Are Americans bullying BP?
With all the comparisons to the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, there’s at least one arena where BP appears to be head and shoulders above its oil-spill predecessor — suffering public mockery.
They can thank the age of social media.
There’s the fake Twitter account, BPGlobalPR, posing as the public relations mouthpiece for an arrogant powerhouse. Today it tweeted its 184,466 followers: “Attention lazy fishermen! If you won’t clean our mess, we’re taking your money. Fair is fair.” They also produced this fake press conference.
BP, oil and seabirds — Baltic Sea ducks had worse luck
BP’s vast and spreading oil disaster is killing ever more birds and other wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico — but one of the worst spills for birds was a harmless-sounding 5 tonnes of oil in the Baltic Sea in 1976.
That spill from a ship killed more than 60,000 long-tailed ducks wintering in the area after they fatally mistook the slick for an attractive patch of calm water, according to Arne Jernelov, of the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm, writing in today’s edition of the journal Nature.
By contrast, he writes that fewer than 1,200 birds have so far been recorded killed after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which has led to a leak of a gigantic 250,000 to 400,000 tonnes of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. About 60,000 birds were killed off Alaska in 1989 by the accident usually known as the Exxon Valdez spill (…Exxon’s website calls it The Valdez Oil Spill ), previously the biggest spill off the United States at 37,000 tonnes.
By my maths, the Baltic Sea spill killed one bird for about every 80 grams of oil (…an amount easily spilt when filling up a car), the BP spill (so far) one per 200-330 tonnes. Even tiny amounts of oil can mean that birds’ feathers stick together and let chill water, like in the Baltic Sea, get to their bodies through what is normally a layer of insulation. They can then die of cold.
The Green Gauge: IBM rides a high
If there’s any tech company that has been able to constantly transform itself over the past century to actually be sustainable, it’s got to be IBM.
Last week the global IT giant announced its efficiency figures for 2009 and it meant good news for the environment, a bi-weekly analysis of companies in the news by ASSET4 data providers shows.
Selections of companies were made by Christopher Greenwald, director of data content at ASSET4, a Thomson Reuters business that provides investment research on the environmental, social and governance performance of major global corporations. These ratings are not recommendations to buy or sell.
FROM THE GREAT DEBATE UK:
Oliver Lowenstein on making Cyclestations work
Hurry up and wait.
There's nothing new or unusual about the idea of using bicycles to replace cars to help combat the effects of climate change on the environment. Neither is there anything new or unusual about it taking so long to put the concept into practice.
Oliver Lowenstein has spent several years in pursuit of what he says could become an environmentally sustainable network structured around economically viable "cyclestations" or covered rest points, which would help make long-distance travel more feasible for cyclists.
FROM THE GREAT DEBATE UK:
Heather Rogers on fixing “Green Gone Wrong”
How can human production be transformed and harnessed to save the planet? Can the market economy really help solve the environmental crisis?
Author Heather Rogers argues in a new book that current efforts to green the planet need to be reconsidered.
The growth-based economy can't help but add to the problems the planet faces, Rogers writes in "Green Gone Wrong" published by Verso.
Showcase, don’t shun, economics of climate at G20
– Dr. David Suzuki is a Canadian scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Any views expressed here are his own. –
For the past two years, the global economy has been at the top of peoples’ minds. And so has the environment.
Indeed, most people probably care about both. The fact is these two issues are inextricably linked. As we’ve seen after the economic meltdown, we tend to focus on them as if they are separate.
Fold sustainability into economies, G20 urged
Consensus among sustainability experts at a Toronto conference this week was that world leaders in the Group of 20 nations face a fecund opportunity to make gains integrating environmental concerns with all other levels of economic development.
“Finance ministers are the real environment ministers. Environment ministers have weak, minor voices at the table at which economic decisions are made,” said chair Maurice Strong, President of the Council of the United Nations University for Peace, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, and former president of Power Corporation, head of Petro Canada and Ontario Hydro.
“Environmentalists cannot run the economy,” Strong said.
The roof is on fire
Much has been written about how solar power could help to solve the energy crisis facing mankind. Ideas range from harnessing the Sahara’s heat through parabolic mirrors to transmitting solar energy from space to earth.
The Desertec solar project, for example, aims to supply 15 percent of Europe’s energy needs by 2050. Yet according to Brussels-based EPIA, the world’s biggest solar industry association, more could be achieved some 30 years earlier.
Technically, Europe’s roofs could meet 40 percent of the EU’s electricity demand in ten years from now — at least in theory.
“With a total ground floor area over 22,000 km2, 40 percent of all building roofs and 15 percent of all facades in (the EU’s 27 member states) are suited for PV (photovoltaic) applications,” EPIA wrote.
“Are Americans bullying BP?”
No, not even close as much as they should! As a non-US and non-UK citizen I observe this whole BP mess right from the very beginning and am shocked about BPs incompetence, ignorance and ruthlessness. But there are still some positive aspects in it too. 1) Americans are starting to wake up and become more interested in alternative energies 2) The catastrophic oil spills in other regions of the world are on the reporters lists too 3) Germany will become the first G20 country run 100% by renewable/alternative energies by 2050, 18% by now, to say “bye bye” to big oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power.