Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

Ok by now, we've all heard of it. The fractured pipe from that oil rig explosion. Said to be pumping thousands of gallons of the fossil fuel into the ocean. Damaging ecosystems and beaches everywhere.

What are your thoughts on it.

My opinion, This is BP's rig isn't it? It is. BP. British Petroleum. A British company. They caused it and haven't been able/wanted to fix it yet. If you ask me, it's payback for breaking away.

If the dang petrol companies hadn't bought the rights to the Electric Car, this likely wouldn't have happened. And the extremely helpful executives are just sitting there looking at their profit margin.

This might be relevant

Hopefully everybody realizes how urgent it is that we invest more in alternative energy sources.

Also, I don't appreciate the OP being shit.

My opinion, This is BP's rig isn't it? It is. BP. British Petroleum. A British company. They caused it and haven't been able/wanted to fix it yet. If you ask me, it's payback for breaking away.

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Because, y'know, if the oil spills in American waters it'll stay there and not have an effect on the surrounding area. And also the British are still angry about us breaking of over two hundred years ago. And they would retaliate by attacking the Earth and sea birds and fish and stuff.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Anyway, it is pretty worrying, me being in a state on the coast, but hopefully it'll be contained as best it can.

You guys in America aren't the only ones with oil spill problems.

In any case, yeah, alternative energy is screaming for use. In fact, over here, nuclear energy has been suggested by some politicians, but nearly everyone is against it. :(

the thing needs to be resolved asap (seriously why hasn't it been fixed yet?) and they need to start figuring out alternative energy already, dammit. >:/

Someone said (facetiously?) that this is probably better for the environment than actually using the oil.

... said:

Because containing a huge oil spill is sort of difficult? BP's best scientists are having difficulties coming up with solutions. Some of the solutions they tried (the dome) simply haven't been tied at that depth before. It would be in their best interest to get this oil spill cleaned up and stop having any more spillage (seriously this is a huge fucking PR catastrophe) but it's difficult.

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I know it is but it's been a while since the spill started and it's not like we haven't had other oil spills before so. :/

Also, "figuring out alternative energy" is very vague. What do you mean? Start discussing it? Implementing it?

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well I'd say implementing it but to my knowledge we really haven't found any decent alternative energy to use yet so... discussing it, I guess.

Leafpool said:

well I'd say implementing it but to my knowledge we really haven't found any decent alternative energy to use yet so... discussing it, I guess.

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I would start with investing in research and implementation where it is practical (such as solar energy on the west coast).

Apparently no one thinks the joke was funny but...

Seriously, WHO had the bright idea to sell rights to the electric car to oil companies.

op is a twit, just gonna throw that out there.

oil spill's pretty sad. poor sea birds. :(

well I'd say implementing it but to my knowledge we really haven't found any decent alternative energy to use yet so... discussing it, I guess.

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we have plenty of decent alternatives. nuclear is fine and environmentalist pussies are whining over nothing. y'know, with our updated technology and tight regulatory agencies it's not likely that we'll have a Chernobyl-esque shitstorm.

hydroelectric power is also amazing - no emissions, basically infinite, pretty cheap to generate. the main problems are that building dams is expensive and it can bugger up the riverflow downstream. also, you really need the right conditions to make it worthwhile.

other small hippy stuff like wind and solar power might not work on a national scale (although iirc they've got some pretty good solar farms in the US) but they're quite good on a local scale. and every little saving helps.

there's also other cool stuff that desperately needs a couple of research grants but would be awesome to use.

goldenquagsire said:

op is a twit, just gonna throw that out there.

oil spill's pretty sad. poor sea birds. :(


we have plenty of decent alternatives. nuclear is fine and environmentalist pussies are whining over nothing. y'know, with our updated technology and tight regulatory agencies it's not likely that we'll have a Chernobyl-esque shitstorm.

hydroelectric power is also amazing - no emissions, basically infinite, pretty cheap to generate. the main problems are that building dams is expensive and it can bugger up the riverflow downstream. also, you really need the right conditions to make it worthwhile.

other small hippy stuff like wind and solar power might not work on a national scale (although iirc they've got some pretty good solar farms in the US) but they're quite good on a local scale. and every little saving helps.

there's also other cool stuff that desperately needs a couple of research grants but would be awesome to use.

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Nuclear is fine, as long as nothing goes wrong. If they try to convince us that nothing will go wrong, and technology is so great that it cannot fail, etc. then... *points finger at oil spill* They told us the exact same thing. And what happened? Now, I'm not saying they've been doing anything wrong, because to my limited knowledge There haven't been any mistakes recently in Nuclear power plants.

superbird said:

Nuclear is fine, as long as nothing goes wrong. If they try to convince us that nothing will go wrong, and technology is so great that it cannot fail, etc. then... *points finger at oil spill* They told us the exact same thing. And what happened? Now, I'm not saying they've been doing anything wrong, because to my limited knowledge There haven't been any mistakes recently in Nuclear power plants.

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I'm going to go out on a whim here and say you know absolutely nothing about how a nuclear power plant works.

Edit: Just to clarify what I mean here, nuclear power (when regulated) is the most safe, efficient, and practical large-scale energy source in the world right now. Also, I'm not sure anybody claimed off-shore drilling or petroleum refining were safe. Well, maybe the GOP has.

Wind and Solar energy are great, but some people refuse to use them because 'they look so stupid' And people forget that they will need a backup supply for nights and cloudy days, but I think Solar and Wind energy are great alternatives and they are my preference.

Nuclear power is another good way to go but many people are afraid of an explosion like in the Ukraine a while ago.

I agree with gq, Hydroelectricty is a great way to go, but it is limited. It has to be on a river or other major water source and dams are expensive and take a while to build, and they might cause wildlife problems.

And I'm not a twit

This is a topic that I'm rather interested in.

The anti-Britishness coming from the US at the moment is massively uncalled for, and has turned my vague fondness of Obama into a rather strong dislike of him. He singlehandedly wiped several million pounds off of British pension funds through his comments, to start with, and seems to be too combative against everything in general. In particular, his use of the phrase "British Petroleum" the other day just signalled further anti-British rhetoric, when if you look more closely, the accident occurred in American waters in an American branch of the company, run by Americans.

However, I also think that David Cameron is massively at fault by not coming in and defending BP. Let's face it, the whole incident was an accident, and the whole level of verbal assault on BP itself has created pretty bad economic effects over in the UK, halving BP's share prices, and harming the FTSE 100 as well. His lack of defence has led to this carrying on, and it just proves that the UK are just the lapdogs of the US nowadays. Thatcher would never have let this happen.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's terrible that ecosystems are suffering, and I think it will be a massive wake-up call for governments around the world (hopefully). It makes me shake my head in despair at the level of idiocy that we have in this world, with the various environmentalist groups campaigning against things like nuclear power which, as has been proven by France and several other countries, really do work, and would benefit major CO2 emitters, such as the US, and possibly the UK, very, very well. Chernobyl only happened because of shoddy Soviet workmanship and inferior technology to the level we have today.

goldenquagsire said:

op is a twit

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agreed. granted it's hypocritical for me but w/e

it just gets me down because i keep seeing sad pictures of pelicans. ):

Nuclear is fine, as long as nothing goes wrong.

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well duh.

the point is that it's less likely to go wrong if you're not an idiot about it. whereas oil and such will screw you over always.

Wind and Solar energy are great, but some people refuse to use them because 'they look so stupid'

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speaking somewhat as a devil's advocate, the arguments against wind are a little more complicated. they do have negative effects on the local environment (kills birds, noisy as hell) and a lot of people think they look like crap.

this is still a pretty weak argument but it's not just 'they look stupid'.

Thatcher would never have let this happen.

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>>Thatcher
>>Not a lapdop of the US

facepalm.jpg

as has been proven by France and several other countries, really do work, and would benefit major CO2 emitters, such as the US, and possibly the UK, very, very well.

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I really cannot overemphasise this point. France gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear. and it's not exactly a small country either. even Britain has a few nuclear plants already. jesus guys it's not like nuclear is some amazingly dangerous newfangled technology.

>>Thatcher
>>Not a lapdop of the US

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Sorry, not entirely clear there: Thatcher was rather Americaphile, but she would never have sat back and watched a British company go completely down the pan.

goldenquagsire said:

speaking somewhat as a devil's advocate, the arguments against wind are a little more complicated. they do have negative effects on the local environment (kills birds, noisy as hell) and a lot of people think they look like crap.

this is still a pretty weak argument but it's not just 'they look stupid'.

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Yeah but Solar has no such problems if people just buy a fricking backup generator.

And the Wind Turbines around my house make no noise, and birds stay clear of them, except for a sick one I found.





And now Congress has lifted the cap on what people an sue BP for. Now everyone and their grandmother are going to be suing BP for the 'six month vacation we were planning so give us ten thousand dollars!' game. They didn't do that for the Valdez oil spill, which kept the costs there low, but why does BP get the wrath?

all this while the idiot CEO is riding on his yacht.