This is not about race; it’s about oil and lessons not learned, warnings not heeded, opportunities lost and a future that is black. Have you noticed that the news is filled with accusations, promises of investigations, commissions being formed, warnings of prosecutions and basic finger pointing? What is the subject of all of this attention? Obviously, it is the Deepwater Horizon on-going disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
There should be no need to recount the events or to even bring you up-to-date on the planet’s worst environmental disaster since the Biblical flood. Just turn on the news and get all of the latest. My concern is not the loss of entire ecosystems, how many millions of gallons of crude are destroying the entire way of life of the Gulf, how the spill will get to the East Coast and perhaps Europe, the senseless loss of wildlife along with their homes, habitats and breeding grounds, or the economic destruction of the Gulf. Rather, my concern is whether or not the finger is pointing in the right direction.
It is certainly easy to point toward BP. And, there is no question that at some point, they will pay the piper. There are also those who made faulty equipment and who failed to ensure that all such equipment would work at such depths. Of course, we do not want to forget those who issued permits when all facts were not known and compliances not guaranteed. Without doubt, heads will roll, jobs will be lost, and fines paid. One must remember, however, that those with financial power, at least historically, never really lose power of money.
America, and most of the world, is at the crossroad of a major crisis. But is the crisis oil spills or something more fundamental? Here is the crux of the matter; we have developed a universal culture of blaming others for our woes. As a result, we have a companion mindset that says problems like oil spills, climate change, refugees, peace, pollution and other pressing world problems cannot be solved by the common person because it is beyond the scope of their ability and power to do so. As long as we point the finger at another, we think we are free from guilt and not responsible for the solution of problems. But let’s be clear, our insatiable appetite for oil, power, and throwaway consumer goods has allowed the rampart rape and pillage of the very home on which we live. As long as our cars run, the lights come on, the food is on the shelves and we can get the latest disposable gadget, the purveyors of black gold can do as they will. Certainly someone is watching them and, if a problem occurs, ‘someone’ will deal with it.
Critics of such concepts as the Law of Attraction like to point to such disasters as genocide, disease, oil spills, rape, and a wide range of other seemingly disasters and argue that “certainly people do not attract these things to themselvesthey are much too horrible.” Ah, the pointing figure syndrome strikes again. Clearly, people do not let dictators rise to power. Clearly, we do not let nations commit genocide. Clearly, we do not so over consume so there is food for all. Clearly, we do not consume the majority of the world’s energy resources. Clearly, we treat all with respect and dignity and help all in need so there is no need for crime. Clearly, oil companies are greedy and they get away with all sorts of machinations, but that’s not our problem. Clearly, someone else is always responsible for the troubles in the world and there is nothing we can do about it.
In way, all of the above are what are called “memes.” If you haven’t done so, I highly recommend reading “The Virus of the Mind, by Richard Brodie. A ‘meme’ is a unit of information in a mind that influences events such that more copies of itself get created in other minds. A virus of the mind is something that infects people with memes which, in turn, influence the infected people’s behavior in such a way that the virus spreads. Dictators are experts in the use of memes to alter public behavior, as are corporate advertisers. After all, look at all of the new diseases that exist and look at all of the stupid things people buy because they are convinced they must have those things. This is how those who ‘know’ use the Law of Attraction to get rich. This all brings us back to the oil spill in the Gulf. The reason that the oil rig is there in the first place is because we have been convinced we must have oil; that we must get it at all costs so the Arabs can’t control us or turn off their supplies, and that even if there is a disaster, it happens and there is nothing you can do about it because you really need the oil.
When we point the finger, we must discover that we are pointing in a mirror. We let ourselves be controlled and manipulated by the masters of memes. We bring into our lives that which someone else says we must have. As a result, the Law of Attraction is fulfilled and we attract what we deserve, what we think, what we fear. There is a growing sense of futility, an emerging blackness in the American psyche. It is a mind virus that is spreading everywhere. Biologists tell us that one of the leading causes of evolution is environmental stress. There are those who also say that humanity is on the verge of a spontaneous evolution. While change does not require negative stress, it does seem that humanity only rises to the occasion when we are faced with disaster. Such disasters are now happening in the environment, the economy, in religion, education, politics, and in nearly every aspect of human life. Many forces are flowing together in what appears to be an interesting 2012 scenario. Perhaps we will wake and discover that we do not have to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Perhaps we will discover that if we can create such gross injustices to ourselves and the place that we live, then we also have the ability and the power to create a world that makes sense.
The following is a list of major oil spills and disasters. Perhaps if we recall that the Gulf is not the only place that we have allowed such destruction, we will wake up and end the madness.
Oil Spills and Disasters
The following list includes major oil spills since 1967. The circumstances surrounding the spill, amount of oil spilled, and the attendant environmental damage is also given.
1967-March 18, Cornwall, Eng.: Torrey Canyon ran aground, spilling 38 million gallons of crude oil off the Scilly Islands.
1976-Dec. 15, Buzzards Bay, Mass.: Argo Merchant ran aground and broke apart southeast of Nantucket Island, spilling its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of fuel oil.
1977-April, North Sea: blowout of well in Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons.
1978-March 16, off Portsall, France: wrecked supertanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 68 million gallons, causing widespread environmental damage over 100 mi of Brittany coast.
1979-June 3, Gulf of Mexico: exploratory oil well Ixtoc 1 blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude oil into the open sea. Although it is one of the largest known oil spills, it had a low environmental impact.
July 19, Tobago: the Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain collided, spilling 46 million gallons of crude. While being towed, the Atlantic Empress spilled an additional 41 million gallons off Barbados on Aug. 2.
1980-March 30, Stavanger, Norway: floating hotel in North Sea collapsed, killing 123 oil workers.
1983-Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran: Nowruz Field platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil.
Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa: the Spanish tanker Castillo de Bellver caught fire, spilling 78 million gallons of oil off the coast.
1988-July 6, North Sea off Scotland: 166 workers killed in explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha rig in North Sea; 64 survivors. It is the world's worst offshore oil disaster.
Nov. 10, Saint John's, Newfoundland: Odyssey spilled 43 million gallons of oil.
1989-March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska: tanker Exxon Valdez hit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus gallons of oil into the water, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Dec. 19, off Las Palmas, the Canary Islands: explosion in Iranian supertanker, the Kharg-5, caused 19 million gallons of crude oil to spill into Atlantic Ocean about 400 mi north of Las Palmas, forming a 100-square-mile oil slick.
1990-June 8, off Galveston, Tex.: Mega Borg released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston as a result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room.
1991-Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 mi off Kuwait. Spill had little military significance. On Jan. 27, U.S. warplanes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.
April 11, Genoa, Italy: Haven spilled 42 million gallons of oil in Genoa port.
May 28, Angola: ABT Summer exploded and leaked 15–78 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola. It's not clear how much sank or burned.
1992-March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil spilled from an oil well.
1993-Aug. 10, Tampa Bay, Fla.: three ships collided, the barge Bouchard B155, the freighter Balsa 37, and the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.
1994-Sept. 8, Russia: dam built to contain oil burst and spilled oil into Kolva River tributary. U.S. Energy Department estimated spill at 2 million barrels. Russian state-owned oil company claimed spill was only 102,000 barrels.
1996-Feb. 15, off Welsh coast: supertanker Sea Empress ran aground at port of Milford Haven, Wales, spewed out 70,000 tons of crude oil, and created a 25-mile slick.
1999-Dec. 12, French Atlantic coast: Maltese-registered tanker Erika broke apart and sank off Britanny, spilling 3 million gallons of heavy oil into the sea.
2000-Jan. 18, off Rio de Janeiro: ruptured pipeline owned by government oil company, Petrobras, spewed 343,200 gallons of heavy oil into Guanabara Bay.
Nov. 28, Mississippi River south of New Orleans: oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, La., dumping 567,000 gallons of crude oil into lower Mississippi. Spill was largest in U.S. waters since Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989.
2002-Nov. 13, Spain: Prestige suffered a damaged hull and was towed to sea and sank. Much of the 20 million gallons of oil remains underwater.
2003-July 28, Pakistan: The Tasman Spirit, a tanker, ran aground near the Karachi port, and eventually cracked into two pieces. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking 28,000 tons of crude oil into the sea.
2004-Dec. 7, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska: A major storm pushed the M/V Selendang Ayu up onto a rocky shore, breaking it in two. 337,000 gallons of oil were released, most of which was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan Bays.
2005-Aug.-Sept., New Orleans, Louisiana: The Coast Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled during Hurricane Katrina from various sources, including pipelines, storage tanks and industrial plants.
2006-June 19, Calcasieu River, Louisiana: An estimated 71,000 barrels of waste oil were released from a tank at the CITGO Refinery on the Calcasieu River during a violent rain storm.
July 15, Beirut, Lebanon: The Israeli navy bombs the Jieh coast power station, and between three million and ten million gallons of oil leaks into the sea, affecting nearly 100 miles of coastline. A coastal blockade, a result of the war, greatly hampers outside clean-up efforts.
August 11th, Guimaras island, The Philippines: A tanker carrying 530,000 gallons of oil sinks off the coast of the Philippines, putting the country's fishing and tourism industries at great risk. The ship sinks in deep water, making it virtually unrecoverable, and it continues to emit oil into the ocean as other nations are called in to assist in the massive clean-up effort.
2007-December 7, South Korea: Oil spill causes environmental disaster, destroying beaches, coating birds and oysters with oil, and driving away tourists with its stench. The Hebei Spirit collides with a steel wire connecting a tug boat and barge five miles off South Korea's west coast, spilling 2.8 million gallons of crude oil. Seven thousand people are trying to clean up 12 miles of oil-coated coast.
2008-July 25, New Orleans, Louisiana: A 61-foot barge, carrying 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel, collides with a 600-foot tanker ship in the Mississippi River near New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel leak from the barge, causing a halt to all river traffic while cleanup efforts commence to limit the environmental fallout on local wildlife.
2009-March 11, Queensland, Australia: During Cyclone Hamish, unsecured cargo aboard the container ship MV Pacific Adventurer came loose on deck and caused the release of 52,000 gallons of heavy fuel and 620 tons of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, into the Coral Sea. About 60 km of the Sunshine Coast was covered in oil, prompting the closure of half the area's beaches.
2010-Jan. 23, Port Arthur, Texas: The oil tanker Eagle Otome and a barge collide in the Sabine-Neches Waterway, causing the release of about 462,000 gallons of crude oil. Environmental damage was minimal as about 46,000 gallons were recovered and 175,000 gallons were dispersed or evaporated, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
April 24, Gulf of Mexico: The Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible drilling rig, sank on April 22, after an April 20th explosion on the vessel. Eleven people died in the blast. When the rig sank, the riser—the 5,000-foot-long pipe that connects the wellhead to the rig—became detached and began leaking oil. In addition, U.S. Coast Guard investigators discovered a leak in the wellhead itself. As much as 25,000 barrels (1,050,000 gallons) of oil per day were leaking into the water, threatening wildlife along the Louisiana Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared it a "spill of national significance." As many as 1,000 people and dozens of ships and aircraft were enlisted to help in the cleanup. BP (British Petroleum), which leased the Deepwater Horizon, is responsible for the cleanup, but the U.S. Navy supplied the company with resources to help contain the slick. Oil reached the Louisiana shore on April 30, and there was widespread consensus that the spill would dwarf the Exxon Valdez in terms of environmental damage.
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html
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