As expected, President Obama is planning to lift the drilling moratorium and to return to his planned drilling program off pristine areas of the East Coast. While Obama is no longer claiming that oil rigs really do not spill much, it really does not matter much. Bureau head Michael Bromwich has announced that the six-month ban is unlikely to be renewed in a blow to environmentalists. One lasting change? The Obama Administration changed the name of the scandal-laden Minerals Management Service to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
The Administration has been putting on a full court press with officials expressing relief that they can find no large amounts of oil left — brushing over the millions of gallons of toxic chemicals that they allowed BP to dump into the ocean to disperse the oil. Experts have objected that the Obama Administration has been actively downplaying research showing these chemicals remain in the food chain for many years. Administration officials have said that the health impact of these chemicals remains uncertain — leading others to question the decision to dump millions of gallons into the ocean.
The recent public offensive appears calculated in part to lift the ban. In the ultimate example of “out of sight out of mind,” Bromwich insists that he can “see no information so far that would justify extending the moratorium.”
Source: CNN
Byron,
You are confusing the probability of something with estimating that probability using statistics (a very bad way to estimate this sort of probability). The fact that you just got 10 heads in a row doesn’t change the probability that the next toss will be a head. In the challenger investigation Dr. Feynman discovered that the engineers all believed the probability of an engine failure was on the order of 1 in 300 while the managers believed it was more like 1 in 100,000. It would be reasonable to determine what the probability of a spill on a BP rig is versus the probability of under typical procedures for the rest of the industry. I’m betting that BP’s odds of screwing up are much better. You know, your final paragraph sounds very similar to the argument that Congressional Republicans have completely ignored regarding the stimulative effects of increased spending on food stamps ($1.64 worth of economic activity per dollar spent) vs. tax cuts ($1.03 per dollar). No one is talking about putting BP (or any other oil company) out of business – just stopping them until they clear up the lies they made regarding the likelihood of a spill and come up with a plan of what to do in case of another spill. What’s wrong with that?
Byron:
————————————————
we have had 2 major oil spills in the last 30 years, one by a third world country (Mexico) and one by a company with an historical sketchy record (BP).
———————————————
You are leaving out, at the very least, Nigeria:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
The Guardian Headline: “Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it”
From the article:
“If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention,” said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. “This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta.”
…
The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The government’s national oil spill detection and response agency (Nosdra) says that between 1976 and 1996 alone, more than 2.4m barrels contaminated the environment. “Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and destroying vegetation. These incidents have become common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures within the existing political regime,” said a spokesman for Nosdra.
The sense of outrage is widespread. “There are more than 300 spills, major and minor, a year,” said Bassey. “It happens all the year round. The whole environment is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the massive difference in the response to oil spills. In Nigeria, both companies and government have come to treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm.”
…
Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil development in Ecuador, said: “Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to care.”
Jack an Jill went up the hill
each had a dollar and a quarter
Jill came back with two and a half
do you think they went up for water?
Now that Iraq will become the number one oil producer in the world soon, do you think the war was not really about oil now?
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/08/peak-of-oil-wars.html
AY,
I live here (I’m pointing around the bottom knuckle of my middle finger on my right palm – it’s a Michigan thing).
Buddha,
“That’s a big twinkie”
Tony C:
the analogy was in punishing all for the actions of one. The probability of a major spill, based on historical evidence, is very small. Zero if you take out the Mexican spill. Granted I suppose you could give each well a probability but how do you come to the probability with no data points? You can flip a coin a hundred times and determine heads and tails, but you are still basing your probability on experience. Isn’t all statistics based on historical outcomes? And don’t you need a data set of something to compare to?
As far as benefit, jobs are created. As far as taxes go, individuals pay taxes. As for lobbyists, they should be done away with.
Not letting companies drill for oil is even more foolish. Lets do away with any industry that may do harm to our environment and go back to subsistence living. Do you think wind and solar power are pristine? How do they manufacture solar panels? How many birds will be killed by wind turbines? DDT was banned on the possibility that it could cause birds to die and untold thousands of people have died because of the ban. Mostly in third world countries. What are the unintended consequences? What is not seen may be worse than what is seen.
As a final thought, how many people do Exxon and BP employ directly? And how many people are employed by companies that do business with them? And finally how many people are employed because people that are directly or indirectly employed by Exxon and BP buy cars, clothes, go out to eat, take vacations and buy Ipods for their children? The very idea that we gain nothing by letting them drill is to show a manifest ignorance of economics.
Slarti,
“You know Egon, this reminds me of that time I stopped you from drilling a hole in your head.”
“That would’ve worked if you hadn’t stopped me.”
Holy Shit Batman, the Joker is loose….
Did, you perchance live in the old country, like maybe Transylvania?
AY,
“Back off, man, I’m a scientist.” – Peter Venkman
Slarti,
Obviously you are a mathman. I on the other hand have not figured out what I wanna be.
Elaine M.,
I am smiling……You are too much……lol
AY–
You won’t what??? C’mon, man, spit it out!
Byron–
“It would be interesting to see what lessons were learned.”
I think it would be near impossible for us to learn “the right” lessons from this disaster because we aren’t being given the truth…the whole truth…and nothing but the truth about the negative impacts of the Gullf oil spill from BP–or from our government.
D’oh!
Should be “Byron was taking a poke AT me…”
Tony C,
Byron was taking a poke a me (I’m also a mathematician). I agree with everything you said (I guess we all think alike ;-)), especially on the risk/cost equation.
Elaine M.,
And of course I won’t…..
Blouise,
I thought it was my coattails this day….dang you change ships in the middle of the ocean…..
Bdaman,
I am sure you are very familiar with Packing Mud……Don’t you all make it a dance when the young ones try to escape?
@Byron:
Hey, I am a mathematician…
Actually your analogy is flawed. There is nothing that a mathematician, dentist or attorney does that might result in them accidentally molesting a child; at least no more so than any other person. (It could happen, imagine a fifteen year old with a fake ID in a bar, for example.)
Oil companies are inherently exposed to the risk of accidental spillage, and as we now know, such accidents cost far more than the value of success. The reason for the moratorium SHOULD be that the value obtained by drilling for oil (almost zero for the citizens of the area, or the citizens of the USA), is far outweighed by the cost of the accident.
As a mathematician, I’d say we do not proceed until we can solve the equation, and we cannot because we don’t know the probability of an accident (it is not too small to measure, as BP and Exxon and others have claimed), or the probable cost of a cleanup, or the expected value of success. So why would we let them do it?
Letting companies drill off our coast is pretty stupid. They own the oil they get, and they always sell it on the world market, right beside everybody else’s oil and for the same price, to the highest bidder. It doesn’t lower our oil costs a penny, not in any way. The “royalties” we are supposed to get are a pittance, a token payment that ends up going back to the oil companies in subsidies and tax breaks. We don’t really gain a single thing by letting oil companies drill off our coast. They don’t even pay income taxes! (But they do have lobbyists and make millions in campaign contributions).
Gyges,
My email address is (firstname)@(lastname).net
Kevin Kesseler
Slarti,
Thank you. Would you mind giving Buddha permission to give me your e-mail (or he could give you mine)? I had a thought the other day re:Free Will/moral behavior that you might find interesting, and don’t particularly want to find and revive the original thread.
From Democracy Now (8/4/2010)
Environmental Activist Jerry Cope on “The Crime of the Century: What BP and US Government Don’t Want You to Know”
(Video of interview included with transcript)
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/4/environmental_activist_jerry_cope_on_the
Environmental activist Jerry Cope has spent the last few weeks traveling along the Gulf Coast and experiencing firsthand the contamination in the air and water. In an article being published on Huffington Post, Cope argues that instead of celebrating the allegedly vanishing oil, we should be concerned about the disappearance of marine life in the Gulf. He describes the Gulf as a “kill zone” and looks into where the marine animals have gone, given that BP has reported a relatively low number of dead animals from the spill.
Gyges,
Well said.
Swarthmore mom,
The Mike Lux article should be forwarded to everyone in the administration. I went to the ‘Organizing for America’ website, but was unable to find a way to send a message to OFA – which seems like another symptom of the problem Mr. Lux is talking about…