Gosh - look at this, how big the BP oil spill really is..

[squeaver]

here

I knew it was big, just not THAT big

its massive!1

i just moved it over the uk to give more perspective over its size

Bigger than Belgium!

Yes, as big as Scotland.

goodness... I didn't realise it was quite that huge either

I think I'd be a bit miffed about it if it happened in the North Sea.

My god that's huge

Yes I can understand the anger but, honestly, do people really think that BP aren't doing everything they can to stop it?

It's hardly in their best interests to keep it going is it?

Can someone explain why Bp is getting so much flack over the incident, after all was it not an accident. Secondly the rig was operated and built on behalf of BP by an American company

Because it was a british company (once along time ago) so the yanks want to do some brit bashing because they are shallow and xenophobic plus they want all the oil in the world for themselves and don't like other countries having any oil companies.

BP employs 3 times as many yanks as british and exactly half the board members are yanks.

From the New York Times today:

"The Deepwater Horizon oil rig was considered a ?ship? by international law and was registered in the Marshall Islands?meaning the tiny Pacific nation was primarily responsible for regulating it, not the United States government. The Marshall Islands, in turn, outsourced much of that responsibility to private companies. (The U.S. Interior Department's Minerals Management Service only dealt with ?below the waterline? issues.) Meanwhile, President Obama is set on Tuesday to address the nation from the Oval Office. He will describe the oil spill as ?as a slow-motion crisis, resistant to the best efforts and billions of dollars from government and industry.?

Damn, that's a big slick! Worse yet, it is fairly deep, as the "dispersants" that BP have been pumping in by the tonne are made up of detergents which make the oil sink, not disperse. The ocean is heaving with oil at many levels underwater. Naughty, naughty BP. Wait and see what happens when it spreads to Florida Keys, The Bahamas, Cancun, Cuba. How horridly awful.

All this crap about British Pensions being destroyed by Barry Obama is just nonsense. Any decent pension fund will have a small percentage (2-6%) of it's securities in BP and if the stock falls by 50% then you fund has lost between one and three percent. Not as bad as the catastrophe during the GFC is it?

I do feel a bit sorry for BP as it was not their rig, not their shears, not their blow-out preventer. It is their oil however and that is why they are in the shit. Where is Obama slamming Halliburton? BP is there because America wants all that oil.

Recent pipeline explosions, the tanker grounding on the Great Barrier Reef, and this disaster should be enough to make us begin to doubt the merit of using oil, regardless of global warming. I really hope it does.

According to DH, the US has the expertise and the personnel to sort this problem. So why are they not doing it and instead scapegoating BP?

Well it was a simple question so there's no need to be quite so rude about my DH (who has never picked up the DM or any other crappy tabloid in his life).

I'm glad to hear US experts are actively involved and that the US Government is spending every penny it needs to spend to clean up the spill in the most efficient way possible.

Hmm, ChuckB, even if we accept that BP is a British Company (fine), it's producing oil in the Gulf of Mexico for the American market, which consumes 25% of TOTAL world oil production. Blame the Brits if you like for the accident, but BP don't drill oil for the heck of it. Obama is quite right that the USA must look to its own consumption. They refused to sign up to Kyoto and they have until now refused point blank (at a governmental level, I'm sure there are many individuals who are making an effort) to address the issue of their unsustainable demand for stuff made from and using oil.

I thought the question mark was a bit of a give away, or don't you have them in the US?

I feel for the communities and particularly the wildlife, but in some ways it's no bad thing that the US is witnessing the destructive consequences of its thirst for oil at first hand.

I didn't post on this thread to be anti-US btw but your attitude has riled me.

gaelicsheep - Even though your dh was mentioned, I would think ChuckB's comments are partially (largely?) directed at Ryko's post of 15 June at 22.18 which was, imo, inflammatory and offensive.

And the statement is a fact, as you acknowledged. And the answer to the question was that on the contrary they are doing it, so I was wrong.

Anyhow, I am feeling very grouchy at the mo and liable to take offence easily.

I totally agree with Chuck.
And btw think how pissed off the English/french/Italians etc etc would be if anything similar happened by their shores...

Of course it isn't ChuckB, we must all look to our consumption, but the US are the prime offenders, I don't think there is any way round that. They have 4.5% of the world's population and use 25% of its oil. Our per capita energy consumption is approximately half that of the US. And their oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, is (I believe) ALL for the US domestic market.

I agree with you that the leak is BP's fault, but we all (including, and most importantly, America) must share the blame. If they stopped driving around in their gas-guzzling SUVs, stopped consuming on quite such a scale, then they'd at least significantly reduce the need for this endless searching for oil in inappropriate and environmentally sensitive areas. IMO, they should be leading the world in the search for alternative energy sources, rather than dragging their feet behind the rest of the world.