiment threatened by enemies, and validated Stalin as a defender of that utopia-in-progress. After the war, the Soviets rebuilt and expanded their industrial economy, achieving some significant public relations victories with the detonation of their own nuclear weapons, the launch of the world's first artificial satellite, the first man in space and the first space walk. While times were good and things were going the Soviets' way, it was easy for the average Soviet man on the street to believe the propaganda being pushed on him.

That began to change in the late 1970's and 1980's, as the Soviet regime experienced a series of reversals and setbacks, and ordinary people in the Soviet Union were able to travel more freely to other countries. It became apparent to a large number of people that the reality of their daily lives contradicted official media pronouncements. As one source wrote in the 1880's, the old joke about the Soviet press was that “there's no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia.” Soviet media began to lose its power. Samizdat and alternative sources of news became much more important.

At least, that's how I understand how all this worked out. I must provide a caveat: I'm not Russian and haven't lived anywhere near Russia during my entire life. But my opinion is formed by the sources I've read and by sketchy memories of a Cold War childhood.

There are parallels between the “world's first propaganda state,” as Western propagandists describe the Soviet Union, and the supposedly “free,” “democratic” nations of the West, particularly the United States. I won't belabor them, as they have already been covered amply by other writers (particularly by a former citizen of the Soviet Union, a copy of whose book I own). One of those parallels does deserve some mention, however.

In the West (particularly the United States) over the years, some extremely rich people have succeeded in loosening state restrictions on the concentration and aggregation of wealth and resources. These restrictions were originally created to prevent large numbers of people from being hurt by the side effects of predatory capitalism. These restrictions are now almost completely erased. One of these restrictions was a restriction on the amount of media ownership any one person or corporation could have.

Because that restriction has been largely erased, a handful of men own huge numbers of very rich and powerful media outlets. I am thinking of Rupert Murdoch in particular (as some of you probably guessed), who is as rabid and enthusiastic an apologist for predatory capitalism as Pravda once was for Soviet socialism.

The problem for Mr. Murdoch (and for people like him) is that recent events are presenting a reality of daily experience for many Americans which is very different from the official party line they get from Fox News or the Wall Street Journal. This reality is not being experienced in isolation, but rather out in the open, by people who can look at each other and compare notes. This makes it harder for the propaganda machine to say, “So your experience is different from what we promised? That's because you're a failure.” In other words, it's getting harder for perpetrators of societal abuse to blame their victims for their own suffering.

A media outlet like Fox might still be able to succeed in making someone feel guilty for losing his job and being on food stamps (even though this person is out of work because of massive layoffs or the bankruptcy of his employer). But how can one blame residents of coastal cities and towns for a massive oil spill that pollutes their beaches and contaminates their groundwater? Or how is this the fault of “them 'terrrists,' socialists and liberals!”? By the way, which “news” outlets and political candidates were pushing the “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” message over the last two years?

The right-wing media in this country (which comprises the majority of mainstream media nowadays) would tell us that greed is good, that laissez-fare capitalism is wonderful, and that all our social problems can be solved if only we remove all governmental restrictions and “let the market decide” what our lives shall be. But if free markets and small government are so wonderful, who poisoned the water supply of Charleston, West Virginia to such an extent that seven-year-old boys there now have mouths full of caps on teeth that have been rotted away from drinking the water?

The “free-market,” selfish, “greed-is-good,” John Galt message of the American Right is diametrically opposed to reality, and is a very bad way of coping with a future of diminishing resources and a poisoned planet. For a long time, forward-thinking people have known this to be true, although the signs of our resource and environmental predicament were not obvious to most. Now the signs are becoming a lot more obvious. The Kool-Aid we've been fed is starting to make more people queasy - or, as Ahavah Gayle said recently on her blog Shalom Habayit, "This caviar tastes funny." The Deepwater Horizon accident was an American “Pravda moment.” The United States and its dominant media will be experiencing many more “Pravda moments” in the near future. Hopefully, such moments will be the start of an adult conversation.

For Further Reading,

• “Propaganda Investigative Assets: Insights,” PBS

• “The Editorial Notebook; Dear Pravda,” the New York Times

• “INVASION - A COMPARISON OF SOVIET AND WESTERN MEDIA PERFORMANCE,” Medialens

• “Toxic Waters,” the New York Times

Surviving The Hollowing-Out of the U.S. Tech Sector

This post is another “diary” post, as opposed to a more journalistic essay. It is also a midweek post, so I'll try to keep it short. There won't be many links, as I don't have time for exhaustive research, but I'll try to include a few relevant and interesting sources.

As I have said before on this blog, I am an engineer. The type of engineering I do involves generating plans and specifications for large-scale built structures and facilities, whether they be shopping centers, airports, rail terminals, military installations, or industrial plants. I have noticed certain trends over the years, trends which recently seem to be coming to a point of crisis.

For over fifteen years, large design firms have been outsourcing various parts of construction engineering and design. It started with CAD, and has by now grown to advanced engineering up through detailed design. The countries of choice for outsourcing are China and India. Most U.S. based major design firms now have design centers in India. (I won't name names here. I still have to live in this town.)

I know of a firm whose stock was highly valued over the last few years, and which had an impressive backlog of large clients, both military and industrial. However, the economic meltdown that began in earnest in 2008 dried up a significant portion of that backlog and of their client list. One example: someone I know was involved in designing facilities for an industrial metals mine which was operating in a region where concentrations of the metal in the ore had dropped to very low levels. In order to continue operating that mine, the operators needed a stable and relatively high price for their finished metal. The crash in commodity prices at the tail end of 2008 shut down the mine (and one of this engineer's projects).

This firm was typical of most of the large players – publicly traded, requiring constant dividend growth in order to promote increased share prices, and having a business growth strategy that often consisted of capturing market share by buying up smaller firms. 2008 was a year in which dividend growth and corporate growth were threatened by the global economic contraction. This company's management turned much more to outsourcing – in an attempt, I believe, to maintain profit and dividend growth. Meanwhile, several of their U.S. offices began to shrink.

Did the outsourcing strategy work as intended? That's a hard question to answer. The local office had regular meetings where employees were told that “although we're facing lean times now, the future looks bright!” And, “The company is doing well overall!” I think, however, that they may have missed at least one 2009 earnings target.

They began to rely heavily on outsourcing in order to boost profits and increase competitiveness in a shrinking market, but I think the best they have been able to do is to slow their own bleeding. One other problem they have is that because they are so large, their business model depends on securing long-term contracts with large clients. This is the only way they can profitably support their large cadre of middle and upper managers. Outsourcing was a way for them to lower their fees in order to win these clients while maintaining their revenue flows.

But the supply of large, stable clients with lots of construction capital is drying up. Or at least, that's what I suspect, based on what I've seen over the last year. This is a natural consequence of a contracting global economy, in which both private and government clients have become so heavily indebted that it is becoming clear that they can't repay their debts. This is something I knew about via the news and blogs I read (read the May 10 post from the Automatic Earth blog to see how this is playing out in Europe) – yet I hadn't experienced it as directly until my own work started drying up and the firm I worked for began to shrink. For I also worked at a typical large firm. The story I told you about one particular large firm applies to most of the major players, I suspect. And it goes to show that a person is not always confined to reading the news – sometimes he gets to live the news as well.

As I said, I worked (or more accurately, used to work) at a typical large firm. But I found myself at home twiddling my thumbs for several weeks this year, due to lack of work. By now I have become addicted to groceries and hot and cold running water, so I needed to find a way to support my habit. I discovered that while the large firms seem to be contracting in several regions of the U.S., there were small firms that were still able to find plenty of work. As I once said to a co-worker, “It's easier for a cat to survive on a diet of mice than it is for a grizzly bear.” All the elk and moose seem to be disappearing. I am now at a cat-sized (smaller) firm.

This firm's projects rarely exceed a few hundred thousand dollars. Many of them are in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. There's still a lot of work to be done for that kind of money. It's quick-turnaround, bang-it-out work – and it keeps me on my toes. Yet even this I do not expect to last, due to the ecological and resource constraints which initiated our economic contraction in the first place. I think the economy still has a lot of shrinkage left to endure.

Therefore, my eyes are still open to options. One such option is teaching. God willing, I will be teaching a quarter of a sophomore engineering class as an adjunct at a local college. This college also does research on renewable energy, so I'll have a chance to rub shoulders with some bright people who can educate me as to just what can and cannot be accomplished on a societal level with the renewable energy options currently available. I suspect that the application of renewables will involve asking hard-headed questions about what a particular energy source is actually good for, and whether certain applications need this source or whether they are better performed using more low-tech methods. In other words, I think that the next few years will force us to triage our industrial society and its living arrangements. I suspect that engineering in the U.S. will soon be mainly about designing small-scale systems appropriate for poor communities. The future, moreover, will belong to people who know how to do productive things, not to people who only know how to "manage." Those who can teach others how to do productive things will enjoy a special place in their communities.

By the way, if you want to read an article on the ethics of outsourcing U.S. construction engineering projects to other countries, check this out: “Outsourcing Affects Civil Engineers, Too.”

Waiting for a Chicken Tenders Platter at Applebee's...

One night last week, I had a work-related evening appointment which lasted until nearly 9 PM. I wasn't thrilled about having to fix myself dinner at that hour, so I went to an Applebee's near my house. Lately the Applebee's chain has been hosting live music at some of its locations (along with other odd variations on the “family restaurant” theme, such as face painting.) I ordered my usual and waited.

As I waited I heard a young woman, a solo acoustic singer-songwriter type who was strumming away on her guitar and singing lyrics of the “confessional” sort. Most people were oblivious to her, but because she was situated next to the bar, some of the patrons there applauded her at the end of each song she sang. One middle-aged man was paying particular attention to her, repeatedly asking her if she would come away to Australia with him. Later on he began to harmonize with her, contributing “oohs” and “ahhs” that were actually in key, surprisingly enough. Still, his “contributions” got on my nerves, and I was glad that I was sitting several tables away. At one point, the man asked her, “Can you rock out?!” “Yeah, when I have my band!” was her answer.

I found myself asking myself why this woman was singing at an Applebee's on a week night. This led to the larger question of why there were so many people like her, both male and female, whose chosen ambition was to make it big as rock or pop stars or singer-songwriters. After all, the field is very crowded and after a while, everyone starts to sound the same. “Making it” in the business has come to mean being signed by some major record label, and becoming rich and famous shortly thereafter. But the music “industry” has many gatekeepers who have turned music into a standardized, commoditized package consisting of a limited selection of musical “flavors.” I am sure that it's very hard for an artist to be widely heard outside the dominant system.

What of those who are outside the dominant system? It seems to me that one key to their continued existence (and happiness) is that they've lowered or altered their expectations of what they want to get out of their music. They have turned their backs on trying to be famous. If they are trying to make a living, it's via teaching (or busking) or performing at weddings and other functions – and they have a backup “day job.” Otherwise, they play just for the fun of it. (Maybe that's what that woman at Applebee's was doing.)

This got me thinking about blogging. The same sorts of questions could be asked of many bloggers, especially the left-leaning, anti-materialist sort who write politically-tinged blogs. “Why do you do it?” And, “Don't you know that you all are a dime a dozen by now? Who pays attention to you, anyway?” “You think you're gonna change the world just because you went to Guitar Center and bought a guitar and an amp?” “You think you're gonna change the world just because you started a blog?”

There's an uncomfortable reality behind these questions. One blogger said recently that in the United States, we have the illusion of freedom of speech. This is because while anyone can say almost anything they want, the chances of any ordinary person being heard by a large audience are very small. The balance of media power is still skewed very much in favor of a small number of very wealthy people who have inordinate media access, and who use that access to unrelentingly hammer home their message, their worldview, and an agenda that is harmful to many.

But there is a further problem, namely, that most of America has been advertised to death by now. As a result, most of us are jaded. In the minds of many of us, anyone who has a message must have some ulterior motive which will cost us dearly if we allow ourselves to be persuaded by the message being offered. “Besides, we've heard it all before,” many of us say. “Why should I trust you?”

I don't have easy answers to any of these questions. I have to admit that when I first started blogging, I guess I had some half-conscious idea that “I could change the world” – maybe just a little. Now I'm much less optimistic. At this time in our national and societal history, when we are facing a comprehensive predicament that will require intelligence, maturity and the starting of adult conversations that most people would rather not have, the best I can hope for is that I can engage a handful of others in an adult conversation. And I appreciate the conversations of some of my fellow bloggers, conversations which I have been privileged to join. We can think of ourselves as participants in a “house concert.”

Deepwater Event Horizon

I was sitting in a job safety training meeting this morning. The trainers challenged us all to examine our attitudes toward jobsite safety, especially attacking the assumption which they believe to be prevalent among many employees that “what really matters to our company is the bottom line. If safety interferes with the bottom line, then safety has to take a back seat.” The trainers emphatically stated that at their jobsite, safety is always first.

This got me thinking about the recent deepwater oil well blowout and sinking of the British Petroleum mobile rig Deepwater Horizon. I haven't been able to follow the story as closely as I should, but I do know a few things, namely, that the sinking of the rig killed eleven people onboard; that according to reliable sources, the rig was the deepest in the world; and that for years its owner, BP, had fought the sort of safety regulations that would have prevented a disaster of the magnitude we now see. The ruptured well is leaking between 5000 and 25,000 barrels of oil per day at present (depending on whose estimate you believe), and has leaked enough oil to form a slick bigger than Rhode Island. BP's present efforts at inserting a concrete cap on the sea floor will only deal with one source of leakage; by now there are several. And there is a chance that the cap will not work as intended. Moreover, it may be months before BP can stop the leak fully. Lastly, this massive oil leak comes during both the spawning season for a lot of sea wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, and the beginning of the tropical storm season in the Atlantic.

Although I am an engineer, I am by no means an expert on the oil industry. But I am a student of human nature. I remember the strategy of the McCain-Palin campaign in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, and how the Republicans and Rupert Murdoch's Fox News blamed high energy prices on “excessive” Democratic/leftist concerns over the environment. The Republican message was simple: “Drill here, drill now, pay less,” and they wanted to open up all of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the United States and its coastal waters to oil drilling. The Gulf Coast states were all Republican-leaning “red states” in the 2008 election, with the exception of Florida.

Now they are about to be baptized in oil.

I wonder how many Republican-leaning good-ole-boy commercial fishermen will have their businesses wiped out this year by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. I wonder how many coastal residents will be sickened by toxic chemicals washing up onto their beaches. I wonder how much of an economic disaster the Gulf Coast will have to face from the spill. More importantly, I wonder how many of these people will be both able and willing to connect the dots between their lifestyles and electoral choices and the oil now killing their ocean. “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” Or as J.R.R. Tolkein once wrote, “The burned hand teaches best. After that, advice about fire goes to the heart.”

That is generally true, I suppose – unless someone interferes with the lesson of the burned hand by drugging the burn sufferer. And Fox News is a willing pusher of drugs these days. Their coverage of the disaster has painted BP in a very positive, almost heroic light, while greatly exaggerating the effectiveness of the work done by BP to date to stop the oil leaks. They have also tried blame shifting, questioning whether the Obama administration's response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster was effective enough. They have downplayed reports of dead animals washing up on Gulf Coast shores, saying, “...even though the dead turtles and jellyfish washing ashore along the Gulf of Mexico are clean, and scientists have yet to determine what killed them, many are just sure the flow of crude unleashed by the explosion at BP's Deepwater Horizon is the culprit.” And in an unbelievable display of bad timing, they have even revived the “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” mantra, as stated in an opinion piece written by Newt Gingrich yesterday. I have compared Fox to a collection of drug pushers, but to publish the kind of distortions they do they must all be taking mind-altering drugs. Then again, money is a drug, and some people will do anything to get some of it.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is an example of the risks that come with trying to exploit ultra-deepwater oil reserves. Many respectable analysts do not believe that deepwater oil will save the world from a post-Peak state of affairs. But deepwater oil can make one really huge mess. How much more can the earth's oceans take before all the life in them collapses?

Sources:

• The Oil Drum | The Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

• FOXNews.com - British Petroleum Caps One of Three Gulf Oil Leaks

• Power Line - Was the Federal Response to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster Adequate?

• BP Fought Safety Measures at Deepwater Oil Rigs - ABC News

• Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Explosion

• NEWT GINGRICH: We Can't Let Gulf Spill Put An End to American Offshore Drilling

• Gulf Oil Spill a Slow-Motion Hurricane‎

• How Much Oil Has Leaked Out of Deepwater Horizon? : TreeHugger