It's not that uncommon for bad PR to occur when you're involved in a major accident. BP, in a very ironic twist, had to deal with an oil spill on a burning oil refinery on April 20th. Yes, that's right, on 4/20 a big oil rig in the Gulf Coast was lit up and burned away, causing what is now the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Its a triumph for irony considering it started two days before Earth Day and yet it seems like one one gives a shit about it.
At first, BP's stock went down, but was then slowly climbing back up. To minimize the damage to the name, BP downplayed how much oil was actually coming out. They got called bullshit on it and it was discovered that they had pictures of the accident. So BP released two still images of the well as it leaks massive amounts of oil into the ocean.
Throughout the clean-up effort, BP has monitored the spill site around the clock using submarine-mounted cameras at the mouth of the spill. An official at Oceaneering International, the company that operates the submarines under a contract with BP, told ABC News he "could walk right down the hall and watch it, but I can't share it without BP's express permission."
Eric Smith, a professor at Tulane University's Energy Institute said that footage could help in making independent assessments of the scope of the spill. But it also could do public relations damage to BP. It has remained closely guarded and cannot be made public under the argument that it is "proprietary," according to Coast Guard officials who have received repeated requests to release the images.
Eric Smith, a professor at Tulane University's Energy Institute said that footage could help in making independent assessments of the scope of the spill. But it also could do public relations damage to BP.
Bad Petroleum
Buying Politicians
Burying Puffins
Broken Pipes
Bonus Payouts
Botched Plug
Blowout Prevention
Poor company, wouldn't you say? If they had to release video of the leak then everyone would know that they lied about the flow rate of the oil. We can't have any of that, now can we? I wonder if scrubbing oil off a birds feathers with Dawn® brand dish soap count as a green job or if it's just corporate shilling?
The strangest part of all this is that BP is actually one of the more, if not the most, eco-friendly of the oil companies. I do realize that saying that is sort of like picking the nicest Nazi or something. So there's not much point in all that.
I have a friend who only bought BP gas for the longest time because they claim not to put 10% corn ethanol in their gas while Shell/Exxon/Chevron/Texaco somehow do. How ever will he come out of this moral quandary after this spill? I suggested that he steal a baby from a nursery, cut it open and drain it directly into his gas tank as a means to run his car. That act alone would be more ethical than buying from BP.
I mean, you could sell your car but.. ha! Yeah right that's actually happening. I also have to laugh at all the babies on facebook who want to boycott BP as if it fucking matters at all what company you get your oil from. No matter what you do it's not like one is more ethical than the other.
You may as well buy from BP stations because you're probably buying the exact same gas from the exact same refinery it just doesn't have ethanol in it... or at least has a sticker claiming it doesn't. If you believe that then I think you're a little too gullible. The name on the station really doesn't mean shit. Every other oil company is exactly as bad as BP, so no matter where you get it from it doesn't matter. If you don't want to pay corn farmers then don't buy the ethanol shit.. but then again, your tax dollars supports those lazy fuckers anyway.
The whole concept of refusing to buy BP gas is just as effective as that idiot protest where everyone didn't buy any gas on one day and then just filled their tank the day after or day before instead. BP will just sell their gas to chevron or exxon distributors and won't even notice any difference when it comes to their pocket books.
And to clarify for all of you folks who aren't in the good ol' U.S., yes, we have brands of petrol and they make competing claims about what they do to your engine that go beyond "make it run". I'm just happy to say that almost no American gives a flying fuck about where they get their gas. iPods apps for where to get the cheapest gas are a big business. People do make a distinction based on octane rating, but other than that, they don't care that Chevron has "Techron" cause we all know that's bullshit anyway.
For you Americans, the way that anyone else deals with gas is to look at the pump and make sure it's not diesel, followed by sticking it in the hole and pumping the gas into the car. But anyhow, back to the actual story at hand here.. Gas companies and their public image. You know, I'm pretty sure that BP could actually do something about all this.. how about stopping that leak and trying to clean up the mess caused by the spilled oil?
There's certainly nothing the Coast Guard can do about this. Other than, you know, stand around on a boat going "There is fuck all we can do about this". There's really just not much that can be done about it because nobody bothered to prepare for such an eventuality. It's sad but true.
The EPA is mostly just regulatory and research and since Bush stacked them with liberty "university" grads, I doubt it's in much shape to do much of either. State environmental groups do the same thing. Rubber stamp paper work and press lawsuits for token amounts after the fuck up, if they even bother to do that. Mineral Management service has probably been specifically built for the purpose of ensuring that any private entity that wants anything, gets it fast cheap and easy as they please.
Maybe we could just wall off the gulf, jam a bunch of well pipes into the sea floor like a Capri Sun; let the oil come to us, save millions of dollars on rig constructions that wont meet safety standards anyway. While I can say I'm trying to defend BP's shitty name, what role do we really want the government to play in this besides nationalizing everyone involved?
There are some congressional hearings where everyone's going to pass the buck that will eventually decide that they can safely blame the people that made the BOP because it didn't seal the well, regardless of the fact that that wasn't the cause for shit and the probable reason it didnt seal the well was that it was damaged in the explosion, the cause of which congress probably won't give a fuck about, but had nothing whatsoever to do with the BOP. The BOP company will say hey it wasn't our fault, the BOP was out of warranty and they should have tested it better or something. It'll just go around in circles for ever and ever.
Just think of the nightmare that is going to happen because of all that? What if we just say 'Fuck it' and pretend this never happened? Then again, everyone else is way ahead of me on that one. How about we check in on CNN for the latest on that oil spill thing, is that still going on?
In other more important news, Ronnie James Dio died yesterday at age 67 from stomach cancer. And is anyone else sick of seeing Reagan's mug yet or is it just me? I've been sick of seeing it for at least 25-30 years now. Not to mention hearing about him.
I know one thing for certain though, That oil spill sure has improved my shrimpin! Because, really.. only the tasty parts of the ecosystem matter. Do you realize how fucked that Gulf Coast sea life is? And while I realize that if it doesn't have any direct use or profit for the economy it is useless, this is a capitalistic system and needs a specific mantra after all. But maybe the only other real way that people are going to grasp and understand the damage of this accident is if they see a chart on which tasty meals they're going to lose out on because of the oil killing the ocean life.
How much more clear does one have to go out of their way to describe the level of damages this has caused? Do I need to pour a bunch of dye into the dolphin tanks at sea world? If you want an idea of how absolutely fucked the Gulf Coast is, then take a look at the following video from a 2006 field trip that some high school students took to the Prince William Sound Beach, decades after it was "cleaned" after the Exxon Valdez spill. Yes! Drill, baby, drill!
I suppose it's a lot of complaining about nothing. The Gulf was pretty dead already anyway. We killed it a long time ago but seem to conveniently forget a good week or two later. Our insatiable hunger for corn and cornally-derived food products raped the Gulf Coast long before any oil spilled into the water.
To clarify that for some of you who don't realize it, the Gulf was already badly polluted from fertilizer byproducts and runoff from the flyover states making so much corn. Basically the Mississippi is the countries anus and the Gulf is our toilet.
But hey, don't worry guys... Liberal Media leader NPR reassures me that this spill is no big deal at all...
Ken Ringle points out, in a commentary in the Nieman Watchdog, that very little oil has hit shore, and that much of the oil could evaporate. Also, sea water may break up even more of the spill. The leak is a calamity, he agrees, but may prove to be far less of a disaster than expected.
On the plus side, if you're intellectually and morally bankrupt, you could probably make some money shopping yourself around as an oil spill expert willing to say "IT'S NOT THAT BAD, WE CAN'T EVEN SEE IT!"
I guess the only thing to do now is bend mother nature over and let her take this and just buy stocks in these awful companies. Much like Exxon after Valdez, BP is on the way up again in the stock market and I'm sure if you're buying now, you're just collecting dollars for when the revolution comes as a result of these short sighted energy solutions.
But man, you thought New Orleans had it bad when Katrina went through there... Just wait till all of this is said and done and five years go by with their ecology long since dead.
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