|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Dan Baum
$17.16
By Andy Borowitz
$23
|
|
|
|
Abode of Chaos (CC BY 2.0)
|
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch —
We have a word for the conscious slaughter of a racial or ethnic group, and one for the conscious destruction of aspects of the environment. But we don’t have one for the conscious act of destroying the planet we live on. “Terracide,” from the Latin word for earth, has the right ring, given its similarity to the commonplace danger word of our era: terrorist.
Posted on May 23, 2013
READ MORE 
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica —
When the Obama administration temporarily banned BP from federal contracts Wednesday, it pointed to BP’s “lack of business integrity” and conduct relating to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill. The sanction, however, has been years in the making.
Posted on Nov 29, 2012
READ MORE
|
CREDO.fracking (CC BY 2.0)
|
By Ellen Cantarow, TomDispatch —
In small hamlets in upstate New York, a loose network of activists is waging a guerrilla campaign not with improvised explosive devices or rocket-propelled grenades, but with zoning ordinances and petitions.
Posted on Nov 20, 2012
READ MORE
|
Abode of Chaos (CC BY 2.0)
|
BP’s record settlement of $4.5 billion for damages caused by the explosion and spill of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2010 is the largest criminal fine in U.S. history, but at a fifth of the company’s 2011 profits, to be paid over a span of five years, it amounts to a “pathetic” slap on the wrist, says Public Citizen’s Tyler Slocum.
Posted on Nov 16, 2012
READ MORE 
|
ideum (CC-BY)
|
By Robert Reich — The Justice Department just entered into the largest criminal settlement in U.S. history with BP. The oil giant pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and agreed to pay $4 billion over the next five years. This is loony.
Posted on Nov 16, 2012
READ MORE
|
|
A look at the day’s political happenings, including the latest conspiracy theory involving President Obama and a BP oil settlement.
Posted on Nov 15, 2012
READ MORE
|
NOAA
|
Photographs of a dead sperm whale and a cache of emails obtained by Greenpeace show how officials in the Obama administration attempted to suppress knowledge of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil blowout’s impact on wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.
Posted on Oct 24, 2012
READ MORE
|
irrezolut (CC BY-SA 2.0)
|
By Greg Muttitt, TomDispatch —
Big Oil has replaced U.S. troops in Iraq, and the country’s oil output, crippled for decades, is growing again, with Iraq recently reclaiming the number two position in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Now there’s talk of a new world petroleum glut. So is this finally mission accomplished?
This piece originally appeared at TomDispatch.
Posted on Aug 23, 2012
READ MORE
|
futureatlas.com (CC BY 2.0)
|
Critics say a new White House-sponsored program aimed at encouraging the development of “green solutions” to energy and manufacturing problems is a green light for corporate giants like Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, Monsanto and Dow to develop the “bioscience” industry without government oversight.
|
Azzazello (CC-BY)
|
By Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch —
The world still harbors large reserves of petroleum, but they are of the hard-to-reach, hard-to-refine, “tough oil” variety that will be more costly to extract, refine and buy at the pump.
|
U.S. Navy / MC2 Justin E. Stumberg
|
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who will ultimately put a price tag on the worst oil spill in American history if the many lawsuits against BP go to trial, has given the oil giant and its many, many plaintiffs another week to reach a settlement.
|
AdamCohn (CC-BY)
|
By Bill McKibben, TomDispatch —
If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark.
|
AP / Gerald Herbert
|
Halliburton just seems to pop up wherever trouble can be found, such as the Bush White House (through Dick Cheney’s chummy history with the company) and also in the ecopocalypse that was the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in April 2010.
|
AP / Charlie Riedel
|
One might think that after the ecological apocalypse that British Petroleum visited upon the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding environs with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010, BP might harbor a healthy sense of shame about returning to that scarred region. Yeah, no.
|
Flickr / Herkie (CC-BY-SA)
|
Oil-rig operators in the Gulf of Mexico announced Thursday that they would evacuate workers, and a flash-flood watch was issued for New Orleans ahead of a slow-moving storm system that could develop into a cyclone or even a hurricane. (more)
Posted on Sep 1, 2011
READ MORE
|
Warner Home Video
|
At a time of record unemployment, American companies are increasingly exploiting the low-cost labor of 2.3 million Americans behind bars. This means fewer jobs available for free citizens, which leads to more unemployment, which produces more crime ... (more)
|
Flickr / amerune (CC-BY)
|
Just over one year out from the BP oil spill that wreaked havoc up and down the Gulf Coast, the tourism industry there is so far having one of its best summers in years. BP is latching on to the good news, using it to argue in a court filing recently ... (more)
|
|
“The 2010 Gulf of Mexico blowout brought more than oil to the surface,” writes Carl Safina in his new book investigating the impact of the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout.
|
.jpg)
Flickr / JoelK75
|
With gas prices still rising, House Speaker John Boehner has broken from traditional GOP rhetoric to voice his support for ending tax breaks to the oil industry.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — More than 10,000 people converged in Washington, D.C., this past week to discuss, organize, mobilize and protest around the issue of climate change.
|
AP / Patrick Semansky
|
Looking back over the disastrous BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year, an internal review by the U.S. Coast Guard has concluded that the seagoing service was poorly prepared for such an event and that the cleanup itself was riddled with planning failures.
|
U.S. Coast Guard
|
Even Wall Street executives have to be smacking their heads over this one. The company that ran the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (before it exploded, killing 11 and filling the Gulf of Mexico with oil) has decided to give its executives bonuses for achieving “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.” There are no words ...
|
The Pug Father (CC-BY)
|
Scientists at the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies are investigating unusually high numbers of stillborn and aborted dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico region. Seventeen infant dolphins have washed up on shore so far this year, compared to an average of one or two a month, says one scientist. (more)
|
reid.senate.gov
|
The 111th Congress produced some real eleventh-hour gains for the Obama administration, and by extension the president’s party, but some Democrats, such as Sen. Harry Reid and outgoing Sen. Arlen Specter, aren’t ready to get over some of the biggest partisan clashes of the last two years.
|
|
By Richard Reeves — This year was a game-changer, and what we need is a game-changer list. On that kind of list, I would drop one-off sensations, beginning with the oil spill, the Haitian earthquake and the mine rescue. No. 1 would be WikiLeaks.
|
U.S. Coast Guard / Petty Officer 2nd Class John Miller
|
Attorney General Eric Holder says the government is going after nine companies involved with the Deepwater Horizon spill “for government removal costs, economic losses and environmental damages without limitation.” ... (more)
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
British Petroleum is still sloughing off assets to help cover its $40 billion fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil giant just sold a majority stake in Pan American Energy for $7 billion, putting its running total of recent asset sales at $21 billion.
Posted on Nov 28, 2010
READ MORE
|
AP / Gerald Herbert
|
A government commission looking into last spring’s eco-pocalypse in the Gulf of Mexico has detected a certain “culture of complacency” afoot at the trio of big companies implicated in the spill. Sounds about right.
|
AP
|
A team of scientists “on a research cruise” (what?) have discovered severe damage to coral reefs near the location of the Deepwater Horizon’s blown-out wellhead. Coral, which is a barometer of the health of an ocean’s ecosystem, was found to be “sloughing off tissues and producing mucus.” Gross.
|
U.S. Coast Guard
|
Three of four tests showed that the cement mixture used by Halliburton in the construction of BP’s ill-fated oil well in the Gulf was unstable, but the mixture was used anyway, a presidential commission investigating the disaster has found. The only successful test, which BP did not know about, has since come under suspicion.
|
|
The Guardian is reporting that some of Europe’s biggest polluters, including everyone’s favorite oil company, have given $240,200 in campaign donations to U.S. senators who, coincidentally, helped defeat climate change legislation.
|
|
Those nerds at MIT have come up with something really amazing (not the first time). It’s a swarm of autonomous robots that talk to each other as they make their way around a spill, gobbling up the oil. Why didn’t we think of that?
|
|
Pat Bagley, Cagle Cartoons, Salt Lake Tribune —
Posted on Oct 8, 2010
READ MORE 
|
bbc.co.uk
|
His tenure as BP’s chief executive is almost up, and outgoing CEO Tony Hayward has changed his tune about the effect that last spring’s cataclysmic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had on him personally, making public statements on Wednesday that sounded ... (continued)
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
That whole Gulf of Mexico oil spill thing? It wasn’t just BP’s fault—or so says BP. The oily megacorp released an internal report Wednesday that pointed to “multiple companies and work teams” that also, in BP’s humble estimation, shoulder some of the blame for the disaster.
|
AP / Gerald Herbert
|
New estimates of the cost of the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico have jumped to a staggering $8 billion, up $2 billion in August alone as the company announced it had already paid out almost $400 million in claims to individuals affected by the spill.
|
Wikimedia Commons
|
Just when we all had heard quite enough about man-made problems in the Gulf of Mexico, here comes another: On Thursday, an explosion occurred on an offshore platform called the Vermilion 380, but this time natural gas is the rig’s target resource.
|
Wikimedia Commons / David Shankbone
|
It’s hardly a surprise that Spike Lee would have something provocative to say about a newsy controversy, but Lee doesn’t spare President Obama his criticism over Obama’s handling of the BP oil spill catastrophe ... (continued)
|
U.S. Coast Guard / Ensign Michael P. McGrew
|
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is raining on Uncle Sam and BP’s well-capping parade. Researchers at the institute say a 22-mile-long, 1.2-mile-wide oil plume deep under the Gulf’s surface is degrading much slower than the government’s more optimistic claims.
|
Flickr / Bryan Brenner (CC-BY)
|
Americans get half of their shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, but that was before it was contaminated by 190 million gallons of oil and 2 million gallons of chemical dispersant. Shrimp season officially started Monday, but it will be some time before we know whether the ravaged Gulf waters—and American appetites—are up to it.
|
AP / Gerald Herbert
|
The great state of Alabama has announced it will sue BP, Transocean and Halliburton for the “catastrophic harm” that followed from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — Flying back to Washington from Pensacola, Fla., on June 15, President Obama and the man he put in charge of handling the Gulf oil spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, had a come-to-Jesus talk.
|
U.S. Coast Guard / Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley
|
BP has paid $3 billion into the relief fund promised President Obama, including $319 million already paid to victims of the Gulf oil spill, but it will be years before the $20 billion escrow account is fully funded.
|
SpillCam / globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam
|
Someone should tell BP that the whole kill-speak approach does not bode well when you’re actually killing wildlife and industry in the Gulf. But nonetheless, BP says the mud and cement pumped into the blown-out oil well, termed a “static kill,” are holding and that it is preparing to seal the deal with a “bottom kill” later this month.
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
By this point, many American news consumers are way more up on the intricacies of oil well technology, and the emergency repair strategies associated with same, than they ever thought they’d be—and the fun isn’t over yet.
|
International Bird Rescue Research Center / WikiCommons
|
Relying primarily on a controversial Louisiana expert with previous ties to BP but also quoting a leader of the Audubon Society, Time magazine has posted a contrarian report arguing that the environmental damage of the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been overblown.
|
|
Martin Sutovec, Slovakia —
Posted on Jul 28, 2010
READ MORE
|
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|
Marching in Chicago: Resisting Rahm Emanuel’s Neoliberal Savagery
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
