June 2, 2010

• A Crude Comparison

  
  Really Sarah???

  Sarah Palin Blames Environmentalists for Oils Spill
  

  Exactly 20 years ago, one of my favorite bands Midnight Oil; played a half hour concert in front of the Exxon building in New York City:

  “Performing on a flatbed truck beneath a banner declaring “Midnight Oil makes you dance, Exxon oil makes us sick,” the ever-politicized Australian band delivered an inspired set protesting the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  You can watch the entire 30-minute performance, along with interview footage, here.”  For those who may not remember, the Exxon Valdez dumped some 11 million gallons of oil in six hours, just a few miles from the Alaskan shore. (Had Sarah Palin been there, she would no doubt have seen Russia reflected off its shiny black surface.)  While other causes were initially blamed, the Valdez disaster was primarily caused by Exxon’s cost-cutting negligence in regard to the ship’s radar. Already downgraded in the ’80s, it had eventually broken down entirely, and the company decided to save money by not fixing it.  Fast-forward two decades to the current Gulf oil spill, which had executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton shifting the blame back and forth during this month’s Senate hearings.  Ironically, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton is intimately involved in both the current spill and our two current wars. Something worth remembering this Memorial Day.  “We’re a small screaming voice,” says Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett toward the documentary’s end. “But we’ll keep speaking. If they don’t listen now, someone will be listening tomorrow.”  We can only hope.”  Source: CS Independent.
  

  Who’s going to save us?

  And 40 years ago, the oil spill that spawned the modern environment movement, happened right here on the coast of Santa Barbara, where we visited this weekend.  As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald:

  For it was another undersea oil well that 40 years ago spawned the modern day, highly effective environmental movement on the US West Coast and the core of US government environment protection policy.  Compared with the volume of oil spewing into the Gulf every day, what happened five miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, in January 1969, was minuscule. But its aftermath was vast.  An explosion of natural gas at Platform Alpha, operated by the Union Oil company, caused a blowout – releasing an undersea oil gusher. It would be 11 days before the blowout was brought under control. About 3 million gallons of oil escaped, much of into the pristine and ecologically diverse Santa Barbara channel waters, coating the nearby shoreline.

  The damage was enormous. About 4000 dead sea birds and large numbers of seals and dolphins fatally poisoned. The oil also killed innumerable fish and ruined kelp beds.  But then something unexpected happened; tens of thousands of people arrived to help with the clean-up. They laid out mountains of straw to soak up the oil, carted away tonnes of contaminated sand and gathered up the dead and injured wildlife. They were of all ages and affiliations, causing then president Richard Nixon to remark: “The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.”  The Santa Barbara spill fully awakened the West Coast environmental movement and led directly to the declaration of the first Earth Day in November, 1969, the founding of the US Environmental Defence Centre and the first university Environmental Studies Program. Offshore drilling was banned for the next 16 years – until the Reagan administration came to office.  Read more…
  

  It took Santa Barbara decades to recover.  We may not be so lucky this time…and poor BP, just wants their old life back!  Suffice it to say if Sarah Palin ever becomes president, the number of disasters like this would increase ten fold.  Speaking of Santa Barbara, here are my photos from this weekend.

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  Best of the rest…

  I also almost bought an iPad this weekend, but I decided to wait until they could do this:

  I also took Chazz on a photoshoot recently, to showcase the beautiful flowers California constantly has blooming.  Enjoy the show: 

  • 2:36 am
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