Niger Delta, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nigeria's Niger Delta is one of the most oil-polluted places on the planet with more than 6,800 recorded oil spills, accounting for anywhere from 9 million to 13 million barrels of oil spilled, according to activist groups.
But occurring over the 50 years since oil production began in the Delta, this environmental disaster has never received the attention that is now being paid to the oil-spill catastrophe hitting the U.S. Gulf coast.
"The whole world is trembling and even the president of America had to do a personal visit to the site. The U.S. will have put serious measures in place to stop such situations happening in the future," said Ken Tebe -- a local environmental activist who is visibly shaken by what he regards as a double standard.
"It's funny because we've been dealing with this problem for 50 years. I even heard BP will pay $20 billion in damages (for the U.S. spill). When will such hope come to the Niger Delta?" Tebe asked.
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And who is the largest consumer of Nigerian oil?
Or need I ask the question?
Of course, we are.
"When will such hope come to the Niger Delta," indeed.
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UPDATE:
Check out this website, which gives some personal perspective to the Gulf Oil Disaster.
5 comments:
This is a good reason to build more nuclear power plants.
Dang it, blogger! What's going on?? I keep losing posts!
Briefly, I suggested that why don't we just do the easiest, most elegant and, to me, the most rational thing and simply consume less, live in smaller circles and live responsibly.
I also mentioned that IF we were going to the nuke route, I'd want to go the "big gov't" route and see it heavily regulated with much oversight to try to avoid the predictable "accidents" and indiscretions.
I also suggested a compromise: Why don't we try the Living within our energy means solution for, say, 1,000 years and if AFTER that, we think our quality of life has suffered, we can consider heavily regulated nuclear energy as a possible option.
Prudent, yes?
I would agree with John if only the nuclear regulatory commission would mandate certain designs shown to be significantly safer, such as pebble-bed reactors. Or what about the thorium reactors I keep reading about which are supposed to be significantly safer?
If we're still building the same designs since the 70's, then no, I don't think we should build more nuclear.
But the question is not either/or. We can look for newer/safer energy supplies AND conserve at the same time.
Alan wrote:
I would agree with John if only the nuclear regulatory commission would mandate certain designs shown to be significantly safer, such as pebble-bed reactors. Or what about the thorium reactors I keep reading about which are supposed to be significantly safer?
Sounds good to me.
Dan wrote:
I also suggested a compromise: Why don't we try the Living within our energy means solution for, say, 1,000 years and if AFTER that, we think our quality of life has suffered, we can consider heavily regulated nuclear energy as a possible option.
There are a couple of problems with this proposal:
1. The US would become less economically competitive with nations that used all or more energy options than we do. Specifically, that means a world dominated by Communist China.
2. It means subjecting ourselves to a thousand years of impoverishment. Think about where we would be if we decided to limit US energy production to that of Europe, circa 1000 A.D.
Briefly, I suggested that why don't we just do the easiest, most elegant and, to me, the most rational thing and simply consume less, live in smaller circles and live responsibly.
I like having clean water, vaccinations, and food surpluses. Living with less energy production means increasing the cost of all of these.
Remember that abundant energy production means that everything gets cheaper and that poor people have access to goods and services that would otherwise be inaccessible.
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