American/ British relations strained because of oil spill and blame game?

[bebemoohatessnot]

I'm actually wondering about the personal side of this issue....
Being an American, but resident in Britain, can be tough sometimes when it comes to politics. I find myself as challenged lately mediating 'the sides' on the oil spill as I did trying to explain the Gulf war point of view to people.

Do you find yourself (or others) being overly defensive (of one side or another) because of the media involved with the oil spill? Does anyone else get tired of trying to wade through the information and the sweeping statements of blame.

and why, can't we see in others what we see in ourselves? and why can't our understanding of ourselves and our goals and fears help us to treat others a little better?

Yep bebe - it's all about politics and profit and very little to do with the impact.

for giveitago

Oh and it makes my dh's alpha romeo seem positively cheap to run!!!!!

I won't show him this as I've been on at him to dump the monster alpha and just use my little fiat punto - but he loves being a boy racer.

What a gross thing that is. So it does anything you want it to do? Gosh.

Many thanks Imsonottelling.

Summary from today's Wall Street Journal:

'Of the two major deepwater well designs available, BP routinely used the cheapest, which had fewer safety checks, employing the riskier well in 35 percent of its offshore rigs, a Wall Street Journal investigation shows. Competitors used that well type, called long string, far less often: Royal Dutch Shell only 8 percent of the time, Chevron 15 percent of the time, and BHP Billiton on only 4 percent of its wells. BP?s rivals have blasted the company for its breezy approach to safety.'

So it could easily have been a Chevron deep water well that blew up...

Wonder whether the US will bring in some meaningful safety legislation for oil companies after this?

edam - hopefully Congress will introduce legislation to regulate more stringently.....that seems to me part of the reason they need to know what caused the problem - instead of the endless ducking/diving/we don't know/we're looking into it that happened in the hearings this week.

There is always the potential for something to go wrong - no matter who is operating a well. For any oil company there will be a balance to be struck between maximising safety and minimising cost - legislation is there to ensure a minimum safety standard is applied. Whether BP were operating to the legislated or expected safety standards appears to be a point of contention, but accidents can always happen no matter how careful you are.

I think legislation in the US could and should be more stringent and I completely agree that understanding what went wrong is key to developing more appropriate safety standards - but (IMO) if the true answers are going to be found that investigation needs to be approached in a much more sympathetic fashion. I do see that there is a desperate need to know what happened and who to blame but I also suspect that it will take a lot longer than a few months before all the answers are known - if they ever are. Piper Alpha exploded in July 1988. An inquiry was set up in November of that year and it took till November 1990 - 2 years later - to report. That inquiry left some issues outstanding that will never be resolved as the only answers were destroyed in the disaster

Have discussed with DH who knows quite a lot about the different oil companies and their current attitudes to safety and risk. He reckons that BP's standards and attitudes are worse than many of the major oil companies so that they are deserving of criticism/blame.

However, the previous US administration had pushed hard for lighter regulation in the energy industry and for the development of deep drilling in order to secure oil supplies in the US.

So, both BP) and the US government have to share some blame. Hopefully tighter regulation and better oil company practice in this area might result.

What has also emerged from this incident is that none of the major oil companies have a reasonable/effective strategy for dealing with what happened - and it could have happened to any of them. It seems that most of the oil companies hired the same company/experts to advise on disaster planning, and the plans simply don't work.

It seems the technical knowledge for finding oil/drilling is much more developed than the ability to manage and/or control catastrophic failures.

Interesting you should say that Lilymaid (abt what your dh said) because I was talking to my Dh and he knows a guy that's worked on lots of different oil rigs for many different companies and he found BP more stringent.
It's really hard to know. Maybe in some regions they're better and in other regions they're not?

Profits over safety -some things never change.

So O thinks that the average American is likely to sign up to altering their lifestyles to lower their dependency on oil.

I can't see it happening tbh.

People want more and more - parking in our street has gone from you can find a place usually (in N. London) to zero parking in the last 4 years - more cars per household.

Why would americans change their stance.

But in the short term, what specifically could the majority of Americans do to alter their lifestyles?

Distances to drive are huge as most cities are sprawling, mostly no public transport options, etc. Walking mostly not an option unless you are in a very few cities.

Yes, their cars are huge but many are smaller than previously (Detroit is now producing much smaller, more fuel efficient cars after almost going bankrupt 18 months ago due to citizens buying so many smaller/more fuel efficient foreign cars.)

Yep, so, as I said, I can't see it happening - the infrastructure doesn't allow for reliance on public transport.

The USA use 20% of the world oil

they do things like this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

and this
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoco_Cadiz

and then wonder why the rest of the world doesn't worry when it happens to the USA

Tis a bit different when the disaster is on their own shores they seem to jump up and down like a naughty toddler saying it#s not fair...

Believe me, Americans do not care that the company fouling the Gulf is British. They simply want it to stop spewing, want those whose lives/property have been affected to be compensated, want the animals to be safe/well, and want the mess cleaned up.

Yes and the rest of the world would probvably have much more sympathy and want action if they themselves the USA had indeed done this same thing in areas and places where they poured polution, any country that consistently walks away form their own mess is not going to gain public support form other countries.

But I don't think ordinary americans are looking for sympathy though - they are just furious that a company, particularly on with foreign name, has done this. Their jury has already decided on this one.

It doesn't help the situation though.

'one' not 'on'.

What one group of people have done in one company in one country does not mean that every citizen in that country voted on what that group of people ought to do in that situation. I.e. you cannot (surely?) hold all Americans responsible for what American companies have done or not done? If you asked an American was what happened in Bhopal right do you honestly believe that they'd say 'Hell yeah!' ...Likewise with the other things people have/do bring up...

And why say the jury has been decided? What has been decided? That a terrible tragic disaster has occurred and needs to be cleaned up and that someone made a very big mistake and caused said disaster? Because that has certainly been decided.

Bebe

Why has someONE made a mistake. Do you really believe that this is the evil of one group of people (ie BP) and one alone or rather that one is responsible financially but it's borne of a lust for oil, profit etc and so the end product of nations wanting oil and colluding with oil companies to cut corners?

I find it odd that BP have pretty much admitted liability and are being railroaded into accepting liability to underwrite the entire cleanup.Is this because they are 100% responsible or because they are under pressure.

I hear alot about their 'bill' - well what is the bill - what are the limitations of the bill? Will people be claiming thousands for psychotherapy for example?

Where were the US navy in all this? Lots about paying for local boats to come out - could the navy have helped?

Americans and Bhopal - probably not on their radar - but I note that the lives of wildlife in the US are already considered worth far more than the lives of humans in India.

I'd be interested to see what the clean up bill is in comparison to other disasters and what is considered a legitimate claim. And then this could be the benchmark for future claims for other disasters.

good question about the Navy. The US sent someone to the moon, but can't seem to do anything about this. Elmer Fudd would probably have had something to say about this.

What I'm saying is that it's not the nation as a whole who did wrong in other disasters except yes by greed and desire. But as others have pointed out the world as a whole has people who do the same thing, and look for the quickest convenient route. Why condemn all for the actions of a few? That is what I'm saying.

We know that things need to change in the world. We know that everyone needs to consume less fossil fuels. We know that some countries need to work harder at this than others. Why is Britain not doing as well as say Germany in cutting fuel used? Americans know this too. Do people think they don't? However they act they do. What they may not still understand, but are quickly starting to understand is that there is a cause and effect. They need to be shown how there is money to be made and life can still be good and prosper and thrive and advance on other energies.

I'm not saying that America is all good or that the culture that we have is the best culture in the whole world. (When pressed I'll say it's a damn bit better than some other cultures I've come in contact with though) There are positives and negatives in every society. We all recognise this (I think). Americans are different then other citizens from other countries. There is a different mindset because their history is different (as I have hinted at in previous posts). What needs to be done is the world needs to learn abt other societies and learn what it is which makes them tick. And then use that information to find compromises and solutions to the problems of the world. It is not a THEM US thing. It's an all of us are in this together whether you're tall. short. fat. thin. slow. fast.

Sorry the history thing is absolutely no excuse what so ever,Australia has a similar history and doesn't have the same stick their head in the sand approach to the rest of the world that America has.

I love America,dp has several American cousins, I think it's a stunning country and I've always found most American people that I've met to be very likeable.

However I find the nation's attitude to the rest of the world,the environment and banking/business appalling to be frank.

Has Bhopal actually been mentioned in all the media hysteria over this oil spill? Has Obama made any reference to it,done anything about it whilst shouldering off any blame as a nation re this oil spill?There are people still dying and America could do plenty to help.

Obama could have done the right thing.He could have reminded the nation of the part they've played in all this.He could have used this opportunity to bring up the tragedy of Bhopal especially since the trial was so recent. He could have used it as a platform to get America more environmentally/ethically/globally aware and reminded Americans of the nation's responsibility.

Instead he chose to put the blame entirely on BP,encouraged a media witch hunt towards said company and it's nation of origin with one man baring the brunt of it and has chosen to ignore much of what America has been responsible for. All of this so he can look better in popularity ratings.

Personally I find this as much a tragedy as the oil spill and I don't think as a leader he'd have got away with it in the UK and many other nations. He'll get away with it in the US because the majority of Americans will let him. They know this attitude gets them to keep the lifestyle they enjoy and because many Americans have a bit of a problem with being in anyway critical towards the great US of A.

I think things are so more complicated than that.

Obama is dealing with a national disaster, so he is taking care of this NOW. Hopefully, in the future, once this crisis is over he'll deal with the Bhopal disaster.

He is dealing with a fierce Republican opposition. I seem to understand that the pressure to exclusively put responsibility on BP comes from the Republicans.

Also, I can't understand why are you all siding up with a multinational which I don't think has ethics on their priority list (like most multi nationals)

Certainly not siding up with BP but BP weren't the only ones to cause this,America needs to take some responsibility.

It suits America/Obama to shoulder responsibility off onto a foreign company.

As Bhopal happened in 1984 and pretty much buggar all has been done about it don't think I'll hold my breath re Obama dealing with it anytime soon.

But it's BP that's responsible in this case. At least it's how it's reported here, in Italy.