Let's Get Creative
By: Jim Kirwan
The response from both government and the oil companies has been only self-protecting spin all the way to non-existent half-measures that no-one could believe in. The result has gone from being catastrophic to total helplessness on the part of those responsible at all levels. That’s the shape of the nightmare.
However a number of years ago an ingenious microbe was developed that actually feeds on oil until there is no more oil to consume whereupon the microbe dies: This development was heralded as a scientific-miracle at the time; yet it has not been used on any of the major oil disasters that continue to happen all around the world-why not? The answer to that question is “Because it works!” (1)
The link talks about six weeks, but that would have applied to a traditional spill with a fixed amount of oil to clean-up. Since new breaches in the ocean floor seem to occur every few days in the vicinity of the now destroyed Deep Water Horizon this would be a much larger task but one that could easily begin to put limits on the amount of damage to the oceans and to all the life that is dependent upon the health of those waters. Most of all this solution could perhaps stop the spread of the pollution from reaching beyond the Gulf of Mexico-is this why no one in authority wants to use it?
If we really want to end some of these practices, and not just continue to wait for each new assault upon us to come from those who believe they really do now ‘own us,’ then ‘we’ have to begin to “Get Creative.”
To do that we need to take the profit out of failure: Throughout the corporate world. Corporate profits begin by failing to assess the true costs throughout everything they do: However those costs do get paid, by you and I, while all the profits go to those that have stolen the resources and hijacked the entire oversight process at every level. This primitive practice insures that the Outlaws never have to pay anything for their resources or their mistakes. The practice also guarantees them maximum profits at every level of their crimes, and since they own every aspect of every “business” they take over: There is simply no way that their profits can ever be threatened by anything as ridiculous as the US government or the people of any of the nations where they continue to pursue these barbaric practices that have so fouled the world’s oceans, forests and lands as to make “regulating them” (the oil giants) the butt of the biggest joke of the New-Criminal-Millennium.
While the above is all too true, there are still other ways of dealing with this, and given the scale of the potential nightmare, maybe people might begin to demand real changes in the way these New-Robber-Barons are still treated (same as the old Robber-Barons, only now there is way more booty to be had).
We know that government oversight has not worked, anymore than have the courts or the congress, or any of the many other bureaucratic creations that are all in bed with the Oil-Giants. It’s way past time to change all the rules concerning oil. All monitoring practices from laboratories that assess toxic substances, all the way to assuring safety by disallowing the oil company’s owership of every step in the process from drilling through shipping, to processing and finally to commercial sales. The corporations must be barred from owning every step in every industry they own, as this is currently practiced. This breakup is required because it is rife with criminal abuses of not just the safety of every phase but because the illicit profits garnered in this way, are not shared with either the consumers or the government in taxes.
Whenever there is an accident with an aircraft, in the military that is major, all the planes of that type are grounded and inspected until it is clear that each of those other planes is safe to fly. The same thing should be done with all the drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico; especially the deep-water platforms. The USmilitary ought to be sent out immediately to halt all production on those platforms. The lease-contracts for those drill-sites should all be voided. With massive fines to be assessed for the company failures to comply with the safeguards and regulations that were created to protect the public (and the world) from these kinds of accidents. This policy ought to apply to every offshore drilling platform.
The fishing industry ought to be put in charge of certifying that the waters of the oceans are clean enough for their professions to be practiced and not the oil companies. That alone would eliminate a huge cadre of phony government management types that basically take graft and bribes to let the oil companies do whatever they wanted to do all along. This policy could be easily enacted; and because it is in the fishermen’s best interests to keep the oceans as clean as possible: it would not be subject to the types of massive fraud and scientific malfeasance that is routine now.
Furthermore a bond of three-trillion dollars ought to be levied against every oil company with offshore platforms. (Exxon, Shell, Halliburton, and all the others in addition to BP) That money would provide the public with a guarantee that the oil companies will pay all the costs of every mistake, anywhere that these “accidents” continue to happen. If accidents begin to cost the companies in real money at least part of what they always cost us then the companies would have a real interest in assuring that accidents don’t happen. At the moment the exact opposite is true because oil-related accidents have increased their profits, in direct relation to the seriousness of “these accidents.” (2)
Since BP supplies 39% of our oil, they should be made an example of. The public fears that to anger to these companies is to invite more major problems: Yet when we have been living inside that fear now since they became giants, and the situation has now given us this colossal attack upon the entire planet-not to mention our way of life everywhere in a potentially totally polluted world. What could be worse?
The oil-consuming microbe mentioned in the first link below ought to be mandatory on every offshore platform, in every refinery, on every oil tanker anywhere in the world-as a basic precaution and assurance against exactly this kind of disaster. That would eliminate the childish and ineffectual booms that always fail, and the clean-up crews that are not protected when the pitiful tasks of cleaning up the mess are sadly and belatedly undertaken. All of these nineteenth century methods ought to junked, in favor of fighting the spills and leaks with a twenty-first century solution: the oil eating microbe. And the money saved ought to be devoted to creating new energy sources that will eliminate our crippling dependence on oil-at-any-price!
By the way there are two massive oil fields in the Alaska area. One of those was discovered in the 1950’s and it holds enough oil to supply America for the next 250 years: It was capped immediately upon discovery; and the articles that did make it out at the time have been erased. So there’s more than enough oil for everyone and it should be far cheaper now than ever: Instead we have allowed these hucksters to sell the idea that oil is running out (Peak-Oil) and therefore we must pay more. When that concept failed, we have this latest “accident” to terrify the planet and insure the rise of the price of oil so that it might soon get back to costing more than bottled water does right now.
And therein lies the truth surrounding all of this: The real problem which the earth faces today which is the total control over the food, through genetic engineering (now 70% complete) coupled with total control of oil, and soon to be unveiled, the privatized-control over the remaining unpolluted water that all people must have to drink-just to survive. All three of these essentials of life are now owned by the same people that are controlling the banks, and the economies of the world. We must come together to break this hammer-lock upon us all or we shall surely die alone; in an agony of thirst and hunger, in a polluted world that can no longer heal itself.
The true costs of our War-on-Nature are today still being borne by the general public and the innocent life in nature: That must be reversed so that those that cause these damages are the ones that pay and pay severely, in direct proportion to the damage they seek to cause, in order to enhance profits while they continue to solidify their control over the population of the planet.
“Apr 27, 2010 07:04 EDT Energy giant BP said Tuesday that first-quarter profits rocketed on higher oil prices but admitted that the news was overshadowed by last week’s tragic accident at a rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Europe’s biggest oil company said net profit soared 137 percent to 6.08 billion dollars in the three months to March compared with the same period in 2009. Adjusted net profit on a replacement cost basis soared 135 percent to 5.6 billion dollars.
The replacement cost figure, which excludes the effect of changes in the value of oil and gas inventories, is closely watched by the market and compared with analyst expectations for profits of 4.81 billion dollars. Production in the three month period was little changed at 4.01 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.” (3)
Using this oil-eating-microbe will not solve all the problems this nightmare created: But it could be the Turning-Point that spells the end of this murderous barbarity of the New-Old World Order that has been trying to kill us for thousands of years. “Let’s get Creative” and bury them instead!
kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net