Obama now doing some backtracking on his oil drilling stance: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36912754/ns/us_news-environment/ Personally I am almost right in step with him. Living in Michigan I was mostly pro-drilling without much hesitation. Now....in the face of this disaster a few short hundred miles away to the west from where I live I feel a lot different about it. Obviously you cannot trust any corporation to conduct it's operations with any sort of care and concern for others and the environment. Lot's of promises get made when someone is out to make a profit and sometimes there is nothing truly in place to back up those promises.
I'm with him on this as well. You just need one wakeup call to make the industry realize that they didn't have everything figured out as well as they thought that they did. It's somewhat of an indictment of the engineering profession that all the high paid engineers on the project didn't contingency plan for this senario. Now they will have to in order to drill this deep for new wells. No doubt they will learn a lot from this disaster, but sadly too late.
I don't think it's so much that nobody cares about the men who died in the explosion, it's just that the ecological disaster that is forming is so much bigger even than the loss of 11 good men. In the W.Va. coal mine collapse, once it was over, there was no on going story other than the men and their families.
Terry makes a good point. That's a terrible tragedy for 11 familes. Imagine also the multitude of families potentially affected in a hugely negative way if this goes down the wrong path. Closing down fisheries and snuffing tourism will kill livelihoods by the hundreds of thousands if not millions. And so far I just don't see the sense of panic and urgency that I think we should see from those repsonsible for protecting those families from such a fate. There are so many ramifications......even indirectly. If half of the Gulf states area beaches are ruined by this oil for several years can you imagine the absolute crush next winter/spring at those coastal areas of the south lucky enough to escape direct impact from the mess? It's already a congested mess in the spring at times so I can only imagine it three times worse. Forget reasonable air fares or hotel rooms in those unaffected areas. Exxon-Valdez was a tragedy.....but this is mainland USA.......not remote Alaska.
Everybody feels sorry for the 11 workers. But they knew the risks they were taking and were paid accordingly to do a tough, dangerous job. On the other hand this ecological disaster could take decades to clean up and many are sure to lose their livelihoods as a result.
Actually the president attended the memorial service. Didn't see anything like that for the dead rig workers. Oh yeah, they weren't UNION coal miners.
I don't think any of us down here facing this mess give two shits about the politics of it. We just want maximum effort and resources thrown at the problem.
I agree with Dave. Everyone can waste time talking the politcal aspects of this later. Right now it's all hands on deck . THis has enormous implications.
Yeah I don't care at all for Obama and whether he went to the funerals of those miners because they were Union miners. I just want max effort from the govt and industry to get this under control. Unless I miss my guess I doubt if the president was even wanted at the funerals of the men who died on that rig.