Oil Spill Tracker (Austin, Center, Howe: neighborhoods, buying, income)

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

It's insanity already. I feel like I've been asleep for a very long time. The number of oil rigs is almost as unfathomable as the gusher itself. What continues to haunt my thoughts is how in the world did all of this ever take place with no effective back up plan? How???

How could rigs be put in such sensitive areas with no oversight? Oh wait, it IS because we're asleep.

[CptnRn]

NOAA map of the 3,858 oil and gas platforms extant in the Gulf of Mexico in 2006

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots

It's insanity already. I feel like I've been asleep for a very long time. The number of oil rigs is almost as unfathomable as the gusher itself. What continues to haunt my thoughts is how in the world did all of this ever take place with no effective back up plan? How???

How could rigs be put in such sensitive areas with no oversight? Oh wait, it IS because we're asleep.

The industry is just giving us what we want. Feeding our insatiable thirst for gasoline.

[atxcio]

It's amazing with all those thousands of platforms, and the noise/impact that they must make underwater, that so much seafood still came out of the Gulf (before the spill, I mean).

I know that only a few of those rigs are the ultra-deepwater type (you can see how few there are past the visible ridge on the ocean bottom). So the vast majority are probably of the type where you could send actual divers down to the level of the wellhead, and maybe would be more controllable if an accident occurred.

The deepwater stuff >5000 ft down is a relatively new thing. Here is an article about it from 2006: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/bu...wanted=2&fta=y

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

The industry is just giving us what we want. Feeding our insatiable thirst for gasoline.

I don't believe that at all. I don't have an insatiable thirst for gasoline. And, I don't have an alternative. It's more like their insatiable thirst for more money, power and control.

I see the feed is kaput.

[CptnRn]

You could buy an electric vehicle, ride a bicycle, move to a walkable neighborhood, use mass transit, etc. So could I, No one is forcing us to buy gasoline. Yes as long as we will buy it they will sell the gasoline to us.

Some people are choosing lifestyles that do not include driving a gas guzzling automobile. Reference this thread. //www.city-data.com/forum/austi...l#post14412952

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots

I don't believe that at all. I don't have an insatiable thirst for gasoline. And, I don't have an alternative. It's more like their insatiable thirst for more money, power and control.

I see the feed is kaput.

No one who has an insatiable thirst for gasoline thinks that they have that. That's the point - we want to keep our current lifestyle (which is dependent on gasoline, not only for our own personal vehicles, but for all the things that are transported to make that life possible - food, clothing, building materials, all transported from one place to another). No one who lives in this society isn't dependent on gasoline at least to some degree, unless everything they eat/wear/live in/make their living at is locally produced. Can you say that about yourself?

[eileenkeeney]

Originally Posted by achtungpv

Millions of stockholders including probably millions of Americans. :-)

I wonder how stock values would be effected if stock came with liability, where stock owners could become liable for paying damages, once the rest of the companies assets were depleted.
Why should the risks, of owning part of a company, be limited to only the loss of the actual stock?

[TexasHorseLady]

That's probably because stockholders have extremely limited, if any, influence on the day to day operations and even the executive decisions regarding running a company. This includes all the "little folk" - retired people dependent on their investments to survive, young folks building up their life savings, etc. Most of whom wouldn't have clue one about running a business anyway, and would make even worse decisions.

The effect on stock values would be that the stock market, and our economy, would come tumbling down.

[eileenkeeney]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

No one who has an insatiable thirst for gasoline thinks that they have that. That's the point - we want to keep our current lifestyle (which is dependent on gasoline, not only for our own personal vehicles, but for all the things that are transported to make that life possible - food, clothing, building materials, all transported from one place to another). No one who lives in this society isn't dependent on gasoline at least to some degree, unless everything they eat/wear/live in/make their living at is locally produced. Can you say that about yourself?

I would be content to pay a lot more for the energy I use.
We use oil without having to pay for many of the externalities, and too keep it cheap we do not require the use of the best available technology for reducing the externalities.
If we did, the cost of alternative "green" energy might end up being lower than that of oil based energy.

To much of the argument, to reduce the use of carbon based fuels, is based around the global warming argument (which because science is not yet knowledgeable enough to absolutely prove, there is a huge movement to convince people that global warming is not a real problem).
If more of the argument was based around the risks of the pollution (some direct, and some which occurs only when there are accidents), it would be more difficult to make an argument against the cost of developing alternative energy.