Double Standards, Oil and the Environmental Timebomb

Recently BP has had a lot of bad press for its handling of the Deepwater Horizon Oil leak in which over 1.1 million tonnes of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.

President Obama stepped into the debate demanding that BP be held accountable and should be made to pay for the full cost of the leak. This seemed to be a very different stance to the one the US took regarding the Bhopal disaster in India - where to this day children are still born with birth defects and virtually no one has been held accountable. I feel the primary difference here is that the Obama administration is trying to make this look very much like a foreign entity which has made a big mistake in the USA rather than the country itself accepting any responsibility. Obama used the term "British Petroleum" on occasions despite the company being renamed many years ago. According to BP's own figures 39% of the shares are held by Americans, only 1% more than the UK's holding.

So far this has been the worlds single largest oil catastrophe. However, there is a much larger problem brewing at the bottom of our oceans and world governments seem slow in forming any meaningful response or taking any responsibility for this problem.

Worldwide there are over 8500 shipwrecks which potentially contain oil. These are mainly but not exclusively wrecks from the second world war.

Estimates suggest there are between 2.5 million and 20 million barrels of polluting oil contained in these wrecks which over time have started to rust. When these wrecks will start to leak oil is dependent on how quickly they rust. Most of the ships sunk during the second world war hull platings would have been between 19 and 25 millimetres thick with them loosing structural integrity once they loose between a quarter to a half  of their thickness. There are many factors affecting the rate of steel corrosion but a good rule of thumb is 1mm per decade. So 70 years after the start of the war you would expect some of them to already be leaking. There is evidence of this. In the early 1990's oil started coming ashore sporadically and killed 50,000 seabirds and polluted 100,000 square kilometres of tidal marshes. It was found that the oil was coming from the wreck of the Jacob Luckenbach sunk in 1953.

Although the United States does have some plans in place to protect its sea waters and drain the oil the world really needs a global response. Many of these wrecks are situated off of the coasts of developing nations who do not have the resources to deal with this problem.

In the absence of a global response to this we need to buy ourselves time. We can prevent wrecks from rusting further by using sacrificial anodes to change the electro-chemistry of the wreck preventing rust. This would also have the added bonus of increasing the local waters PH which encourages protective marine deposits to grow.

Gross National Happiness

In my last post I looked at how Gross National Product or GNP is no measure of a countries happiness. I based this solely on suicide rates. However, as you are well aware there is more to happiness than economic prosperity. In the mountain kingdom of Bhutan they do not measure their countries progress in GNP they measure it in Gross National Happiness.

The once secretive and kingdom opened its doors to the world in 1961 freeing it from its self imposed isolation. The Bhutanese people were aware that many indigenous cultures had been eroded by the influence of external cultures. Unlike many other cultures the Bhutanese lived sustainably in harmony with their environment. Change is inevitable but the government came up with a way to measure and steer the direction of their society taking into account not only economic prosperity but also religious, environmental and cultural prosperity.

In 1998, Jigmi Thinley (The Bhutanese Prime Minister) laid out the "Four Pillars" of GNH, which today form the overall guiding principle for development in Bhutan.

The first pillar is sustainable and equitable socio-economic development. This stresses the improvement of physical, intellectual, social and economic health through services such as health, education, trade and commerce, road and bridge construction, employment, urban development and housing. Bhutan's decades of development plans have focused on these. Although the country is by no means rich education and health care are provided for free by the state.

The second pillar is conservation of the environment. Only 16% of Bhutan's land is arable, so there is good reason to increase GDP by logging. However, the law requires that tree coverage be no less than 65%. At present about 72% of Bhutan is forest. The main source of power generation are hydro electric projects with Bhutan making sufficient energy from "run-of-the-river" projects to export significant amounts of energy to it's neighbour India.

The third pillar is preservation and promotion of culture. The Bhutanese government views this as a crucial strategy to preserve the country's sovereignty. It has implemented policies that conserve and promote Bhutanese religion, language and literature, art and architecture, performing arts, national dress, traditional etiquette, sports and recreation. For instance, the government requires all Bhutanese to wear traditional dress to offices, temples and official functions. Doing jimba (volunteering) is an integral part of Buddhist philosophy. Since the Bhutanese culture is essentially Buddhist, many customs are based on Buddhist ideals. Practicing jimba helps promote Buddhist values, therefore promoting national culture and traditions.

The fourth and the last pillar is good governance. The Bhutanese believe that good governance is vital for the happiness of the people. The fourth King Jigme Singye Wangchuk handed his power to the power to the people. Now Bhutan is Constitutional Monarchy in 2008.

George Carlin - Saving the Planet