Saturday, 1 May 2010

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster; It could have been prevented:




Before they start screaming that no one could have foreseen an environmental disaster of this magnitude, which now threatens turning the entire gulf coast into an oily polluted wasteland and a marine dead-zone; let me first say, many of us did. Any type of oil exploration and drilling contains inherent risks and dangers. Most of the risks can be reasonably managed, when drilling on the earth’s surface; but these risks are greatly increase in offshore drilling – and can only be managed with any degree safety, when rules and regulations are first put in place, which put the interests of the commons above those of the oil companies and their profits – and this is why we must elect competent  leaders.

The events that caused this latest of environmental disasters; didn’t start with the April 20 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig - it started when Gorge W. Bush was appointed as President in 2000. In the mid to late 90s, officials in the Clinton administration had drafted new regulations and laws, governing offshore oil exploration and drilling, both before and after Clinton had extended the moratorium on offshore oil drilling. The regulations in this draft were modeled on the same laws and safeguards that are enforced by every other nation on this planet, which is engaged in offshore oil drilling. However, G. W. Bush, and his newly appointed cabinet of brain-dead and incompetent, Christian university graduates, and deluded ignorant Christian idiots and morons; believed the laws just amounted to more government regulation and the interference in the private matter of business. And that the regulations and laws would just discourage private investment.


Then in 2003, under the pressure of the oil companies, the Bush administration further weakened the regulations and laws concerning the construction and operations of these offshore oil drilling rigs. The oil companies and their contractors complained that many of the required safety devices, would not increase safety, but would only complicate the construction, and increase the cost of building the oil-rigs. Bush agreed saying “it’s best to leave those decisions up to the experts, like myself, the ‘oil men’ who know how best to drill an oil well” (well he said something just as stupid, even if those weren’t his exact words).


One of those required safety devices, was a remote controlled blowout preventer, that with the other required safety equipment, would have automatically shut off the oil within minutes after the explosion had occurred – and if this device had been installed during the construction of this oil-rig; we would only be dealing with a few thousand gallons of oil, and not the millions of gallons of oil we’re now faced with today. Their main objection to this device and its supporting equipment, was that it would have added about 700,000 dollars to the cost of the construction, of each new oil-rig (a small price to pay for preventing an environmental disaster of this magnitude, you just might think?)


I was deeply sadden when this ignorant Christian moron, G. W. Bush, decided to expand offshore drilling for oil, this despite all the warnings of the dangers presented by scientists, that by him doing so, he would only be creating a disaster waiting to happen.


The biggest concerns I had back then was without direct government oversight, laws and regulations, and a real invested plan to quickly deal with these types of disasters; we would be betting the future of life as we know it here on our only planet, on those deluded Christians who are only concerned with Jesus, the rapture, and a deluded vision of an afterlife.


I was very disappointed when Obama caved into these ignorant mindless Christian morons in the GOP, who are led like ignorant-sheep, by the interests of corporate America, I hope that now he will grow some fucking balls, and enact a permanent ban on this madness, or at least reinstate the moratorium on new drilling, at least until all of the current safety issues have been properly addressed.


I can now only hope that the damage being caused by this disaster, will open the eyes of those ignorant Christians voters in the south, who’s only criterion in choosing their leadership, is that they be just as anti-science, deluded and ignorant as them, and only concerned about the here and now just like they are. But I believe it will only be a matter of time, before they start blaming Obama for this too; and then they’ll again support that ignorant Christian bitch, and the “drill baby drill” mentality.