Greenpeace – we told you this would happen
Latest email from Greenpeace:
Our greatest fears about Shell’s incompetence in the Arctic are starting to be realised.
The Kulluk – Shell’s creaking Arctic oil rig – was being towed back to harbour for maintenance when it was hit by a storm. The tow line broke and despite several attempts to reattach it the onboard crews failed and it eventually ran aground. Shell’s crew was rescued by the US Coast Guard.
The rig now sits abandoned perilously close to the rocky shoreline of Sitkalidak Island in Southern Alaska. This part of the coast is home to endangered species of sea lions, otters and over 250 bird species.
This proves – yet again – that the company is simply not prepared for the hazardous Arctic conditions where any spill could take years to clean up.
So far the more than 139,000 gallons of diesel fuel on board the Kulluk have not leaked into the fragile marine environment. The longer it remains near the cliffs the likelihood of a spill will increase.
But this is only the latest in Shell’s long list of Arctic failures. In the past year, it lost control of another one of its drill ships in a ‘stiff breeze’, crushed its safety equipment and had an on-board fire. The list goes on.
Shell cannot be trusted with the Arctic.
It’s essential that we get this news out to as many people as possible. Please forward this email to a friend who will join us in our bid to protect the Arctic.
Invite them to join us by signing here: http://www.savethearctic.org
We have a Greenpeace team on the way to Sitkalidak right now to monitor the situation closely and we’ll update you very soon.
Reblogged this on Wibble and commented:
With thanks to Martin for saving me the trouble of composing a blog post
pendantry
5 January 2013 at 14:58
Did fiscal irresponsibility strike again? Probably according to the article at Grist:
Lionel A
6 January 2013 at 17:04
Thanks for that, Lionel. Once again it’s proven that greed goes before a fall.
pendantry
6 January 2013 at 22:19
[...] 2013/01/05: LoE: Greenpeace — we told you this would happen [...]
Another Week of GW News, January 6, 2013 – A Few Things Ill Considered
7 January 2013 at 13:59
Are we, as a society, insane to think that going to drill for oil in such a dangerous place? We know our climate is on the brink, we know it is because of burning fossil fuels, and yet we continue to allow such irresponsible projects to go ahead.
We are like an obese man who steals from children in order to buy more junk food! (The analogy makes sense in my mind!)
jpgreenword
13 January 2013 at 00:38
That quote on your blog from Albert Einstein is, I think, the answer to your (rhetorical?) question. However, I do not think that it is society that is insane; it is the drivers of the industry. They have hypnotised our politicians and kept most of society in a artificially-induced coma. Meanwhile, we are all stealing from our children in order to keep paying our fossil fuel bills.
Martin Lack
13 January 2013 at 12:10
Very good point. And to support that point, you can look no further than Canada where our latest changes to environmental and First Nations-related regulations were asked for by the oil industry. And they got exactly what they wanted in short order. All for the sake of economic growth.
Maybe I’m a pink-commie-Nazi-Socialist, but I do not believe that an industry should have any say in the regulations that govern them. Instead regulations (such as environmental regulations) should be based on science. And the people being regulated (such as the oil industry) should have to adapt to those regulations, PERIOD.
jpgreenword
13 January 2013 at 13:20
Accepting the folly of growthmania cannot make you either a Communist or a Nazi because neither Stalin or Hitler realised and/or acknowledged that exceeding the Earth’s ecological carrying capacity would inevitably give rise to Limits to Growth phenomena such as anthropogenic climate disruption.
Martin Lack
13 January 2013 at 13:34
Woohoo! I’m not a Nazi
jpgreenword
13 January 2013 at 14:53