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Officials admit BP disaster worst in U.S. history, best estimate of flow rate a total crock
Cross-posted from Wonk Room. Officials have finally admitted that the Deepwater Horizon blowout is the worst oil disaster in American history, exceeding the Exxon Valdez spill. After a month of insisting that the damaged well was only spewing 210,000 gallons (5000 barrels) of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, officials admitted this morning […]
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Will BP take responsibility for the Gulf spill or squeeze profits from it?
This post is co-authored by Susan Lyon. ExxonMobil will convene its annual shareholders meeting in Dallas this morning as the magnitude of the ongoing BP oil disaster grows. This is a reminder that oil companies need to be held accountable for their actions—both while the oil gushes from the ocean floor and 20 years after […]
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The 7 dumbest things in BP’s spill response plan
We do not live in the Gulf of Mexico, you stupid oil company.Oil companies are supposed to have spill-response plans prepared before they begin drilling in American offshore waters. Minerals Management Service safety regulators are supposed to scrutinize those plans before signing off on them. But it’s looking more and more like no one bothered […]
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In wake of Gulf spill, should this be the summer of energy reform?
The New Yorker‘s Elizabeth Kolbert tells how the 1968 Unocal oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., spurred public outrage that prompted Congress and President Nixon to pass the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act-cornerstones of American environmental law — and create the EPA. “BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill makes the […]
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Show how much you–and BP–care with a commemorative oil spill T-shirt
streetgiantIf you want to do something about the Gulf oil spill and you’re one of those people who likes to wear their heart on their sleeve, try this on for size: a commemorative T-shirt of BP’s legacy in the Gulf of Mexico. You’ll be giving the shirt off your back with every purchase, because all […]
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Big companies help do something right in Canadian forest deal
Boreal forest in Canada — safe from chainsaws for now.Photo: ForestEthicsMy first job in the social change movement was working for Ralph Nader. I was a lawyer, one of Nader’s Raiders. Not in the ’70s when it was cool and people actually knew what that was, but in the ’90s, when it was decidedly not […]
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Oil gusher forces State Dept. into awkward diplomacy with Cuba
Add this to every other sort of headache the Gulf of Mexico spill has caused: It’s now an international relations problem too. As Brendan DeMelle reports, the State Department has sent diplomatic notice about the spreading oil threat to Mexico, the Bahamas, the Marshall Islands, and even Cuba, a nation with which we do not […]
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GM bets Volt will move Californians to buy American
Chevy hopes the Volt takes California by storm.Photo: Todd WoodyIf you happened by an empty parking lot near San Francisco’s waterfront baseball park Tuesday morning, you would have seen some people putting a low-slung black sedan through its paces on a makeshift track outlined by fluorescent orange pylons. What was remarkable was not so much […]
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BP: The gulf between image and reality
The devastating and escalating events in the Gulf of Mexico underscore an amazing collection of problems: reliance on polluting energy, absence of a coherent national energy plan, the problems with lax government oversight, and dozens of others. Perhaps most clearly, it shows the gulf we should have seen years ago between the image of BP […]
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The three stupidest things said about the BP oil spill
Since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig went down in the Gulf last month, there have been two unstoppable gushes: one from the ocean floor and the other from the mouth of BP’s top executive, Tony Hayward. Here are three of his worst: 1. “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of […]
