Gloom and doom

Last night I watched "Black Wave: The Legacy Of The Exxon Valdez" on ABC, a documentary about 1989 oil spill from the Exxon Valdez that ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The saddest thing is not the poorly implemented cleanup or the long term environmental, social and economic consequences. It not even the fact that crude oil is far more toxic than previously thought causing the collapse of 16 out of 25 of the local species, including the entire herring run.

No, the worse thing is the outcome of the 20 year legal battle to get damages for those effected from the town of Cordova. This was longest legal battle in U.S. history - fought every step of the way by world's most powerful oil company - ExxonMobil. From an initial damages of 5 billion, 10 years later, the plaintiffs got only 500m. When shared out, it doesn't cover 10% of the losses of some people. In the mean time, ExxonMobile recieved 26 BILLION through interest and investment of the 5 Billion they were first liable for. All this from a company that promotes itself as socially responsible. Evil bastards.

Then, of course, there is the ongoing environmental disasters in the Gulf of Mexico- where 200 million gallons were split - and the Amazon basin disaster caused by Chevron Texaco. See http://chevrontoxico.com/ and http://www.amazonwatch.org/ From ChevronToxico.com:

Source

In a rainforest area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, Texaco carved out 350 oil wells, and upon leaving the country in 1992, left behind some 1,000 open toxic waste pits. Many of these pits leak into the water table or overflow in heavy rains, polluting rivers and streams that 30,000 people depend on for drinking, cooking, bathing and fishing. Texaco also dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic and highly saline "formation waters," a byproduct of the drilling process, into the rivers of the Oriente. At the height of Texaco's operations, the company was dumping an estimated 4 million gallons of formation waters per day, a practice outlawed in major US oil producing states

From http://www.elrst.com/2010/06/15/the-much-lesser-known-amazon-oil-spill/

During three decades Texaco operated more than 300 oil wells without taking any notice of environmental issues. As a result the company polluted the air, the soil and the water in a massive way. As the NYT puts it :

” The quest for oil is, by its nature, colossally destructive. And the giant oil companies, when left to their own devices, will treat even the most magnificent of nature’s wonders like a sewer.”

Then, tonight, I made the mistake of checking the news.. and boy it gets me down. For instance:

• Cardinal Sean Brady, says he has "moved on" and will not resign after he helped cover up for one of Ireland's most notoriously abusive priest [Source]. At the same time in NSW, Ports and waterways minister Paul McLeay has resigned after admitting to using his parliamentary computer to visit gambling and adult websites. [Source]
• The Japanese have started killing dolphins for food that is high in mercury [source], while in Western Australia, they've blown up a dying humpback whale [source]

No wonder I feel down