All In It Together.

Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Beefheart

Yesterday I received an e-mail from pb @ Pat’s Pond that reminded me of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

http://patspond.blogspot.com/

Pat said she hoped that the Gulf of Mexico will not be described soon as something that used to be beautiful.

I hope so too, hope that the oil leak can be contained and the oil can be cleaned up.

Hope that this can happen and it is not just a fantasy that I am having, want the damage done to be restored.

Want the scrimp business to be saved, want everyone to be able to enjoy the natural beauty of the area.

How I wish that companies would not keep over-exploiting natural resources as they are currently doing world wide without any care for peoples welfare and safety.

With no thought for future generations, only for their profits, all over the world companies are causing such disasters.

Had look at oil spills:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html

http://www.environmental-research.com/publications/pdf/spill_statistics/paper4.pdf

I read about the horrible situation in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in The Guardian:

‘’The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades.’’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

I read that:

‘’One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that criss cross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months.

Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked. "We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots," said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. "This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months.’’

The Guardian also says;

‘’That was the Niger delta a few years ago, where, according to Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks.’’

Then there is the mud volcano created by a PT. Lapindo Brantas drilling for gas in Indonesia, the mud volcano has been erupting since 2006.

‘’ The mud volcano was created by the blowout of a natural gas well drilled by PT Lapindo Brantas, although company officials contend that it was caused by a distant earthquake.

The reporter writes;

‘’Approximately 30,000 m³ (1 million cubic feet) of mud — equivalent to the contents of a dozen Olympic-size swimming pools — are expelled per day.[2] It is expected that the flow will continue for the next 30 years.’’

He also notes that:

‘’ It erupted in May 2006 and continues to spew out boiling mud, causing the displacement of around 30,000 people in East Java. ‘’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow

The Bhopal disaster was the worst industrial disaster ever; it occurred in India in 1984 and twenty six years later it is still causing deformities, suffering and death.

The Wikipedia says:

‘’It occurred on the night of December 2-3, 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. At that time, UCIL was the Indian subsidiary of the U.S. company Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), which is now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company. Around midnight on December 2–3, 1984, there was a leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other toxins from the plant, resulting in the exposure of over 500,000 people.’’

Wiki goes on to say:

‘’Some 26 years after the gas leak, 390 tons of toxic chemicals abandoned at the UCIL plant continue to leak and pollute the groundwater in the region and affect thousands of Bhopal residents who depend on it,’’

They also say:

‘’Over two decades since the tragedy, certain civil and criminal cases remain pending in the United States District Court, Manhattan and the District Court of Bhopal, India, against Union Carbide with an Indian arrest warrant also pending against Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the disaster.[9][10] Greenpeace asserts that as the Union Carbide CEO, Anderson knew about a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant, which identified 30 major hazards and that they were not fixed in Bhopal but were fixed at the company's identical plant in the US. ‘’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

What amazes me about this disaster is that it is still causing widespread suffering, and death for the population and yet it seems to be unknown by many.

I wonder whether this’ invisibility’ is due to the fact that this occurred in India, feels like it is out of sight and therefore out of mind.

Something that I feel should not happen, especially not now, when it has become even clearer that we need to look after each other and the planet.

Seems to me we need to stop our over reliance on oil and find other sources of energy.

I really think that we need to be more aware of the effects of our exploitation of our planet.

‘’ Whatever befalls the earth befalls the son of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.’’

Chief Seattle
1786-1866, American Indian Chief of the Suquamish.