Reblogged from EcoGrrl
Posts Tagged ‘oil’
2 Jun
Monday Moaning
My Monday Moaning has been interrupted by the loss of things to moan about with my recent PC troubles.
So, I am going to take a slightyly different tack today and have a good moan by reblogging George Monbiot’s article about the economy and our need material possessions that will be our undoing.
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It’s simple. If we can’t change our economic system, our number’s up
It’s the great taboo of our age – and the inability to discuss the pursuit of perpetual growth will prove humanity’s undoing
‘The mother narrative to all this is carbon-fuelled expansion. Our ideologies are mere subplots.’ Photograph: Alamy
Let us imagine that in 3030BC the total possessions of the people of Egypt filled one cubic metre. Let us propose that these possessions grew by 4.5% a year. How big would that stash have been by the Battle of Actium in 30BC? This is the calculation performed by the investment banker Jeremy Grantham.
Go on, take a guess. Ten times the size of the pyramids? All the sand in the Sahara? The Atlantic ocean? The volume of the planet? A little more? It’s 2.5 billion billion solar systems. It does not take you long, pondering this outcome, to reach the paradoxical position that salvation lies in collapse.
To succeed is to destroy ourselves. To fail is to destroy ourselves. That is the bind we have created. Ignore if you must climate change, biodiversity collapse, the depletion of water, soil, minerals, oil; even if all these issues miraculously vanished, the mathematics of compound growth make continuity impossible.
Economic growth is an artefact of the use of fossil fuels. Before large amounts of coal were extracted, every upswing in industrial production would be met with a downswing in agricultural production, as the charcoal or horse power required by industry reduced the land available for growing food. Every prior industrial revolution collapsed, as growth could not be sustained. But coal broke this cycle and enabled – for a few hundred years – the phenomenon we now call sustained growth.
It was neither capitalism nor communism that made possible the progress and pathologies (total war, the unprecedented concentration of global wealth, planetary destruction) of the modern age. It was coal, followed by oil and gas. The meta-trend, the mother narrative, is carbon-fuelled expansion. Our ideologies are mere subplots. Now, with the accessible reserves exhausted, we must ransack the hidden corners of the planet to sustain our impossible proposition.
On Friday, a few days after scientists announced that the collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet is now inevitable, the Ecuadorean government decided to allow oil drilling in the heart of the Yasuni national park. It had made an offer to other governments: if they gave it half the value of the oil in that part of the park, it would leave the stuff in the ground. You could see this as either blackmail or fair trade. Ecuador is poor, its oil deposits are rich. Why, the government argued, should it leave them untouched without compensation when everyone else is drilling down to the inner circle of hell? It asked for $3.6bn and received $13m. The result is that Petroamazonas, a company with a colourful record of destruction and spills, will now enter one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, in which a hectare of rainforest is said to contain more species than exist in the entire continent of North America.
Yasuni national park. Murray Cooper/Minden Pictures/Corbis
Yasuni national park. Murray Cooper/Minden Pictures/Corbis
The UK oil firm Soco is now hoping to penetrate Africa’s oldest national park, Virunga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo; one of the last strongholds of the mountain gorilla and the okapi, of chimpanzees and forest elephants. In Britain, where a possible 4.4 billion barrels of shale oil has just been identified in the south-east, the government fantasises about turning the leafy suburbs into a new Niger delta. To this end it’s changing the trespass laws to enable drilling without consent and offering lavish bribes to local people. These new reserves solve nothing. They do not end our hunger for resources; they exacerbate it.
The trajectory of compound growth shows that the scouring of the planet has only just begun. As the volume of the global economy expands, everywhere that contains something concentrated, unusual, precious, will be sought out and exploited, its resources extracted and dispersed, the world’s diverse and differentiated marvels reduced to the same grey stubble.
Some people try to solve the impossible equation with the myth of dematerialisation: the claim that as processes become more efficient and gadgets are miniaturised, we use, in aggregate, fewer materials. There is no sign that this is happening. Iron ore production has risen 180% in 10 years. The trade body Forest Industries tells us that “global paper consumption is at a record high level and it will continue to grow”. If, in the digital age, we won’t reduce even our consumption of paper, what hope is there for other commodities?
Look at the lives of the super-rich, who set the pace for global consumption. Are their yachts getting smaller? Their houses? Their artworks? Their purchase of rare woods, rare fish, rare stone? Those with the means buy ever bigger houses to store the growing stash of stuff they will not live long enough to use. By unremarked accretions, ever more of the surface of the planet is used to extract, manufacture and store things we don’t need. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that fantasies about colonising space – which tell us we can export our problems instead of solving them – have resurfaced.
As the philosopher Michael Rowan points out, the inevitabilities of compound growth mean that if last year’s predicted global growth rate for 2014 (3.1%) is sustained, even if we miraculously reduced the consumption of raw materials by 90%, we delay the inevitable by just 75 years. Efficiency solves nothing while growth continues.
The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth’s living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence. As a result, they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the 21st century’s great taboo, the subjects guaranteed to alienate your friends and neighbours. We live as if trapped inside a Sunday supplement: obsessed with fame, fashion and the three dreary staples of middle-class conversation: recipes, renovations and resorts. Anything but the topic that demands our attention.
Statements of the bleeding obvious, the outcomes of basic arithmetic, are treated as exotic and unpardonable distractions, while the impossible proposition by which we live is regarded as so sane and normal and unremarkable that it isn’t worthy of mention. That’s how you measure the depth of this problem: by our inability even to discuss it.
Source: The Guardian
Opinion:
Once again, the inescapable fact, we are the authors of our own demise.
We must change the paradigm, not only change it, but halt the current in it’s tracks. Our whole thinking about the human race needs to be rethought.
The 1% that are driving this insanity have to be stopped, brought to heel. But that is an insane idea, the money-hungry meglomanics will never stop.
Seriously, there is a need for a global ‘French Revolution.’
6 Mar
How We are Going to Pay
We talk a lot.
We do little.
We talk about pollution, about global warming, we talk about toxins, contaminants, about water, about plastic… talk, talk, talk.
The deniers of global warming say it isn’t happening, that it’s a fraud. But all the evidence points to global warming as a fact.
Global warming doesn’t just mean the sea levels rise; sure that’s bad for those who live in coastal cities. Sea food chains in the oceans are changing with a resulting effect on man’s food supply. But there is something more sinister, much more sinister to consider.
As icecaps melt, permafrost thaws…
30,000-year-old giant virus ‘comes back to life’
The virus was inactive for more than 30,000 years until it was revived in a laboratory in France
An ancient virus has “come back to life” after lying dormant for at least 30,000 years, scientists say.
It was found frozen in a deep layer of the Siberian permafrost, but after it thawed it became infectious once again.
The French scientists say the contagion poses no danger to humans or animals, but other viruses could be unleashed as the ground becomes exposed.
The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Professor Jean-Michel Claverie, from the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) at the University of Aix-Marseille in France, said: “This is the first time we’ve seen a virus that’s still infectious after this length of time.”
Biggest virus
The ancient pathogen was discovered buried 30m (100ft) down in the frozen ground.
Called Pithovirus sibericum, it belongs to a class of giant viruses that were discovered 10 years ago.
The virus infects amoebas but does not attack human or animal cells
These are all so large that, unlike other viruses, they can be seen under a microscope. And this one, measuring 1.5 micrometres in length, is the biggest that has ever been found.
The last time it infected anything was more than 30,000 years ago, but in the laboratory it has sprung to life once again.
Tests show that it attacks amoebas, which are single-celled organisms, but does not infect humans or other animals.
Co-author Dr Chantal Abergel, also from the CNRS, said: “It comes into the cell, multiplies and finally kills the cell. It is able to kill the amoeba – but it won’t infect a human cell.”
However, the researchers believe that other more deadly pathogens could be locked in Siberia’s permafrost.
“We are addressing this issue by sequencing the DNA that is present in those layers,” said Dr Abergel.
“This would be the best way to work out what is dangerous in there.”
‘Recipe for disaster’
The researchers say this region is under threat. Since the 1970s, the permafrost has retreated and reduced in thickness, and climate change projections suggest it will decrease further.
It has also become more accessible, and is being eyed for its natural resources.
Prof Claverie warns that exposing the deep layers could expose new viral threats.
He said: “It is a recipe for disaster. If you start having industrial explorations, people will start to move around the deep permafrost layers. Through mining and drilling, those old layers will be penetrated and this is where the danger is coming from.”
He told BBC News that ancient strains of the smallpox virus, which was declared eradicated 30 years ago, could pose a risk.
“If it is true that these viruses survive in the same way those amoeba viruses survive, then smallpox is not eradicated from the planet – only the surface,” he said.
“By going deeper we may reactivate the possibility that smallpox could become again a disease of humans in modern times.”
He said: “It is a recipe for disaster. If you start having industrial explorations, people will start to move around the deep permafrost layers. Through mining and drilling, those old layers will be penetrated and this is where the danger is coming from.”
He told BBC News that ancient strains of the smallpox virus, which was declared eradicated 30 years ago, could pose a risk.
“If it is true that these viruses survive in the same way those amoeba viruses survive, then smallpox is not eradicated from the planet – only the surface,” he said.
“By going deeper we may reactivate the possibility that smallpox could become again a disease of humans in modern times.”
However, it is not yet clear whether all viruses could become active again after being frozen for thousands or even millions of years.
“That’s the six million dollar question,” said Professor Jonathan Ball, a virologist from the University of Nottingham, who was commenting on the research.
“Finding a virus still capable of infecting its host after such a long time is still pretty astounding – but just how long other viruses could remain viable in permafrost is anyone’s guess. It will depend a lot on the actual virus. I doubt they are all as robust as this one.”
He added: “We freeze viruses in the laboratory to preserve them for the future. If they have a lipid envelope – like flu or HIV, for example – then they are a bit more fragile, but the viruses with an external protein shell – like foot and mouth and common cold viruses – survive better.
“But it’s the freezing-thawing that poses the problems, because as the ice forms then melts there’s a physical damaging effect. If they do survive this, then they need to find a host to infect and they need to find them pretty fast.”
Opinion:
Drilling into the permafrost
Once again, man has no idea what he is doing. It doesn’t matter if it is climate change, global warming; what matters is our exploration deep into the permafrost for oil and gas.
Once you penetrate and disturb the permafrost it melts. Once it melts it becomes the above scenario.
We have no idea of the ancient threats that may lurk beneath.
We just want to get our dirty little hands on the oil, gas and mineral resources.
Currently, the discovered virus doesn’t effect humans, but who knows what other viruses or bacteria lie hidden, just waiting their chance to wreck havoc.
Have you any idea how much of the planet is covered in permafrost? I would guess not. Look at this…
That’s a lot of the planet. Too much of the planet to ignore. Too much to be left to the corporations without conscience, too much to be entrusted to governments.
There has to be a total moratorium over these vast areas that prohibits any form of penetrating the ground.
Because if we don’t we have no idea of the possible devastation we could release prematurely on mankind.
If they do, do we have the tools to combat them, or will it be another race against time like HIV?
18 Mar
Monday Moaning
BP asks judge to halt ‘fictitious’ and ‘absurd’ Deepwater oil spill payouts
Oil giant asks New Orleans judge to temporarily halt payouts and says it could be ‘irreparably harmed’ by billions in costs
The actual amount of compensation that BP must pay after the 2010 Deepwater spill is uncapped. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features
BP launched its promised appeal against “fictitious” and “absurd” oil spill compensation payouts on Friday and asked a judge to temporarily halt those made on a so-called business economic loss basis.
In a New Orleans court filing, the oil giant gave examples of businesses in industries far from the spill and unconnected with the coastline that enjoyed strengthened earnings in the spill year of 2010 and yet had received millions in spill compensation.
The British oil and gas group, which has already sold a substantial part of its business to pay reparations and fines for the disaster, said it could be “irreparably harmed” by the payouts without relief from the court, because they could cost it “billions” more than it budgeted for when it agreed to a settlement in April 2012.
Read more
Opinion:
Oh dear, how sad…
BP can cry all it wants.
The company is claiming ‘irreparable harm’ could be done, and why not? They caused irreparable harm to the environment.
In my view, all the companies, not just BP, who were involved in the Gulf of Mexico disaster should be permanently banned from drilling oil anywhere in the world.
What they did to the Gulf, was shocking beyond belief. There is no monetary compensation big enough.
These companies should be made to bleed!
31 Jul
Anything goes, when it comes to money
Greenpeace finds corals at Shell’s proposed Arctic drilling site
The soft coral species known as the Sea Raspberry (Gersemia sp.) © Jiri Rezac / Greenpeace
Greetings from the Chukchi Sea, way up in the Arctic north of Alaska, where the team aboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza is using a small submarine to study the seafloor in the area Shell hopes to begin drilling for oil this summer. During what we believe to be the first research submarine dives ever in the Chukchi Sea, we were surprised to discover large numbers of corals in the midst of Shell’s proposed drill site.
Shell says it knew the corals are there, telling the Washington Post that corals make up nearly 4% of the marine life at the bottom of the Chukchi. To put that in perspective, the South Florida reefs I studied for my masters thesis– and which attract divers from thousands of miles away – often have about 4% coral cover. Personally, I was definitely not expecting corals to be one of the three most commonly seen species on our dives, along with brittle stars and baskets stars.
Corals are slow growing, long lived, and highly vulnerable to disturbance. They provide habitat for fish and other marine life, often serving as nursery areas for larvae or juveniles. Both the United Nations and the US Government have recognized the importance of protecting corals.
All of this raises questions why there is no mention of Chukchi corals in the environmental impact statement for Shell’s drilling plans. Coral experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration do not appear to have been consulted. The public was not informed. You would think the Department of Interior, which oversees the permitting of offshore drilling, would have learned from the BP Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead of moving beyond fiascos like the Gulf assessment which talked about walrus and other Arctic species, it appears little has changed and that environmental impact statements are still treated as little more than bureaucratic requirements to rush through on the way to rubber stamping the next item on Big Oil’s wish list. (my red emphasis)
Source: GreenpeaceBlogs Read more
Opinion:
These corporations will stoop to anything in their greed for profits.
This omission should be prosecuted, and the fine should be BILLIONS!
To show that this bullshit will not be accepted.
Eco-Crap 
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