"Yours truly, BP"

Congratulations on your new job! (0.00 / 0)

Too bad the Obama Administration failed to seek out competent and technically knowledgable persons such as yourself. Unfortunately you do not meet the early critical qualifications: political patronage and diversity; Neither of which I disagree with,but the times called for competency and technical knowledge first.

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by: TomPaine @ Fri Jun 11, 2010 at 22:20:26 PM UTC

Few situations break my heart anymore, but this BP disaster breaks my heart. (0.00 / 0)

I recently spent a week with Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans.  Much of the Katrina devastation has been removed, some people are rebuilding.  On a commercial Katrina tour we learned that 100,000 people have not returned to New Orleans.  The older earthen flood walls were not damaged during Katrina, only the concrete ones built by the Corps of Engineers, which have been rebuilt much like they existed prior to the storm.  Some houses have been rebuilt exactly as they were before the storm, at several feet below the flood walls.  A few houses are being built above the 15-20 foot wall-of-water line that swept through the Ninth Ward. While the City of New Orleans appears "back to normal," several residential areas have a long way to go.

Now with the oil disaster, more barrier islands are being destroyed, guaranteeing that some of the next hurricanes will take larger tolls on areas away from the Gulf where residents live and work.

My heart breaks for the loss of bird populations, which I've enjoyed seeing on several trips to the South Coast of the US. Under ideal conditions, which involve removing the negative impacts on the natural world of the Gulf, that  world could eventually restore itself.  However, greed makes it almost impossible to remove the negative impacts in the Gulf.

It's important to me to ask, how many human lives have to be lost due to negligent oil and mining companies that are subsidized by US, before our government is willing and competent enough to criminally prosecute those responsible for the loss of life?  Is our government caring and competent enough to regulate those industries that have used our finite resources without adequately paying for and being responsible during that use?  It breaks my heart to watch as government and the courts fail to prosecute the powerful while virtually ignoring the rest of the citizenry.

Today I read that author and historian Douglas Brinkley has stated that the government plans a major restoration in the Mississippi River, the Gulf and surrounding marshes when the well is capped and the clean up completed.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?  That possibility is presently beyond my belief.  

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by: walkabout @ Sat Jun 12, 2010 at 02:21:42 AM UTC