Realistic Advice and One INSANE Idea

I can't help writing about the Gulf as I think it is the turning point in our energy future...and in governance too, for that matter.
This article, with quotes from a Transocean attorney and industry veteran, I found compelling EXCEPT for the suggestion that we use a s small nuclear device to plug the hole. OK, so he inhaled a little too many fumes along the way....
But he alludes to the fact that Russia actually DID such a thing years ago! Hello? Not that I follow all the nuclear explosions on the planet very closely...but I thought that would have made some news.

Quote:


The very depth of the well is one reason this spill has been so bad—5,000 feet under water and another 18,000 feet in the Earth to tap into oil. The deeper you go, the more pressure there is, and it’s that pressure that blew through protective measures that proved too flimsy, destroying a vessel twice the size of an aircraft carrier in a plume of black smoke and flame. On Wednesday, the latest attempt froze as a saw blade being used to cut through a pipe to allow for a new containment dome got stuck.

Simmons said the BP Deepwater Horizon spill may just be the event that spurs a reaction that shortens the time horizon for the switch from oil. His favored approach is the development of offshore wind turbines, but other ideas include the use of algae as a substitute for oil.

“I think it could happen within five years if we tackle this with the intensity that we reacted after Pearl Harbor,” he said. “We have to use that intensity now, and that’s the only good thing about the tragedy—it’s going to focus people on the problem.”

http://www.portfolio.com/industry-news/energy/2010/06/03/matthew-simmons-reflects-on-deepwater-horizon-disaster?ana=e_pft

End quote

The fact that the pressure is coming from 18,000 feet below the bottom of the ocean floor...that is of volcanic proportions! And it virtually vaporized something twice the size of an aircraft carrier? This, for me, gives some perspective to the problem.

Any elected official, lobbyist, activist, voter who does NOT see this as the bellweather event for the change to a clean, safe, secure energy economy has got other priorities such as self preservation through financial donations, denial, disregard for the future of our planet and their progeny upon it, political motivations...and I am sure there are more.

I have said it before...and again...there are thousands upon thousands of good hardworking, well - meaning people working for the likes of BP. They all just need to understand that they must be a part of the change that is happening. They don't need to lose their jobs or get relocated. They just need to know that what they do everyday isn't going to be supporting the ever riskier search for and extraction of oil.

More BP...Takeover Target???

I recently wrote about how BP needs to change into a beneficial corporation. It was a quick post...and of course I forgot to mention the wonderful people at B Corp

http://www.bcorporation.net/

who are already doing this kind of work. Are they talking to BP? I hope so...but really...nobody at BP has the time at this point...but that isn't stopping me from saying what ought to be done.



I also said that BP should Belong to the People. But really, shouldn't it Belong to the Planet?

There was an article in the Guardian

http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/02/speculation-over-bp-future

about BP being a possible takeover target. And I wrote to them...takeover by whom? By the people and Natural Capital they have destroyed? How could we stand by and allow Shell or some private equity firm buy BP at cents on the dollar only to cut costs, adopt "synergies" and then spin it? Nothing would change.

There are some similarities with the Bhopal disaster perpetrated upon the people and the planet by Union Carbide. There was a criminal probe. The CEO was actually arrested...then released but then brought up late on manslaughter charges. Will this happen here?

Union Carbide stock took a big plunge. I remember as I almost bought some, knowing it would go up again because they were one of the top 20 biggest companies in the world...but I could not bring myself to do it.

So why shouldn't we allow a trust for the people and the planet of some sort to aquire BP for cents on the dollar and turn it into a restorative business operation?

The new BP

Belonging to the People...that's what BP should stand for. They need to have what Ray Anderson famously has written about - a "mid - course correction". From now on all their after tax profits should go to R&D into clean energy, conservation, and most importantly for now, stopping the disaster and cleaning it up.

I actually don't think it is possible to clean this mess up.

This is our 7th Generation disaster - the one that wakes us up to realize that what we have just perpetrated upon the world will be with the world for AT LEAST 7 generations. With increasing life expectancies that is about 665 years...and I think we're talking about thousands of years.

But back to BP. They should be Beyond Petrified.

BP needs to transform their organization into one that from this day forward does good for humankind. It should be an organization that now takes its' upstream and downstream effects into its accounting. It should recreate balance sheets reflecting the debits of plundered natural capital. And, when done, the company will immediately be worthless in any current corporate sense of the word. And so it needs to transform.

I think it should take this transformation on itself because I am hoping that the people and the people's courts and the people's elected officials will do it...slowly and painfully...but they'll do it.

And BP has the opportunity that is so common amongst celebrities and reality show drop-outs: go to rehab, apologize and turn over a new leaf...but REALLY do it.

Change the articles of incorporation. BP should exist solely for the betterment of the planet. It can lead in the creation of a new kind of organization - the neo - corporation. There shouldn't be one cent of corporate profit that goes back to that company.

I do not mean to say that the good people of BP and their families should suffer. They should just all relaize that they need to be working for a different kind of organization. And I am not saying it should be without profit. It's just that the profit should go to those they have harmed, to do whatever can be done to mend the corner of the earth they have destroyed. Why can't they have a bonus structure related to "good works"...to "clean, green tech" and to divisions that do good and do well.

Business people love ratios and metrics. And there can be new ones created that reflect the good a company does relative to its' revenue, its intensity of production, per employee, etc, etc. BP should change all these to reflect the new kind of organization I have described.

The employees and contractors found to have avoided safety regs, greenlighted unsafe projects and lied about it should pay and go to jail. That's justice. And the next generation of justice will be for the company to transform into this neo corporate entity infused with sustainability.