What I have discovered from my research is that the world of oil isn't just constituted of the oil companies and their rigs; the oil industry is made up of many minor and major constituent parts. For example, when oil spills occur, there are a number of factors which make certain oil spills to be cleaned up more effectively and with minimal damage than other oil spills. These factors include: the oil company's influence in the country's economy and the extent of government regualtion; the influence of the media, the extent of liability of the oil company and most importantly, the location of the oil spill. Although I knew some of these factors before I started reserching my topic, I didn't realise the depths of their complexity.Initially, my topic was mainly focused on the infamous oil spills that occur in other parts of the world, but as I peeled away superficial layers, I was forced to broaden my thought process and analyse oil spills from many different angles. I didn't focus on environmental damage, but what I did was use a country I know about, Nigeria, to enable me explore the previously unidentified truths surrounding the oil industry.
A superb jumping off point for arguments surrounding oil spills in a political sphere was Obama's speech in the oval office concerning the BP oil spill and energy .The speech summarized the progress made by BP in trying to stop the oil from spilling and it emphasized the active involvement of the federal government in tackling the ongoing environmental crisis amid other national issues facing it. Lastly Obama talked about how the country needs to switch to 'clean energy' as soon as possible. If one takes the time to listen to his speech, that person could either fall into the same group as sen. John Kerry who thought the speech was effective because it advised the American people to get off oil;or that person could categorize the speech as unspecific because it didn't directly answer certain vital questions, such as when the leak will be stopped, or when exactly America will switch to clean energy resources (this is all in the opinion of this group of critics). The latter group included MSNBC's Keith Olberman, who felt Obama had made no point whatsoever in his speech, and other TV anchors such as Rachel Maddow from MSNBC. She dedicated one of her shows to Obama's speech and even impersonated him by using the same Oval Office background in her studio to create a speech that she thinks Obama should have said instead. (Video of this episode). Some of the key points she wishes he would have said were:
1. "Never again, will any company, be allowed to drill in a location where they are incapable of dealing with the potential consequences of that drilling."A superb jumping off point for arguments surrounding oil spills in a political sphere was Obama's speech in the oval office concerning the BP oil spill and energy .The speech summarized the progress made by BP in trying to stop the oil from spilling and it emphasized the active involvement of the federal government in tackling the ongoing environmental crisis amid other national issues facing it. Lastly Obama talked about how the country needs to switch to 'clean energy' as soon as possible. If one takes the time to listen to his speech, that person could either fall into the same group as sen. John Kerry who thought the speech was effective because it advised the American people to get off oil;or that person could categorize the speech as unspecific because it didn't directly answer certain vital questions, such as when the leak will be stopped, or when exactly America will switch to clean energy resources (this is all in the opinion of this group of critics). The latter group included MSNBC's Keith Olberman, who felt Obama had made no point whatsoever in his speech, and other TV anchors such as Rachel Maddow from MSNBC. She dedicated one of her shows to Obama's speech and even impersonated him by using the same Oval Office background in her studio to create a speech that she thinks Obama should have said instead. (Video of this episode). Some of the key points she wishes he would have said were:
2. "I'm announcing a new federal command specifically for containment and clean-up of oil that has already entered the Gulf of Mexico, with a priority on protecting shoreline that can still be saved; shoreline that is vulnerable to oil that has not yet been hit."
3. "I no longer say that we must get off oil like every president before me has said too. I no longer say that we must get off oil. We will get off oil and here's how: The United States Senate will pass an energy bill. This year."
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| Persian Gulf. |
Some concepts from these points will evolve into my main argument as well as other arguments and schools of thought which address issues arising from crude oil drilling. How feasible are these three points, not just in America, but in other countries too? Demanding that oil companies shouldn't drill in places where they won't be able to handle the risks of drilling is perceivably irrational. Oil companies do not choose where the oil is placed in the seabed, so how will they have any choice on choosing where to drill, they'll drill for oil wherever they find it because of the high demand for it. If people didn't need the oil from electricity to power their microwaves to make easy mac, or need refined oil to power their cars so they could go to the movies, these oil companies wouldn't be going tens of thousands of feet into the sea just to strike the oil's surface - talk more of the additional distance needed to actually start drilling. And the truth is - accidents will happen and must happen so we can learn from them. For example, the oil spill in the Persian Gulf in 1983 caused by a collision of an oil tanker into the Norwuz Oilfield which in turn caused the well beneath it to erupt, taught today's oil companies how to clean massive oil spills. Since this oil spill occurred in the middle of the Iran- Iraqi war, it took 7 months before the oil was actually cleaned up and by that time 80million gallons of oil had been spilled into the Persian Gulf, compared to the estimated 2- 4.5 million gallons in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. (Because the spill is still ongoing, there are only rough estimates for the spill in the Gulf, so I'm including an additional link for). However, even though we should be learning from previous oil accidents - there was a huge controversial secret that had been revealed by the major 5 oil companies in the USA which include Exxon-Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and Conoco Phillips. Just recently, the heads of the 'Big 5' were put on the spot and drilled by the members of the U.S congress concerning their readiness to handle massive oil spills such as the celebrity BP oil spill. (watch response of the oil companies.)It turned out that all five oil companies had the same oil spill rectification plan and indeed, this plan was written by the same Texas based company: the Response Group. It was Rex Tillerson, Exxon-Mobil's CEO, who openly admitted that spills and other oil accidents will occur because oil companies, including his, are not entirely capable of handling such spills. Because with drilling, there will be ramifications for which the oil companies will not be well equipped. This revelation brings me back to the first amendment on Obama's Oval office speech made by Rachel Maddow; it stated that Oil companies shouldn't be allowed to drill in places where they know they cannot handle the consequences. The inconveniencing truth is no matter where they drill - like Rex Tillerson implied- if an oil spill occurs, there will be damages that cannot be rectified. When glass shatters, there are always those tiny pieces that remain, so talk more of oil, liquefied black gold.
In addition to the previous 'exposé', there is another little secret that has been revealed by the oil companies, aside from the revelation that they do not really know what they're are doing in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Timor Sea, Australia; the Niger Delta, Nigeria, the Arabian Sea, India (the list of oil spills is endless) and other places too . It's been discovered that the same technology that was used about 40 years ago in the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 is the same technology being used in the BP Oil spill today.There's a video of US Congress confronting Oil companies on old boom technology because it has become apparent that there is something not working with the technology used in the Gulf. The main device used is called an oil boom and comes in different types; in summary, it's a pipe like structure that has inbuilt mechanisms which absorbs the oil best when the spill initially occurs. It's a bit peculiar that the Oil companies have advanced their methods of drilling, (in countries where there is sufficient economic power and government regulation), but they haven't considered investing in research that would provide more advanced ways of cleaning oil spills, given the fact that they confessed to knowing the risks of offshore drilling to the U.S Congress.
So if the oil companies can play a game of hide and seek, in the world's superpower, America, imagine what they are doing, rather, what they are not doing in developing countries. In fact, it doesn't necessarily have to be developing countries that receive an arguably prejudiced attention to the oil spills occurring in their homeland, developed countries such as Australia, face the same prejudice. For example, if we take a diverse group of youths from around the globe, only about 1% would know about the oil spill that occurred in Australia last year (~9million gallons of oil), which was believed to be able to compete with the effects of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska (~11 million gallons). The Aussie oil spill was similar to the Gulf's oil spill in the sense that it occurred offshore, but differs in what actually caused the explosion: Aussie explosion was due to a fractured pipe, while BP explosion, according to the National Geographic channel, was due to damage caused by an accumulation of "Sea Snot." Because the BP oil spill has gobbled up so much media attention for such a lengthy period of time, some people, including John A. Farrell,an award winning American libertarian and contributing editor of U.S. News, have started to view America as "the Whiner Nation." See Gulf Oil Spill Shows America has Become a Whiner Nation. This statement is rather interesting, because as I uncovered more layers of complexity in my topic, I noticed that there was an increase in the number of blogs and articles which talked about how other oil spills in some other countries made the BP oil spill look insignificant. Farrell and others, felt that the BP oil spill has become more or less a political playground where politicians manipulate the media to the extent that the spill seems more significant than it really is (relative to other major oil spills in different countries). For example, articles such as "Nigeria's Agony Dwarfs Oil Spill. The US and Europe Ignore It," which was written by John Vidal, the environmental editor of the Observer in a British newspaper called the Guardian, talk about how crises of equal significance or arguably more, are happening without receiving a quarter of the attention the BP spill is generating. Already, following the occurrence BP oil spill, many oil companies are considering relocating to Ghana and Nigeria and the Middle East, where they believe the costs of dealing with environmental damage will be less. The article which provided this information called this transfer of employment West Africa's Gain and America's Loss. Obviously, David Freddoso,the author of this article and the online opinion editor of the Washington Examiner, was focusing solely on the economic aspects of this transfer - having considered the many negatived consequencesof oil drilling on a worldwide scale. So what do those countries who are unable to shine enough light on similar crises do? A suggestion was made in the above article that Nigeria should nationalize all the oil companies in the industry and this way they'd have more control on environmental policies. It was countered by others who said that the country already owns 40 - 60% of each foreign oil company drilling there, so giving it full custody might just make things worse. Is the final solution to just get off oil as many angry bloggers, fishermen, holiday-makers, and many others who have been impacted negatively by black gold echoed? Is the world adequately prepared to end it's love/hate relationship with oil for good? We know of alternative bio-fuels and other clean energy forms and their general feasibility compared to oil - but many of these alternatives don't work on the huge scale that oil does and some alternatives are still being tested. So even if we want to terminate or severely minimize our use of oil - the switch isn't entirely feasible and certainly cannot happen when next the wind whistles. However, it is becoming more evident that oil companies have been playing a strategic game of chess with the public's mind as they present one thing and secretly do another. A look at Exxon's blog page would make it impossible for anyone to believe that despite all their efforts and safety measures they claim to be taking while oil drilling, that they have a 30 year old platform which leaks an estimate of 5000barrels a day in Nigeria. Contributing to the public awareness of the game oil companies have been playing is the burst of finger pointing going on within the oil industry. Shell and Exxon just recently accused BP of using cheap materials for their drill in the Gulf and thus putting profits before safety. I guess even mighty oil companies are like children in the sense that whenever they(kids) get caught for doing something they shouldn't be, they shift blames, eventually exposing what they had been doing in the first place. In any case,blames have been 'pinged-ponged' back and forth to the extent that people become so frustrated that they simply accuse anyone who tries to get the oil cleaned up but doesn't really succeed: is it the spill the fault of the oil company, the government, the consumers who need the oil, or in fact maybe the sea should be blamed for existing in the first place? For many various groups of people, the answer to this question differs.
In addition to the previous 'exposé', there is another little secret that has been revealed by the oil companies, aside from the revelation that they do not really know what they're are doing in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Timor Sea, Australia; the Niger Delta, Nigeria, the Arabian Sea, India (the list of oil spills is endless) and other places too . It's been discovered that the same technology that was used about 40 years ago in the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 is the same technology being used in the BP Oil spill today.There's a video of US Congress confronting Oil companies on old boom technology because it has become apparent that there is something not working with the technology used in the Gulf. The main device used is called an oil boom and comes in different types; in summary, it's a pipe like structure that has inbuilt mechanisms which absorbs the oil best when the spill initially occurs. It's a bit peculiar that the Oil companies have advanced their methods of drilling, (in countries where there is sufficient economic power and government regulation), but they haven't considered investing in research that would provide more advanced ways of cleaning oil spills, given the fact that they confessed to knowing the risks of offshore drilling to the U.S Congress.
So if the oil companies can play a game of hide and seek, in the world's superpower, America, imagine what they are doing, rather, what they are not doing in developing countries. In fact, it doesn't necessarily have to be developing countries that receive an arguably prejudiced attention to the oil spills occurring in their homeland, developed countries such as Australia, face the same prejudice. For example, if we take a diverse group of youths from around the globe, only about 1% would know about the oil spill that occurred in Australia last year (~9million gallons of oil), which was believed to be able to compete with the effects of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska (~11 million gallons). The Aussie oil spill was similar to the Gulf's oil spill in the sense that it occurred offshore, but differs in what actually caused the explosion: Aussie explosion was due to a fractured pipe, while BP explosion, according to the National Geographic channel, was due to damage caused by an accumulation of "Sea Snot." Because the BP oil spill has gobbled up so much media attention for such a lengthy period of time, some people, including John A. Farrell,an award winning American libertarian and contributing editor of U.S. News, have started to view America as "the Whiner Nation." See Gulf Oil Spill Shows America has Become a Whiner Nation. This statement is rather interesting, because as I uncovered more layers of complexity in my topic, I noticed that there was an increase in the number of blogs and articles which talked about how other oil spills in some other countries made the BP oil spill look insignificant. Farrell and others, felt that the BP oil spill has become more or less a political playground where politicians manipulate the media to the extent that the spill seems more significant than it really is (relative to other major oil spills in different countries). For example, articles such as "Nigeria's Agony Dwarfs Oil Spill. The US and Europe Ignore It," which was written by John Vidal, the environmental editor of the Observer in a British newspaper called the Guardian, talk about how crises of equal significance or arguably more, are happening without receiving a quarter of the attention the BP spill is generating. Already, following the occurrence BP oil spill, many oil companies are considering relocating to Ghana and Nigeria and the Middle East, where they believe the costs of dealing with environmental damage will be less. The article which provided this information called this transfer of employment West Africa's Gain and America's Loss. Obviously, David Freddoso,the author of this article and the online opinion editor of the Washington Examiner, was focusing solely on the economic aspects of this transfer - having considered the many negatived consequencesof oil drilling on a worldwide scale. So what do those countries who are unable to shine enough light on similar crises do? A suggestion was made in the above article that Nigeria should nationalize all the oil companies in the industry and this way they'd have more control on environmental policies. It was countered by others who said that the country already owns 40 - 60% of each foreign oil company drilling there, so giving it full custody might just make things worse. Is the final solution to just get off oil as many angry bloggers, fishermen, holiday-makers, and many others who have been impacted negatively by black gold echoed? Is the world adequately prepared to end it's love/hate relationship with oil for good? We know of alternative bio-fuels and other clean energy forms and their general feasibility compared to oil - but many of these alternatives don't work on the huge scale that oil does and some alternatives are still being tested. So even if we want to terminate or severely minimize our use of oil - the switch isn't entirely feasible and certainly cannot happen when next the wind whistles. However, it is becoming more evident that oil companies have been playing a strategic game of chess with the public's mind as they present one thing and secretly do another. A look at Exxon's blog page would make it impossible for anyone to believe that despite all their efforts and safety measures they claim to be taking while oil drilling, that they have a 30 year old platform which leaks an estimate of 5000barrels a day in Nigeria. Contributing to the public awareness of the game oil companies have been playing is the burst of finger pointing going on within the oil industry. Shell and Exxon just recently accused BP of using cheap materials for their drill in the Gulf and thus putting profits before safety. I guess even mighty oil companies are like children in the sense that whenever they(kids) get caught for doing something they shouldn't be, they shift blames, eventually exposing what they had been doing in the first place. In any case,blames have been 'pinged-ponged' back and forth to the extent that people become so frustrated that they simply accuse anyone who tries to get the oil cleaned up but doesn't really succeed: is it the spill the fault of the oil company, the government, the consumers who need the oil, or in fact maybe the sea should be blamed for existing in the first place? For many various groups of people, the answer to this question differs.
Your post brought up some very interesting view points. It posed arguments that are not typically thought of. I thought that by tying in other oil spills (besides the current BP spill) from all over the world you effectively put your topic into perspective, showing the globalization and danger of oil spills. In addition, you discussed the various communities of discourse. By talking about how oil companies blamed and pointed fingers, and how it is discussed in the political realm, readers are able to better understand the complexity of the topic. Your analysis may have been improved if you had discussed in more detail the various biases’ that exist surrounding the topic. Overall, your post showed extensive thought and consideration.
ReplyDeleteI like your first point about Obama’s speech. You start off talking about how he is commending BP for their hard work in cleaning up the oil spill then switch to the opposite side of the argument. You quickly transition to the opposing s argument and it kind of undermines Obama’s points. You put in perspective the main focus that people should be on, the realization that the event should never have occurred and we should take immediate action to fix the situation so it never happens again.
ReplyDeleteAdelina, I think this post does a superb job of analyzing the complex geopolitical situation of big oil today. Using the Obama speech and responses focused on the ways in which the issue is both forerounded and masked in American politics, and provided a background for your focus on the global oil industry as a client of American consumer interests. Well done.
ReplyDeleteI had seen the coffee spill video; there is another one that I remember being very funny that I'll try to find for you as well. Informative and lively blog!