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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 20, 2008 - 04:13pm PT
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It's sad we're not remotely serious about conservation yet. A 91 Honda civic got a friend of mine over 40 miles per gallon. She bought an 03 Honda Civic and it only got 30, and even that was way better than the competition.
Holding on the basic lifestyle is one thing, refusing to give up rocket powered cars for some gutless efficiency is another.
So far, we're whistling in the dark right to the end before we get serious about a serious problem.
Having reasonably priced oil, and that includes by drilling more at home, only makes it inevitable that everyone, here and there, will continue to consume it until it's not reasonably priced anymore. Let's concentrate on other solutions and efficiency, and if we don't get there by the time oil is $350 a barrel, we can drill anwar and the rest of Alaska and make a killing and save ourselves at the same time
Peace
Karl
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L
climber
Far off places where I left lipstick traces...
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Jul 20, 2008 - 07:50pm PT
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If every picture tells a story...
The Exxon Valdes oil spill soiled 1,300 miles of shoreline and killed hundreds of thousands of birds and other marine animals. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments on Feb. 27, 2008 from Exxon about why the company should not have to pay the $2.5 billion punitive damages awarded to victims of the disaster that happened 19 years ago when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Alaska's Bligh Reef, spurting 11 million gallons of crude oil into the rich fishing waters of Prince William Sound.
Interesting fact: If you let your kitchen faucet run on full blast all the time for ten years, that would be as much oil that was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
Some of us remember it. Some of us were too young, or weren’t even born yet. But anyone who gives a damn about America and the breathtaking beauty, scale, and delicate ecosystems of its wilderness areas, should burn the Exxon Valdez catastrophe into their memory.
More than 11 million gallons of North Slope crude oil poured through the punctured steel hull of a tanker grounded on a well charted reef in Prince William Sound on Friday [March 24, 1989] unleashing the largest crude oil spill ever to foul U.S. waters.
The disaster threatened to wreak havoc in one of our continent’s richest marine environments just as herring were returning to spawn and juvenile salmon were migrating from the rivers where they hatched.
The oil spill spread, ultimately polluting at least 1,300 miles of shoreline. The cause was simple: it was determined that Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the tanker, was “too drunk to legally operate a ship“. After years in and out of court, Hazelwood eventually had to pay a $50,000 fine and do community service.
The environmental aftermath of the spill was heartbreaking, and we haven’t seen the end of it.
Over 3,000 sea otters, 500 harbor seals and about 350,000 seabirds died in the days immediately following the spill. Now researchers writing in the journal Science caution that more than a decade later, a significant amount of oil still persists and the long-term impacts of oil spills may be more devastating than previously thought.
Exxon already got an Alaskan jury’s $5 billion punitive damages award reduced by half. Now it is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to erase it altogether. The high court discussed Exxon’s case in private last week and will announce as early as today whether it will accept it.
If every picture is worth a thousand words...
Quarterly profit results for Exxon Mobil Corp.
1Q 2006 — $ 8.40 Billion
2Q 2006 — $ 10.36 Billion
3Q 2006 — $ 10.49 Billion
4Q 2006 — $ 10.25 Billion
1Q 2007 — $ 9.28 Billion
2Q 2007 — $ 10.26 Billion
Source: Exxon Mobil
Those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
How much is YOUR integrity worth?
And guess what? There have been many, many more oil spills since the Exxon Valdez--and one in Argentina not long after that was even bigger. The above photos aren't just from the Alaska disaster...and there are millions and millions more photos just like these, from all over the world...each of them telling the same sad, pathetic story.
The problem is not just tankers, either. Platforms. Pipelines. Anything and everything having to do with crude is an eventual disaster just waiting to happen...or is happening right now with The Myth of Global Warming.
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