If this oil catastrophe isn’t a complete game-changer, I don’t know what could be. I just read that BP is projecting to double the amount of oil capture by mid-July. In an alternate article, the report of oil leakage is double the original estimation. Unless my math is incorrect, doesn’t that mean the same amount of oil will be seeping out as we’ve been estimating all along? In other words, who cares about this news? The only news to report is that it’s either contained or not contained. Middle ground does nothing here.
I don’t see how we can ever be the same as an industrial society after this. At a certain point, are the US and BP simply going to throw in the towel and let the entire oil reservoir empty into the ocean? At what point do we admit that there is no technology available to handle this and concentrate on mitigating the disaster instead?
All of us here may look back on this summer as “the event.” We should feel pretty good that we can still go on vacation, watch World Cup soccer, and head to the fridge for cold beers. This may very well be the physical event that changes everything as a direct result of a failed monetary paradigm that forces a shoddy company to take unnecessary risks and shortcuts to eliminate costs, enhance the bottom line, and accommodate impossible infinite growth.
Not that I need any more proof, but when I look at unprecedented resource disaster then scan the price of oil (currently down right now) more or less steady, I can’t help but want to bust an economist in the face. I mean, didn’t the death of Michael Jackson affect markets, yet a global event like this one occurs and it’s business as usual? Fuckin’ really?
More proof that we don’t really want to comprehend what we’ve done or what we’re doing. It’s easier to focus on the Country Music Channel or Lindsay Lohan. It’s easier to drive down to your local BP and protest rather than change yourself. After all, didn’t we collectively demand this rig? Like it or not, we’ve all got a piece of this thing… we’re all in this together at this point forward.
We are not adrift in the Sea of Powerless. This shit isn’t over yet, and we’ve got a lot of work to in the Great Transition that guys like Charles Hugh Smith, Chris Martenson, and Dmitry Orlov have been talking about for years.
How’s your lifeboat?
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I write shit on the internet for a while, then I read up on guys like you mentioned (Orlov, Savinar, Smith, etc) and realize I’m just saying more of the same stuff and the world doesn’t really fuckin’ care. Then I’ll find a site like FG and get some good feedback and forget that I’ve said it all before and I’ll be just a little less cynical for a while again. I’m learning to not be so bipolar about it, but still, it comes back to being analogous with Greer’s stair-stepped stages of descent.
The less we are dependent on the System of Systems, the less we need a lifeboat because we will be accustomed to being poor. Poor is the normal way of life for most animals. Most are healthier when just a little hungry rather than with full bellies. When you are always a little hungry, it isn’t so bad to be a little hungrier for a while and then find something (anything) to eat. When we are sated and sedated and only stimulated by Spectacle (Bread and Circuses), then we don’t know how to respond. This disaster is, like 9/11, a cattle prod to a fat pig: you can’t predict where it is going to go except you better be ready to get out of the way of 600 lbs of teeth and muscle.
This well will be capped. When all else fails, someone will call me and I’ll walk through the problem with them so they can solve it. They already know how, they just haven’t made the decisions (to spend the money, to sacrifice the robot, etc.) to seal things up just right. Big problems take big solutions, but are usually just a matter of applying enough resources at the right point. The plumbing will be fixed at some point (Many of us are already submitting engineering suggestions at Innocentive.com). Hammering on the people who are tasked with the job isn’t going to help. Bankrupting BP over claims before the well is plumbed (it can’t be capped yet unless Samuel L. Jackson has that “Core” machine built), isn’t a good idea because it would leave a gap until someone takes over the operation. The government should take over the cleanup and worry about the invoice at a later date, and leave BP to tackle the well (with some supervision, of course). Maybe this slick is affecting driving habits, and that lack of demand is dropping the prices, which gives the markets some buoyancy…hard to say what happens at the other end of chaos when the BPutterfly is stuck in the oil instead of flapping its wings in Tokyo.
I don’t have the money for a spot in the lifeboat.
I guess it’s just as well, I’m only good for another 20 years (best case scenario), anyway.
Dan,
The world may not fuckin’ care, but I do.
If “they” already know how, then why ain’t it done? I sort of don’t believe that, but trust you enough to say, “ok.”
If there’s a solution….then…hey….how ’bout….I don’t know…..using it? Just asking. If Dan knows how to solve it, then let’s give a call. Who’s waiting for what, exactly?
I’ve been in the crisis management field long enough to know what you’re talking about, but the fires I’ve been in created plenty urgency to do the solving. I haven’t really touched this one for two months — not really. That’s long enough. If there’s a solution, then fuckin’ solve it, hence the thought that this is unsolvable and is going to bleed out for many more months before the pressure drops on its own.
I agree that the hammering doesn’t help, but that never stopped anybody hammering me when lives were on the line. I learned how to tune it out and work, and I’m sure those guys are doing the same. I learned when to pull the radio out of my ear and “hit a dead zone.” There’s somebody further up the chain that will now take the hammering. The problem here is that we’ve run all the way up the chain. Nobody left.
The message is this: shit or get off the pot. If you’ve got a big solution, now’s the time. Consider this corner of the universe your formal invitation. If somebody out there has the control, then control it. Otherwise, give up and start working on how this is going to be mitigated.
Oil at $73? Nonsense. At this point, I think the true cost is immeasurable. $73? That’s just stupid, and I probably shouldn’t even talk about economics anymore. It’s such a stupid field that it’s not worth talking about or acknowledging. I’ll have to think about that. No supply/demand curve will expain that…
We’re all dependent on the System at least a little bit hence the lifeboat. Moving toward voluntary poverty is difficult, and this has been a bend on this site from the beginning. It takes a complete reprogram of the lizard, which I believe is what we’re doing here. It countermands everything our culture has taught us and almost every organized piece of infrastructure readily available. I sort of think we’re building the new infrastructure — guys like us. It’s a slow process, but probably needs to speed up. The mind is the lifeboat…hoping we’ll come back to a consumer culture by stockpiling fossils of industrialization only prolongs the inevitable. Charles Hugh Smith says, if you’ve stockpiled 6 months worth of stuff what happens at month 7?
Kimberly,
The lifeboat doesn’t take money. You’ve got a spot so long as I’m around.
Tommy, I am honored to be quoted on FG and mentioned in the same sentence with Chris Martenson, who I just met last week when he gave a talk at Yahoo! HQ in Cupertino–he is a terrific speaker and well worth seeing if any FG reader gets the chance.
Coupla quotes for antigrav:
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” (George Orwell)
“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.” (James Madison)
Tommy, you are so right; the lifeboat is our mind and heart, our willingness to share, learn, collaborate and endure. Want little, love more, etc.
Tommy, I think you get it. You know that when you’re under fire, you do what can be done and those around you who can do the job will get it done without any “My wife, she..my kids, they… my dog, it…”.
Interesting point Tommy. In corporate life when NOONES’S life was on the line, nuthin but money, the hammering was pretty hard at times. And shit got solved. Sometimes by me and sometimes by the next person up the chain.
But this doesn’t get solved? This isn’t a little more important than one job? one account? My takeaway is to assume they don’t have a short term answer, until the fucker is plugged.
What this all means is still a guessing game. Worst case scenario, it gets super ugly quick. Best case scenario – I’m not really sure what that even is. It stops leaking soon, and the oil turns out not to kill everything?
Dan:
One of the things that keeps me from writing more on the internet, and perhaps even in my professional life is the recognition of just how much of it is autoerotic recycling of work better thinkers than me have already said. But, OTOH, it is fun to talk about this stuff. And my poor wife gets a little tired of being my only outlet since pax left.
My lifeboat is just fine, and there is no room on it for anymore fucking humans. This BP environmental disaster is the last nail in the coffin for the remaining shreds of love I have for this species. Sure, there are still good people out there (evident on this site, for example), but all I can say is best of luck to you! All the love and respect in the world, Tommy, but I’m still waiting for humanity to give me a good reason to care about them. I’m not talking individuals, I’m talking a species that adds nothing to this planet. We consume at an alarming rate, yet unlike other species, we no longer serve a purpose in nature. We only serve ourselves, and no one needs us. We have allowed ourselves to become an abomination. Despite my bad attitude, this site is a candle in the darkness, and I’ll still follow (if only to respect those few warriors of common sense and dignity that still exist).
Murray: we should have a drink together while the world burns.
Life changing is right, even though I live far from the gulf and am pretty unaware of the day-to-day details of the disaster (no TV), I still am resolved to drive as little as possible after all this, as well as reduce my usage of anything based on oil, which means everything.
And BP isn’t polluting just the Gulf, read this one:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/12/bp-spill-toxic-chemicals/#more-26857
Dan, considering that is pretty much happening as we speak, I’ll take you up on that the next time I’m in your area.
I’m seeing what few photos BP hasn’t managed to stop from hitting our propaganda machine and I’m seeing a lot of oil covered birds. I’ve been reading the economic blogs for a few years now and everyone’s been talking about and waiting for “the black swan.” Did anyone ever dream it would actually be a black swan? I find some gallows humor in that. I think of all the people on the gulf coast who now have nothing to lose, no means of making a living.
And by the way, this methane flue disaster was predicted by the folks at halfpasthuman.com – an interesting mind game if nothing else.