Just got off the phone with my better 95+% … Dominion Virginia Power staff are at my home, right now, upgrading the meter to be able to handle net metering. Fingers crossed … with tomorrow’s dawn, my roof will be part of the power generation system covering over 90 percent of my family’s electricity usage. A bit more investment (both in terms of sweat and some $s) in energy efficiency, continuing tightening of our own attention to energy use, and we might be soon covering 100% of our power requirements.
My rooftop has solar hot water and solar pv.
It is unique, on both accounts, in my neighborhood.
That individuality is not a good thing. My neighbors are interested — really interested — in joining me but, as I will recount in a future blog, specific circumstances (stimulus package funding) enabled me to do this on a sensible financial basis. Right now, I cannot advise my neighbors to take the plunge … obviously not until they’ve done serious energy efficiency investments but also not unless they have lots of resources because, with current structures, the ‘payoff’ in my area just isn’t there under normal circumstances. One of the realities … we need to change “normal” to something more sensible.
As a new campaign from 350.org highlights, it is time for world leaders to Put Solar On It, to
install solar panels on your roof and then enact legislation to make it possible for everyone in your country to join you in the clean energy future. We need you to act symbolically — and then we need you to act for real.
Amid the many painful wounds of the Reagan counter-revolution against JImmy Carter’s efforts to move the nation forward on energy policy: the symbolic take-down of solar hot water panels from the White House roof. While the Park Service put solar electric panels up on a maintenance building on the White House grounds in 2003, the White House itself remains untainted by the clean-energy revolution. It is past time for this to change.
PS: We should, however, get Obama to do an weatherization/energy efficiency barnraising in the White House before the panels go up. Remember, the energy 3Rs: Reduce use, Renewable Power, Remediate for pollution. Get the WH to reduce before that step to renewables.
This guest post comes from Jim O’Donnell who, in real life, has explored the taiga and provides consultant services on permaculture and greening the urban environment. The idea of greenign the urban environment via paths that contribute to shifting our agriculture to a more sustainable path is one that is quite appealing. Whether Edible Estates‘ vision for America’s front lawns or the tomatoes growing alongside my driveway Jim’s work echoes and enhances the images supporting and the voices calling for a more sensible use of our urban/suburban land.
“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” ~Masanobu Fukuoka
Imagine strolling out of the hot summer sun and into the moist, cool and dappled sunlight of a mature forest. At eye level you are surrounded by fruits and nuts of all variety. At your waist are bushes heavily laden with currents and berries. There might even be tomatoes and artichokes growing. The ground is blanketed in wild herbs and grasses and topped in native flowers in full bloom. The air is full of sweet smells, the call of birds and the chirping and squirrels. The forest is alive with butterflies and other insects. Oddly enough, you are in the middle of a large city walking down the sidewalk towards the entrance of a public building. Better yet…maybe you’re on the grounds of a public park….or a public school…or your own backyard….
July 8th, 2010 · Comments Off on Web Security Has It Right: Naughty Legislature make BP Act Now!
Sometimes you just have to wonder ….
An acquaintance captured the screen shot above as to the combination of web security (question being asked: human or computer?) and advertising.
Considering the influence of petro-dollars (and other fossil-foolish interests) on the US political system, this is an incredibly apt message combination.
July 7th, 2010 · Comments Off on Preventive vs Reactive: Cheaper today means higher costs tomorrow
Perhaps it is simply human nature or perhaps driven by the skewed nature of early 21st century capitalism or perhaps simply an oddity of American society, but there is a fundamental societal challenge that undermines our ability to pursue sensible policy objectives: the often huge hurdles to investing just a little bit today to avoid higher (often catastrophically higher) costs tomorrow.
We have, in the United States, a system that thrives on reactive responses to repair the situation as opposed to the less exciting but far more effective proactive (preventive) response to invest to avoid the problem and prevent (or, at least, reduce) having to rush to ‘repair’ the situation.
A good part of the problem is our accounting — how to value an avoided cost, especialy an uncertain avoided cost. The closest thing to a rational accounting for this is insurance where we are willing (even, as with auto, where forced to do so) to pay something upfront to reduce the impact of an event that is certain to occur — even if uncertainty as to whether (and, well, with life insurance — when) that bad event will occur to us. The accounting system, however, is very good at accounting for what can be easily counted and monetized. This tends to undermine the valuing of that avoided cost, of understating the real value of sensible preventive investment.
We see this in health care, with strident opposition to a unversal health care system based on preventive health care such that the United States has what can be described as the best reactive health care system in the world. E.g., we do relatively poorly at preventive and routine care but have some fantastic high-end capabilities. Preventing heart problems: poor. Doing bypass operations with good survival: great. Preventing cholesterol problems: poor. Lots of drugs to manage cholesterol: great. Writ large, the US health care system is high cost and poor at helping people avoid problems but does a good job at doing that quadruple bypass and dolling out cholesterol drugs. Now, it is not that universal single payer is the “least expensive form of health care” (cave men health care – eg none – would probably be ‘cheapest’) nor is single-payer without its challenges or problems. But, in terms of delivering a quality care across the entire society with good outcomes at lower cost, single payer does seem to be the best approach. It provides a sensible balance between investing in upfront, preventive, care while providing top-notch ‘back-end’, reactive, care when illnesses occur.
We see this is our international aid, with too little going toward fostering sustainable development (ugly words there that can be associated with “nation building”) with massive shifts in resources required to respond to earthquake devastation in Haiti or famine and strife in the Horn of Africa or … We invest too little in preventive which fosters higher cost reactive policies.
And, we see this with energy and our energy infrastructure. We, as a society, weren’t willing to pay the price for adequate standards and supervision of our offshore drilling. The results are starkly visible in the Gulf of Mexio and across the beaches and marshes of the states bordering the Gulf. We, as a society, haven’t been willing to invest in a clean-energy infrastructure and we’re paying for it with our lungs (higher asthma rates) and our minds (mercury in the system reducing IQ levels) and our future (the risks of catastrophic climate change). We, as a society, aren’t willing to recognize the corollary costs of our energy usage … and those costs are high, today and tomorrow.
Just as in all these other domains, we are seeking paths to be ‘cheap’ today that ignore corrollary costs and that are actually increasing our costs for today and tomorrow …
We are not willing, it seems, to pay extra in transactions for ‘preventive’ and then treating the (extraordinary) costs of the impacts as seemingly unrelated to our carbon addiction:
Mercury in the food system due to coal-fired electricity
Asthma / etc due to coal burning
Cancers due to all forms of fossil fuel burning – with, for example, statistically significant increases in cancer rates as residences get closer to highways (gasoline/diesel exhaust)
Environmental impacts from mountain top removal to ash / slurry ponds to water supply degrading from hydraulic fracturing to havoc in the Gulf from BP’s still-unchecked ‘volcano of oil’
Climate Change and sea-level rise, agricultural disruptions, etc …
We are, societally, going ‘cheap’ on the preventive and then having to spend far more on the reactive with lower results.
Comments Off on Preventive vs Reactive: Cheaper today means higher costs tomorrowTags:Energy
In pure economic efficiency terms, the most cost-effective system for establishing a price on carbon pollution and starting a societal move toward a lower-carbon future, might be an upstream simple price.
Carbon Fee not tax
This price is not a “tax”, because a ‘tax’ implies a taking of a good. That assumes that we have a right to pollute and impact others. In fact, that very pollution is a taking of a good, a seizing of a value, that occurs today without any form of compensation.
A gradual implementation …
Whatever the path, this should start relatively low and gradually increase. This should be a a steady and predictable increase rate to enable investment /other decisions to be made in an orderly fashion. Decisions about tomorrow at the individual, household, community, business, and societal/national levels.
Now, the path and price set in 2010 won’t necessarily work in 2016 or 2025 or 2040 … the structure should, as with the US constitution, provide structure for reasoned change and adaptation in the face of change (changed world conditions, changed political support, change … These price changes could perhaps be downward from trendline or upwards as we know more about climate science/political system recognizes benefits from clean energy.
Going up $1 in real terms every year until 2020 ($20 per ton in 2012 dollars in 2020)
Reevaluate price impacts, levels of carbon reductions, on a continuing basis with proposed changes to pricing offered up in ‘odd’ years
As to revenues. 2008 total US emissions were 6,957 Tg CO2 equiv. Thus, we’re talking about $84 billion in available revenue in 2012 assuming that as a starting point. We could allocate this roughly as follows.
30% in rebate to US citizens living on US soil (with guardians of minors receiving 50% and the other 50% going into ‘trust’ fund to be gradually paid out from age 18 through age 27). (We’d be talking about $25 billion, which would translate to about $80 in checks per citizen. Household of 4 would receive $240: $80 for two adults and $40 for each of two minor children.)
20% for clean energy RDT&E & climate science ($17 billion first year)
35% for clean energy & energy efficiency deployment (5% of this for aid to developing countries to leapfrog) ($29+ billion first year)
10% for climate mitigation efforts (including carbon sequestration efforts via paths like biochar) ($8.4 billion)
5% for … ($4 billion in reserve)
While the real terms price would be going up $1/year, the revenues would not go up as fast due to reducing pollution loads. Even so, in 2020, that average household would receive a direct payment likely somewhere in the range of $350+ while seeing their full system energy costs fall (due to energy efficiency, mainly, but also due to reduced pollution having lower health care impacts).
While I would like to see a direct “cap” on carbon emissions (with a very strong target for reductions … soon) and understand that the social cost of carbon is far higher than $20/ton, I believe that we would significant improvement in our energy security and our economic performance with very meaningful reductions in our carbon emissions. This would foster businesses to move toward cleaner paths and give a high degree of certainty that would enable long-term investments in cleaner energy & energy efficiency. Our pollution would fall, our security would strengthened, our economy would improve … And, I have confidence that the rapid successes that would accrue from the massive amount of low-hanging fruit would foster greater public support of the reasonable nature for imposing a carbon fee and of the benefits accrued from the resources derived from it.
June 29th, 2010 · Comments Off on “There is nothing silly about these strings of oil …”
The catastrophic damage already having occurred and to occur due to Deepwater Horizon is beyond the comprehension and imagination of all but a few. And, for far too many, this is occurring out of sight, out of mind, as we go along our daily lives, get caught up in watching world cup soccer and going to the swimming pool, struggle to keep a job and pay the bills. This catastrophe created, directly, by BP’s seemingly criminally negligent practices and, indirectly, by our oil addictions driving fossil foolish exploration and exploitation is now having visually understandable impacts …
This is without a doubt, the most disturbing video I have ever produced.
I saw at least 100 Dolphins dying or struggling to get out of the oil. It was many miles from any water that was not contaminated. In all likelihood, the Dolphins and Sperm Whale seen in this video are dead by now.
We saw this pod of dolphins, obviously struggling just to breath. [6:30]
This pod of dolphins … some already dead, some in their death throes. It seemed to be that they were raising their heads, looking at the fires, wondering why their world was burning down around them? Why would humans do this to them? [7:00]
John Walten’s even tone with his painfully poetic prose discussing what he has seen and recorded stands in such a contrast to the gleeful ignorance of the ‘drill, baby, drill’ crowd who simply wish us to look away from the Gulf and join them in their anti-reality world.
Some of it looks like a child had sprayed silly string all over the surface of the ocean. There is nothing silly about these strings of oil … [2:22]
In fact, the still images of the whale and the dolphins are striking — but simply within the context of the vastness of the challenges and problems and damage caused by the still gushing well.
Rainbows of death that cover the entire horizon … [3:00]
I see these images and think of the “don’t dump oil into the Bay” notices put on top of local sewer drains. The stains on the Gulf make me wonder as to the futility of those individual actions not to dump a quart of oil. How many billions of oil changes has BP dumped into the Gulf of Mexico?
All the fires on the horizon continue to spew toxins into the atmosphere. Now we have this massive fire from hell also putting toxins into the air …
Inflate your tires and improve your gas mileage. How many billions worth of tire inflations is BP burning off?
And, I look at the inferno from directly burning oil and methane drawn from the ocean’s bottom and wonder: isn’t there something better to do with those hydrocarbons? Isn’t there a path to use them rather than flaunt the wastage even more obviously?
This guest post comes from Bill in Laurel, Maryland, who has been doing occasional posts highlighting changes in the Arctic.
Okay, now on to this week’s news. The international study of the Arctic still goes on, despite our economic troubles. At the North Pole in April 2010, two buoys with weather instruments were launched. They’re currently drifting south toward an area between Greenland and Svalbard called the Fram Strait; the green and red lines in the map below show their path through 11 June. At 26 June their locations were about a third of a degree or so further south than shown in the map.
NOTE: This is an occasional series of diaries on the state of Northern Hemisphere Arctic sea ice (and other topics as warranted), written in memory of Johnny Rook, who passed away in early 2009. He was the author of the Climaticide Chronicles.
For too long, on my “to do” list has been to post on the serious questions related to the booming in America’s natural gas reserves due to the development of “Fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) technology and approaches that have enabled exploitation of the massive amount of carbon atoms in shale natural gas.
We know that “Clean Coal” is an oxymoronic lie useful as an advertising slogan but (generously speaking) little substance behind it (at best, “less dirty coal” could be accurate). Deepwater Horizon has given us a very clear understanding that “Beyond Petroleum” made people feel good while the Bloody Polluters having been happily taking their cash to the bank. Yet, “clean natural gas” is a term that seems to roll off far too many tongues without, it seems, any realization of the irony that the best we can do with a fossil fuel is make it “less dirty” as opposed to clean.
Up front, let us be quite clear: when it comes to the actual burning process, natural gas is far (FAR) less dirty than coal or oil. For example, when it comes to electricity, roughly half the CO2 per kilowatt hour of coal and 40% less than oil. And, across almost every category of pollutant, natural gas emits far fewer pollutants. Without question, if given a choice between burning natural gas or oil or coal in your household or community, you would be a fool (at least on health grounds) not to choose natural gas. When it comes to fossil fuel burning, natural gas is FAR, FAR, FAR less dirty than the other options. Even so, despite the beautifully painted Washington, DC, buses (photo credit Kathy Doucette) and sloganeering around the world, FAR, FAR, FAR less dirty doesn’t make something “clean”.
The burning is only part of the process. The exploitation of fossil fuel resources creates damage and has great risk. Deepwater Horizon has made it starkly clear the risks of drilling for oil (at least for some).
Drilling for natural gas, as well, has significant impacts and high risks. These range from the crisscrossing landscapes with roads and drilling rigs to the potential leakage of methane (23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas as CO2) to the risks of pollution from the process.
A decade ago, the United States was facing “peak natural gas”, with what looked to be declining reserves and declining production. This situation, after a period of a massive build-up of natural gas use (especially for electricity generation), created the requirement for development of an infrastructure for importing natural gas (thus, LNG facilities). However, “hydraulic fracturing” quickly developed into (what was / is seen as) a cost-effective path to release natural gas that was previously thought unexploitable. Very simply, hydraulic fracturing involves the pumping of (massive) amounts of fluid to crack (fracture) shale deposits to free up natural gas trapped in shale deposits. The seemingly miraculous Frakking has pushed “Peak Natural Gas” back decades or even centuries.
This leads to the question: a miracle at what cost?
Proponents argue, almost with BP fervor about the impossibility of a major disaster in offshore drilling, that hydraulic fracturing is safe and doesn’t pose risks to water supplies, the environment, or human health.
Those sorts of claims make one wonder why it was so critical to the industry to gain, as they did in 2005 energy legislation, an exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act for hydraulic fracturing. This was done, we are told, to provide protection to proprietary chemical mixes developed by different corporations to protect their business interests. Of course, those unknown (unstated) chemical cocktails pumped into the ground in massive quantities don’t present a risk to human health as it seems impossible to conceive that, in a democracy, Corporate interests (and personhood) would be given priority over citizen health.
However, despite industry claims, hydraulic fracturing to produce “clean natural gas” does seem to create quite real risks of polluting water supplies.
There are a number of cases in the U.S. where hydraulic fracturing is the prime suspect in incidences of impaired or polluted drinking water. In Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, incidents have been recorded in which residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing operations of gas wells near their homes.
The dangers can be more immediate, we could even say more explosive:
Near Cleveland, Ohio, a house exploded in late 2007 after gas seeped into its water well. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources later issued a 153-page report [2] that blamed a nearby gas well’s faulty cement casing and hydraulic fracturing [3] — a deep-drilling process that shoots millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the ground under explosive pressure — for pushing methane into an aquifer and causing the explosion.
In Dimock, Pa., where drilling recently began in the mammoth Marcellus shale deposit, several drinking water wells have exploded and nine others were found with so much gas that one homeowner was told to open a window if he planned to take a bath.
by the looks of the PR attack campaign launched today, it looks like Gasland is starting to get under the skin of the oil and gas industry.
I guess the dinosaurs in the dirty fuel lobby don’t like videos of people who can light their tap water on fire after their wells are contaminated with methane gas,
An example of this entered my home today, with the Washington Post’s publication of an industry letter responding to an article reviewing Gasland.
If you need a break from worrying yourself sick about the still-gushing BP oil leak, I can tentatively recommend you watch Josh Fox’s artful and disturbing documentary “Gasland,” … It’s about the natural gas industry, which might be on the verge of insidiously ruining America’s water supply.
If your interest is to deflect public attention from hydraulic fracturing’s potential impact and risks to human health, this sort of review in The Washington Post would be the basis for concern. Listed on the web site with the title “cleaner, greener reporting required” is a letter from Daniel Whitten,”the vice president of strategic communications at America’s Natural Gas Alliance”.
Facts matter in the energy debate. The film “Gasland” strays from the facts in several key ways and should not be the foundation for meaningful dialogue on energy.
As per professional “strategic communications”, Whitten’s article has truth that, in aggregate, might not be so truthful. Yes, as per above, the actual burning of natural is far cleaner than other fossil fuels but, again, less dirty doesn’t equate to ‘clean’. And, while “natural gas production is subject to federal, state and local regulations that cover everything from initial permits to well construction to water disposal”, there are the very clear and strong exemptions that shield the cocktail mix from public knowledge.
As with all natural resource exploitation, it can be done more or less responsibly. It can occur with more or less diligence and risk. Natural gas, derived from hydraulic fracturing, does (seem to) represent a less dirty option to coal and oil such that increased use makes sense amid an overall transition to non-fossil fuel energy sources. To what extent are hydraulic fracturing problems due to risky operators cutting corners as opposed to the inherent risks of the process? Simply put, this is beyond my knowledge and expertise. It is clear, however, that hydraulic fracturing has risks, that hydraulic and that there are cases where fracturing has polluted water supplies and created other risks. That pollution and those risks have, for the most part, remained out of the public discussion — we deserve a better understanding of the risks and benefits of all energy sources, including of natural gas derived via hydaulic fracturing, with meaningful oversight and regulation to minimize (or reduce) the risks while securing the benefits.
A final note … less dirty …
Amid it all, however, we cannot forget. We have yet to determine a path where fossil fuel energy use is ‘clean’ — ‘clean’ across its lifecycle from exploration, to exploitation, to transportation and processing, to final use. Simply put, ‘clean coal‘, clean oil,clean natural gas — these are manipulative terms that foster complacency in the face of the very real risks of and damage from our fossil foolish ways.
Simply put, Washington, DC, weather is miserable at this time. It feels like the middle of August, at the moment, with temperatures nearing 100 degree with very high humidity. Life for many: air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned office, with too much sweat in the seconds moving from one air-conditioned space to another.
A frequently heard question heard from 10 year olds and 70 year olds alike: If June is like this, what will August be like?
It remains, of course, impossible to state that any specific weather event results from climate change. After all, these high temperatures are not, on any specific day, yet setting records. And, even though the 2010 spring was the warmest one for Washington, DC, in recorded weather history, a single season, in a single region, does not ‘establish’ climate change.
In a counter-factual situation, if Washingtonians were wrapping themselves in sweaters (outside their overly air conditioned buildings) in June, with near record cold days day after day after day, with a season that set a record for average low temperatures, there is every reason to believe that James Inhofe, George Will, and the remainder of the anti-science and anti-reality denier echo chamber would be pontificating with truthiness-laden falsehoods seeking to undermine Americans’ understanding of science and of the risks that climate change presents.
When it came to Washington’s snowfall, Jim Inhofe even recruited his grandchildren to help make a snow fort as part of his disinformation. Have to wonder whether any of these kids’ science teachers exposed them to basic science. After all, that big snowfall might actually be reflecting climate change. The basics: warmer temperatures leading to more evaporation with more moisture in the air leading to more severe precipitation events. And, oh by the way, global warming doesn’t mean that winter disappears … DC temperatures during the ‘Snowmaggedon’ weren’t abnormally cold, they were simply ‘winter’. There is a rather simple formula for this: below freezing temperatures + lots of moisture in the air typically = snow).
In contrast to their gleeful disinformation amid snowfall, Inhofe’s and Will’s silence in the face of sweltering temperatures is striking … albeit not surprising.
Again, don’t be surprised if prominent WashPost (disinformation) columnist George Will fails to put out a glib 500 word essay linking sweltering DC with melting ice in a calm for a concerted national action to end our fossil foolish addictions.
To look at images of the oil sheen across the Gulf, oil covered wildlife, the gushing oil from the damaged well, the faces of devastated residents along the coast should overwhelm all of us emotionally. Words fail even as those images overwhelm. In the face of this catastrophic damage, we seek the paths to express our outrage. There are the online actions from satiric videos to Twittering your apology to BP to blogging frustration / information / solutions to contests to redo BP’s signs, there are protests from Raging Grannies to Hands Across the Sands (action item 26 June), and …
Part of the challenge, of all this, is to find (and express) the right calls for action. At the core, the true message that we cannot leave aside is that every single one of us has some (infinitesimal) hand in this. We, in the net-connected world, all (ALL) use oil (and other fossil fuels) in some fashion — whether directly or indirectly. Thus, we all (ALL) have some (infinitesimal) culpability in driving the oil companies into exploring and exploiting oil in ever more difficult environments. Thus, the fundamental response should be the realization that we must change demand (reduce it) or face the risk of a future Deepwater Horizon.
While that is a fundamental cause, that our usage and demand for fossil fuels creates the circumstances in which disasters can occur, there are proximate causes that require addressing.
It seems increasingly clear that U.S. regulation and oversight of the oil (and other fossil foolish industries) has been inadequate, favoring their (perceived) profit interests over the near, mid, and long-term interests of the American people. We are already seeing changes (improvements) to this both from Obama Administration and in legislation proposed by Democratic Party members of Congress.
While offshore drilling in deep waters is a dangerous endeavor, it is clear that there are paths to address and mitigate (at least) some of that risk. And, increasingly, it looks clear that BP’s business practices and methods veered toward mitigating risk by assuming it away (the fantasy approach, perhaps, of risk management: let’s just wish it away). One could say that basically profits were placed ahead of sensible business practices to an extent that went beyond practical to bloody piss-poor cutting of corners. Increasingly, as we learn more, it seems clearer and clearer that the unfolding catastrophe did not simply result from the difficulties of seeking to feed our oil addiction by drilling in difficult environments but instead was more directly created by a corporate culture and practices that increased risk to shave cost wherever BP thought it could get away with it … no matter the risk (which, after all, seems to have simply been assumed away).
At the moment, BP faces a $20 billion set aside of money. Some financiers and investors are considering this the extent of risk, in essence a traffic ticket along the way of traveling the highway of corporate profit-making. While an enormous amount of money, this is simply a manageable expense for the BP cash cow machine.
While, to continue the analogy, a traffic ticket might be appropriate for someone who speeds, at some point that speeding heads into a much higher ticket for reckless endangerment. And, drivers who show a pattern of reckless endangerment have their licences suspended. And, drivers who kill people due to their reckless endangerment end up in jail.
BP has a serial record of shaving corners, taking undue risks, violating regulations and laws.
BP has a serial record of accidents, including accidents that directly caused deaths and caused significant pollution.
The Supreme Court has been reinforcing the concept of Corporate citizenhood, giving almost more power to corporations than to living/breathing citizens. When it comes to BP, it is looking increasingly likely that a viable case exists that BP’s practices raised (or lowered) to the level of criminal negligence. And, that criminal negligence has already directly killed people and will kill even more (cancers and otherwise), has already done massive environmental damage and will do more, and has already done massive economic damage and will do more.
At what point do we say and recognize that a speeding ticket simply isn’t enough? At what point do we say that we must hold the Corporation truly accountable for their actions?
And, “BP” is made up of people, there are executives behind the decisions, people behind the policies. At what point do we make the decision to seek to hold these people accountable for their decisions?
Is it time to throw the book at BP and their (ir)responsible executives?
beyond the comprehension and imagination of all but a few. And, for far too many, this is occurring out of sight, out of mind, as we go along our daily lives, get caught up in watching world cup soccer and going to the swimming pool, struggle to keep a job and pay the bills. This catastrophe created, directly, by BP’s seemingly criminally negligent practices and, indirectly, by our oil addictions driving fossil foolish exploration and exploitation is now having visually understandable impacts …
“
Washington, DC, buses (
coming days, 
There are the online actions from 
have their licences suspended. And, drivers who kill people due to their reckless endangerment end up in jail.