to vote for favorites. Only 6 votes needed to get on the list.I worked at one of the big multinational oil companies doing environmental work. I spent millions of dollars cleaning up environmental spills, and I never encountered any evil. I know the stories, I’ve seen Erin Brockovich, but that wasn’t my experience working for a big oil company.
A coworker of mine was preparing for a public meeting to discuss an environmental clean-up. Being the voice of Big Oil at a public meeting is a nightmare. A mob mentality can take hold, plus you have to deal with the personification of that character from the Simpsons, who shouts, “What about the children?! Won’t somebody please think of the children!?” I thought it would be funny for him to open his comments by asking, “By a show of hands, how many of you rode bicycles to the meeting tonight?” I still think that’s funny.
Oil is our way of life, yes yours too. We have a complex world wide network of infrastructure and technology to find, extract, refine, transport, and use petroleum products. It is the largest single industry in the world and it is woven into every aspect of our lives from how we get our food to why we don’t sit in the dark. I understand the urge to curse the oil industry, but the soapbox you are trying to get up on is plastic, it’s made of oil. This is not an industry problem, it’s a human one.
Do you know how people choose where to buy their gas? Location and price. People buy gas at a station that is on the way to or from work, or they drive a little further to save a few pennies per litre. No one pays more for gas based on the environmental performance of the company selling it.
The BP spill will be analyzed, problems will be identified, guilty parties will be named, new procedures will be put in place, but it’s all sort of irrelevant. We all understand that continuing to get oil out of the ground is not making grass greener and water cleaner, so where does all this indignant shock come from? You and I are the reason men are drilling for oil more than a mile under the ocean, so our hand wringing and finger pointing is disingenuous, because none of us rode bicycles to this meeting.
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I didn’t think we should have bailed out the auto companies, and I don’t think we should throw a life preserver to BP. I’d rather see the money spent investing in new industries that will employ all my Engineering friends. Capitalism works, new growth requires a little death, it’s time for some new ideas, and oil isn’t that.
Amen!
Agreed. If they could pump money into new, cleaner technology, I think people would get on board. It’s not that some of us don’t think about how we are using the oil and wrecking the environment, but we don’t know what to do about it. I know nothing of big oil companies, although my father told me on the weekend that BP was sighted in the past for over 600 violations in various areas and the closest other company to them was sighted for 6. Mmmm.
Before this happened I had never heard of BP and I have listened to all of 5min. of it on TV, so no soapbox for me.
Thanks for putting a slant on this, that so so many are not getting. I’m so tired of the fear mongering and finger pointing. I’d like to have seen that thusday meeting with the investigative committee should the company with the blow out had been american. Stop the chest thumping and finger waving and start working together… MUCH better results would be achieved.
you are so right Dirk. We all use oil and what would we do if drilling stopped? I do think that there should definitely be more research into better technology, but I’m sure some of that is being done at any rate and they will figure out what to do about this spill and we’ll all move on. I am grateful, however, that we don’t depend on the industry in the gulf that has been jeopardized.
Yeah, I don’t know man. I recently watched a documentary about the Exxon Valdez spill and there was some definite evil going on there. The giant money sucking oil company made a lot of promises about payments they would make to the local town for damages and then basically drug out the legal proceedings until the town could not carry on and the mayor committed suicide. There might have been some crazed antagonist laughing somewhere. You make some good points, but I think that much of the reason that we aren’t making more progress on clean energy is not because we (consumers) are not willing to change, but because big oil companies are willing to spend a lot of money to stall the process. I think eventually someone will invest big money in a clean energy project that the public will embrace and make a killing on it because we are all hungry for a better solution. In the mean time, Exxon is still making a tonne of cash off the interest on the money they promised a town that still has oil residue on its shore. I do my best to help the environment, and I’m getting better all the time. I don’t think the big oil companies can say the same, and that’s why they’re evil.
Do you have any idea how much oil money flows through Alberta? Those “giant money sucking oil companies” built your schools, roads, and hospitals. They employee your friends and family. They are responsible for every single thing you own. Show a little respect.
Consumers are willing to change, but oil companies are holding us back. Really? Do you think oil use has declined because the worst oil related environmental disaster in history is taking place? How about you, have you been driving less? Of course not, and neither is anyone else. Our message is empty and ambiguous, at best:
“Be more environmentally responsible. But, we still want the oil, obviously. So, you know, keep doing what you’re doing, but do it better from now on. OK, I’m glad we had this talk.”
If consumers wanted a change then BP would go bankrupt, or Exxon would have in 1989, but that can’t happen. We are gorging at the trough, and chastising in between mouthfuls, while the oil runs down our chin, we are all complicit.
A mayor in Alaska!? This is exactly what I was talking about, why public meetings are such a nightmare. What do you say to someone who stands up at a microphone and says, “You killed our mayor!” So, the oil companies killed the mayor of a small harbour town in Alaska, because lawsuits went on too long? Seriously? Sorry, but that’s nonsense, and a bullshit emotional argument.
I’d like to tell you about my experience with the public as an environmental representative of Big Oil. Most third parties (the public, a home owner, or your small Alaska town) can see a reasonable solution to environmental problems, but some just see dollar signs. And, I never met one of those I felt bad for.
I remember having a conversation with a home owner who lived next to a plant that had run for decades, and like most historical operations there were environmental issues associated with it, some of which extended off our property and under his backyard. The simplest solution was to dig up the problem, and I was talking to him about how we could compensate him for the week long disturbance. I suggested that he let me do the work around his schedule, I’d give him a clean bill of health for his property, and I’d have my contractors make his replacement back yard into a paradise of his choosing. But, he saw dollar signs and deep pockets, so he went against my advise and tried to extort a billion dollar company for twice what his house was worth. I bet you can guess how well that went. That idiot is probably still hoping for a big check, and still has contamination in his backyard. I don’t know the details of your small town and it’s lawsuits, but I’d bet a months pay that it’s not the innocent David battling the evil Goliath story that’s been sold to you.
Ok, so let me get this straight. Oil companies work really hard to get oil out of the ground so that I can drive a car and get my groceries in plastic bags and I should be thankful, right? Yeah, I should show a bit more respect because I know they’re just doing all of that for me, the consumer, so that my life can be better. They don’t care about money at all. Give me a break.
Oil companies are drilling for oil because there’s a demand for it – I get that. My point is that no one is offering us an alternative. You can’t just say “How about you? Have you been driving less?” because I am not given a choice. The lease just came up on my minivan and you can bet your ass that if there was a greedy company out there that had invented a hydrogen alternative I would be driving it. You have said it yourself – you want to build an environmentally friendly home and you have to do it yourself. Sorry, I’m not sure I know how to create a better automobile, but that doesn’t mean the demand isn’t there. I believe that consumers wish they could respond to a major environmental disaster by switching to a better alternative, but they aren’t out there. My point is that oil companies don’t want us to have that alternative because they make a shit load of money by SELLING OIL. They are greedy. As I said in my original comment, I believe that it’s only a matter of time before some greedy oil selling company realizes that they could make a killing by offering an alternative.
I don’t understand why you think that just because oil companies are really good at extracting and marketing their product we should “show some respect”. Yeah, Alberta gets a lot of money from selling oil. That money pays for lots of government projects. That’s great, but you know what is just as great? Governments that make money selling renewable resources. So just because I live in a province that is wealthy because of oil money I have to bow down to the mighty oil man?!
You say that our message as consumers is, “keep doing what you’re doing, but do it better from now on”, but that is not my message at all. My message is, “please recognize that there is money in oil, but there is money in other ideas as well. Take some of your gagillion dollars and invest it in a new alternative and we all win”. You said yourself, “I’d rather see the [government bail-out} money spent investing in new industries that will employ all my Engineering friends. Capitalism works, new growth requires a little death, it’s time for some new ideas, and oil isn’t that.” The only difference between us is that you think that if consumers wanted a change BP would go bankrupt and I think that we are far more likely to create change if we not only “kill bottled water”, but someone sees the value in giving us back our glass alternative. I agree money has to come from the government, but I think some of it could come from a forward thinking oil giant.
Ok, so you didn’t like that fact that I brought up the dead mayor. My point was not that “the evil oil company killed the mayor”, but that the evil oil company chose not to pay the $5 billion dollars that courts ordered them to pay for damages and instead drag out the appeals process to the point where they had taken that money and turned it into $26 billion dollars. You can’t tell me that they didn’t think of that. It was a calculated move. They wanted money in their pockets more than they wanted to pay to help repair the damage that they had done. No matter how you look at it, that is wrong. Imagine you had done something to injure someone else. Your negligence caused their pain (and yes, in the case of the Exxon spill, there was serious negligence). Instead of helping to pay for their associated expenses (most of which would be covered by insurance), would you try to bury them under paperwork for years so that you could continue to profit from the money that would help them? No, you wouldn’t. You would suck it up, admit you were wrong and pay. I only brought up the mayor’s suicide because it illustrates how serious the problems were in his town. An emotional ploy, I’ll admit.
And as for the one greedy bastard that tried to screw the nice company you worked for, he’s an idiot. I don’t think it’s fair to lump him in with all the third parties that have to deal with oil companies. In the case of Cordova (the small town in Alaska), the courts had decided on an amount that was owed to them (and other parties), so even if it started as dollar signs, Exxon should have paid. The bottom line is that they should have to pay for the damages they cause. I’m not excusing your idiot homeowner for trying to get more than he deserved. There are just as many stories about situations where big companies know they can walk all over a little guy who has no money to fight them. What if you had gone to him and said, “Dude, we caused some damage on your property and we are not going to do a damn thing about it.” You have to admit, that happens too.
The final point I want to make is that I think it’s hilarious that you offered to bet a month’s pay that my David vs. Goliath story is not the whole truth. Um, I’m not sure you’re really going out on a limb there. What is a month’s pay these days buddy? Ha ha.
I think in the end we want the same thing. We want clean air, clean water and more paper products. I would love to see plastic killed, and I avoid it like the plague. I’m not perfect – I was raised in a plastic world and it takes some self-training to look for paper, wood and glass alternatives, but I’m actively trying. If you think there are any ways I don’t know about to try and bankrupt BP, let me know. We want the same thing, I just want the oil companies to be on our side.
You two must of exhausted your mother.
So I know I’m really being the ball on this entire argument. But I just read it, so I’m all fired up too! I am failing to see your argument Dirk. You are coming to the defense of BP (and I can only assume you mean specificaly about the oil spill) just because we all use oil? I definitely didn’t ride my bike to work today and I defnitely enjoy my air conditioned house. So I understand that I am a consumer of oil and therefore shouldn’t be pointing fingers at the people who bring me the oil. However, I don’t think people are pointing their finger at BP and saying “evil” because they are giving us oil. We are calling them evil because they fucked up and caused one of the worst environmental disasters in history. I think we should be allowed to point our finger at them. If you spilled juice on my carpet, I wouldn’t be pissed that you bought the juice in the first place, but that you spilled it on my damn carpet. I am not calling them evil on a day to day basis for heating my house. But I think the general public has a right to be pissed off about an oil leak in the Gulf that will have negative effects for many years to come. I don’t think that is getting on a soap box. I think it’s being accountable for your major ass fuck up. And just because we all use oil doesn’t make us hypocrites for being a little irritated about it.
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