8 ms·

Trinidadian fishers film ‘half-hearted’ oil spill clean-up

132 points by x14km2d 5y ago

anotheryou 5y ago
damn, shouldn't be touched bare handed either, right?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- libertine 5y ago
  He is trying to make a point. Like he said, people will ingest the oil because they are dispersing it in order to make it sink, being on his hands it's probably the least of his worries.
11235813213455 5y ago
It's definitely bad, but my view on this is to tackle also the problem at the source: cars. gas or even electric cars which have a pollution and carbon impact about the same magnitude. We must de-motorize the world, 80% of people in developed countries live in cities yet 95% household have cars, that's way too much. We must change people lifestyles on a global scale. When I see people stay in their parked cars with their engine and radiators maxed out for AC, when I'm riding among this perpetual dense traffic of cars , when I still hear them the night, I get the same reaction as this fisherman.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  One step farther along the path to the root of the issue: Cars are incredibly expensive. That people in cities often choose to own cars and pay those prices reflects that they get more value from the car than the costs, often because alternative transport solutions are not cheaper, are way less time-efficient, and not nearly as convenient. Fix that and many people will quickly pivot away from cars, reducing pull-through demand for oil, tires, brakes, lubricants, etc.
  - corty 5y ago
    This isn't fixable. The only solution is to make cars more expensive, because it is impossible to improve alternative transport without massively raising prices. Alternative transport will always be massively inferior in cost or quality (usually both). Some may advocate subsidizing alternatives by taxing car traffic more. But as soon as the desired effect of vanishing car traffic appears, subsidies will vanish, alternative transport will be expensive and bad again. And everybody will be poorer, less happy and nobody will have gained anything (except alternative transport profiteurs).
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      If you constrain yourself to having public transport be self-sustaining in the funding department, you’re probably right. I don’t see a particular reason to think that that constraint is some kind of necessary, inviolable condition.
- MikeKusold 5y ago
  Oil is used for so much more than gasoline. Plastics are made from oil as well.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    We can ban the use of plastics for disposable packaging, or really any disposable application, too.
- jnwatson 5y ago
  I agree. If you've ever had a conversation with someone that lives in the suburbs in a single-family home on a quarter acre on a cul-de-sac about the environmental impact of their choices, you might as well be debating about eating their children. Getting folks to change their behavior will take top-down significant restructuring of the economy.
- abeppu 5y ago
  We must change our lifestyles -- but does that solve this problem? We have better tools for dealing with spills. Yes we should shrink the industry that causes spills by removing demand. But that larger, slower, systemic change is compatible with also having more responsible responses to the near-term and acute problem. An American gun-shot wound victim still needs acute care, even if all agree that also systemically we need to get rid of guns. And in fact, placing responsibility on the companies involved to dedicate real resources to cleaning up the mess they've made makes the business less profitable and helps the system move towards more responsible behavior. Paying to clean up is of a piece with paying for emissions, in that both recognize some portion of the externalities that are otherwise inflicted on the community.
warent 5y ago
I can't fathom how anybody still advocates for this industry unless they're getting filthy rich off it. For example I always see overlap in climate change denial and advocacy for these fuel industries. Like, okay fine, deny climate change science, but how can you still argue that this crap is fine for the environment? You want polluted waters, polluted air, polluted everything? I'll probably be flagged for this post as it contributes nothing, it's just an emotional outburst, but sometimes man I just feel hopeless, helpless, and have no idea what to do when humans are just short-sighted apes.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  This industry provides absolutely necessary resources and millions of jobs. I think spills and scandals are bad but every industry has them, including electricity generation by nuclear power or other means. PGE's wildfire causing lines are also destroying the environment. We have a huge dependency on oil. One day in the distant future we may wean ourselves off of it. But it's not at all a possibility today or in the next 5 years or in the next 10 years.
- gruez 5y ago
  >I can't fathom how anybody still advocates for this industry unless they're getting filthy rich off it [...] but how can you still argue that this crap is fine for the environment? You want polluted waters, polluted air, polluted everything? Because even though most people are against "polluted waters, polluted air, polluted everything", it's only in the abstract. They care about cheap transport (and associated goods) more. See: the yellow vest protests, the failed carbon tax in switzerland, or the US opposition to gas taxes even from democrats[1]. [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/house/559063-democrats-have-turned-solidly-against-gas-tax https://thehill.com/homenews/house/559063-democrats-have-tur...
  - dnautics 5y ago
    It it possible that your cherry picked examples of failed regulations are genuinely bad laws for reasons besides the intention? Even the US got NOX and SOX emissions under control, and pretty rapidly too, so it's hard to imagine that environmental regulation is politically impossible writ large.... Note that the NOX and SOX auction system is very simple and there isn't a carbon reduction scene proposed today that is free of all sorts of insane riders and generally bad exemptions, credits, and subsidies, the concept of government setting the price of carbon (which is unpalatable to Americans) aside.
djrogers 5y ago
FTA: " A freedom of information request carried out in April by FFOS revealed there have been 498 reported oil spills on land and at sea since the beginning of 2018. There have been no resulting prosecutions or fines by Trinidad and Tobago authorities. " This is disgusting. I'll set aside the arguments against the petrochem industry, which are many, obvious, and unfortunately prone to extremist controversy. What I'm truly saddened by here is the obvious level of corruption here. While oil extraction and transport will never be 100% clean, it's demonstrably possible for it to be 1000x better than this, but without a government willing to stand up and force these jackholes to pay for their externalities, it's not gonna happen in places like this. Maybe an international coalition is needed to fine, punish, and regulate oil extraction and transport? In practice that would probably be US money funding 2nd and 3rd world people to do the work (see UN Peacekeeping forces), but it seems better than no regulation.
- munificent 5y ago
  Trinidad and Tobago's GDP is $24 billion. The top 33 oil companies made more revenue than that in 2018 [1]. Not total. Each. Saudi Aramco's 20218 revenue was $414 billion. When businesses are more valuable than governments, they are above the law. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_co...

132 points by x14km2d 5y ago

anotheryou 5y ago

damn, shouldn't be touched bare handed either, right?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
libertine 5y ago
He is trying to make a point. Like he said, people will ingest the oil because they are dispersing it in order to make it sink, being on his hands it's probably the least of his worries.

11235813213455 5y ago

It's definitely bad, but my view on this is to tackle also the problem at the source: cars. gas or even electric cars which have a pollution and carbon impact about the same magnitude. We must de-motorize the world, 80% of people in developed countries live in cities yet 95% household have cars, that's way too much. We must change people lifestyles on a global scale. When I see people stay in their parked cars with their engine and radiators maxed out for AC, when I'm riding among this perpetual dense traffic of cars , when I still hear them the night, I get the same reaction as this fisherman.

sokoloff 5y ago
One step farther along the path to the root of the issue: Cars are incredibly expensive. That people in cities often choose to own cars and pay those prices reflects that they get more value from the car than the costs, often because alternative transport solutions are not cheaper, are way less time-efficient, and not nearly as convenient. Fix that and many people will quickly pivot away from cars, reducing pull-through demand for oil, tires, brakes, lubricants, etc.
- corty 5y ago
  This isn't fixable. The only solution is to make cars more expensive, because it is impossible to improve alternative transport without massively raising prices. Alternative transport will always be massively inferior in cost or quality (usually both). Some may advocate subsidizing alternatives by taxing car traffic more. But as soon as the desired effect of vanishing car traffic appears, subsidies will vanish, alternative transport will be expensive and bad again. And everybody will be poorer, less happy and nobody will have gained anything (except alternative transport profiteurs).
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If you constrain yourself to having public transport be self-sustaining in the funding department, you’re probably right. I don’t see a particular reason to think that that constraint is some kind of necessary, inviolable condition.
MikeKusold 5y ago
Oil is used for so much more than gasoline. Plastics are made from oil as well.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  We can ban the use of plastics for disposable packaging, or really any disposable application, too.
jnwatson 5y ago
I agree. If you've ever had a conversation with someone that lives in the suburbs in a single-family home on a quarter acre on a cul-de-sac about the environmental impact of their choices, you might as well be debating about eating their children. Getting folks to change their behavior will take top-down significant restructuring of the economy.
abeppu 5y ago
We must change our lifestyles -- but does that solve this problem? We have better tools for dealing with spills. Yes we should shrink the industry that causes spills by removing demand. But that larger, slower, systemic change is compatible with also having more responsible responses to the near-term and acute problem. An American gun-shot wound victim still needs acute care, even if all agree that also systemically we need to get rid of guns. And in fact, placing responsibility on the companies involved to dedicate real resources to cleaning up the mess they've made makes the business less profitable and helps the system move towards more responsible behavior. Paying to clean up is of a piece with paying for emissions, in that both recognize some portion of the externalities that are otherwise inflicted on the community.

warent 5y ago

I can't fathom how anybody still advocates for this industry unless they're getting filthy rich off it. For example I always see overlap in climate change denial and advocacy for these fuel industries. Like, okay fine, deny climate change science, but how can you still argue that this crap is fine for the environment? You want polluted waters, polluted air, polluted everything? I'll probably be flagged for this post as it contributes nothing, it's just an emotional outburst, but sometimes man I just feel hopeless, helpless, and have no idea what to do when humans are just short-sighted apes.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago
This industry provides absolutely necessary resources and millions of jobs. I think spills and scandals are bad but every industry has them, including electricity generation by nuclear power or other means. PGE's wildfire causing lines are also destroying the environment. We have a huge dependency on oil. One day in the distant future we may wean ourselves off of it. But it's not at all a possibility today or in the next 5 years or in the next 10 years.
gruez 5y ago
>I can't fathom how anybody still advocates for this industry unless they're getting filthy rich off it [...] but how can you still argue that this crap is fine for the environment? You want polluted waters, polluted air, polluted everything? Because even though most people are against "polluted waters, polluted air, polluted everything", it's only in the abstract. They care about cheap transport (and associated goods) more. See: the yellow vest protests, the failed carbon tax in switzerland, or the US opposition to gas taxes even from democrats[1]. [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/house/559063-democrats-have-turned-solidly-against-gas-tax https://thehill.com/homenews/house/559063-democrats-have-tur...
- dnautics 5y ago
  It it possible that your cherry picked examples of failed regulations are genuinely bad laws for reasons besides the intention? Even the US got NOX and SOX emissions under control, and pretty rapidly too, so it's hard to imagine that environmental regulation is politically impossible writ large.... Note that the NOX and SOX auction system is very simple and there isn't a carbon reduction scene proposed today that is free of all sorts of insane riders and generally bad exemptions, credits, and subsidies, the concept of government setting the price of carbon (which is unpalatable to Americans) aside.

djrogers 5y ago

FTA: " A freedom of information request carried out in April by FFOS revealed there have been 498 reported oil spills on land and at sea since the beginning of 2018. There have been no resulting prosecutions or fines by Trinidad and Tobago authorities. " This is disgusting. I'll set aside the arguments against the petrochem industry, which are many, obvious, and unfortunately prone to extremist controversy. What I'm truly saddened by here is the obvious level of corruption here. While oil extraction and transport will never be 100% clean, it's demonstrably possible for it to be 1000x better than this, but without a government willing to stand up and force these jackholes to pay for their externalities, it's not gonna happen in places like this. Maybe an international coalition is needed to fine, punish, and regulate oil extraction and transport? In practice that would probably be US money funding 2nd and 3rd world people to do the work (see UN Peacekeeping forces), but it seems better than no regulation.

munificent 5y ago
Trinidad and Tobago's GDP is $24 billion. The top 33 oil companies made more revenue than that in 2018 [1]. Not total. Each. Saudi Aramco's 20218 revenue was $414 billion. When businesses are more valuable than governments, they are above the law. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_co...