Irony
Just wondering, but does anyone but me find it ironic that in an industry that is needlessly made more dangerous every year because of inane and increasingly misguided, activist-driven policies sending them further and further offshore, a company that spends $ billions every year and risks much more in an effort to help meet the world’s demand for petroleum—a company staffed by folks who risk their lives every single day while enduring extended separations from their families and loved ones—has to endure criticism from uninformed ingrates who could never fathom the courage, commitment, and responsibility required to do the job that BP employees have to do?
The childish and oblivious people behind things like these re-imagined BP logos and countless other public commentaries and observations will never in their lives have to commit to the sorts of risks that BP employees and others in the petroleum industry make every day. These folks do these things and risk all because the world demands that someone do this dangerous and thankless job. If they didn’t, our lives would be turned upside down. Oil isn’t just for fuel and gasoline; nearly every industry on earth requires petroleum products for its materials and processes.
When the job is incredibly dangerous and difficult, mistakes will have consequences of the same magnitude. In this case, some BP people, government people, and manufacturing people made bad mistakes. Mistakes will happen, but in the face of mistakes only monumental idiocy can maintain that the work must cease.
If not for the feeble minds and malevolent morons that have forced misguided policies driving drilling rigs beyond safe working depths, this very same drilling leak would have been stopped within hours. But while we demand the lifestyle, convenience, and energy that petroleum brings, too many have made it their mission to turn a relatively easy process and safe industry into one of the world’s most difficult and dangerous ones. Then, when as a result of terrible mistakes (which will always occur) bad things happen, the industry receives venom and criticism from the very ones who directly caused the magnitude of the result. It’s a shame that too many are too uninformed or just too stupid to grasp these facts and the excruciating ironies that accompany them.
This recent event was a terrible tragedy for the fact that 11 men lost their lives, but there the tragedy ends. The economic results will take time for us to weather, but we will. The environmental results are bad now, but will be inconsequential in 10 year’s time. In any event, the world needs the product that BP and their industrial brethren collect. But when bad things happen, make sure that the right people are receiving the right criticism. And before you opt to criticize and become a victim of your own irony, you might check to see if you even have the balls to do for one day what they do every day; what they do for you.
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Comments (14)
i was just telling my wife this. the environmentalists keep pushing these rigs further and further off shore and then complain when a problem arises. you know if they were allowed to drill in close where it is much easier to get the oil, the risk of these types of issues would go way down. and you know lower the price of gas. but hey we wouldn’t want that now would we.
Let’s not forget that a moratorium on deep water drilling INCREASES our dependence on foreign oil, and that 7 of 10 of the worst oil spills in U.S. history have been from tankers. Like the kind that carry foreign oil. Again we are increasing the risk of future catastrophe by reacting emotionally to the current one.
Risks? What risks?
They risk making billions of dollars, that’s true. They risk polluting areas they don’t live in, killing animals their lives don’t depend on. Yeah sure, they could die in an accident, but that could happen to just about any man doing (manual) work.
This might be the most ridiculous article I’ve read about this whole incident, blaming ecologists for the tremendous destruction an oil company and corrupt governmental institutions have caused.
I suppose this shows how closely I follow the news, but are you saying that there are shallower offshore oil deposits on the Gulf Coast that companies haven’t exploited due to opposition from environmentalists? Sheesh.
Drilling in Canada requires at least 2 alternative pipelines for the pressure. The reason why this is not the case with american oil plattforms is that ‘beyond petroleum’ does not respect american law. American law explicitly states that bribery is illegal.
If there would be a basic education for americans, there would have been a decrease in oil consumption. Since that is not the case the only irony is that the oil-eaters will be eaten by the oil.
p.s.: next hurricane…it’ll rain oil in florida!
Well gee. I never realized these guys were doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. I always thought somehow they were doing it for money. I’m so silly like that.
And I guess I was confused, but I thought the worlds biggest oil spill (1979 blowout of Mexico’s Ixtoc) was in ridiculously water shallow water. Must have been the Mexican environmentalists fault. Oh wait, there ain’t no such thing.
Again, silly me.
Just curious, What do you think this spill would have done to the Arctic? How tough would THAT be to clean.
Hi, Andy,
There’s a bit here to chew on, snarky comments notwithstanding. I am admittedly ignorant of the activist lobbying you linked to–that’ll be some more reading–and I certainly understand that there are generations of livelihood tied to working where the engineering schematics meet the drill. But I think we could find equivalent examples of hard-working folks in any industry, even industries whose practices you find vile, so “the oil industry shouldn’t receive this harsh criticism” doesn’t follow from “there are good people working hard in the oil industry.” There are undoubtedly reasonable, hard-working people toiling away in those activist organizations, for instance, yet the results to which they contribute are “inane and increasingly misguided.” They may even be categorically branded as “uninformed ingrates,” etc.
Still, these are excellent points for consideration. I type this on a concoction of petroleum-derived products, using energy derived from habitat-deforming technologies, sitting in my cubicle under artificial light and busily working on insipid advertising projects. This is how much of the world goes ’round, generally, and without the Mobil-Exxons and BPs of the world, without those people working hard in dangerous conditions, well, it wouldn’t. And for all their negative publicity, BP et al provide this service that so many people want, and BP is ultimately just a large group of people doing their jobs, whatever the color of their collar.
However, I don’t think the public vitriol is pointed anywhere near the hard-working folks on the oil rigs, who, after all, can only operate as BP directs them to. I haven’t read anything about “those filthy oil riggers who didn’t throw the dead man switch” causing the spill. Perhaps it’s an overblown reaction pregnant with frustration with record profits for the oil industry a few years ago as the economy began slowing.
But, again, this is a healthy discussion starter.
Cheers.
The author is wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to start. Someone point him to the facts, please.
I hope to have the time to come back and comment in detail.
Only thing i can say right now: is better that you spend your time designing websites.
If in the future should you feel the urge to give opinions on matters like this again, better you document decently, and think twice about what you write.
Just wondering, but does anyone but me find it ironic that a blogger would attack activists and regulation when a mere half a million dollar secondary blowout preventer (on the sea floor where most governments around the world REQUIRE them to be) would have prevented this whole mess?
Yet, due to the LACK of this regulation, and trusting big corporations to just “self regulate” (an oxymoron if I ever heard one), America has the largest environmental disaster we have ever seen?
And it’s the activists fault?!
You’re a funny dude, Andy. Ever thought about stand up comedy?
You are far more articulate than Sarah Palin could ever hope to be, but you’re repeating the same talking points. In fact, I think you should put your abilities of articulation to good use and run for public office. The Tea Party could use someone who can string two words together.
I support your right to use any forum at your disposal to talk/write/tweet about whatever you please. For the record though, I prefer your thoughts on design to your political views.
Andy,
I love your work and almost always find your blog posts informative and challenging. This one, however falls short for these reasons:
1) The criticism many of us have brought forth is not against the hard-working low-level workers but the executives who put those workers in danger for bigger short-term profits– and, apparently, forged documents to get around safety measures.
2) Your stereotypes are too general to be useful, not to mention insulting. In fact, for every “uninformed ingrate”, there’s a hard-working, blue-collar environmentalist. And there are millions of weak-minded, right-wing anti-environmentalists who advocate fossil fuels from their armchairs without having to live near, visit, or even know about the devastation they can cause. I grew up and live in coal country, so I see this personally.
3) But really, all of this is beside the point. Even if your harsh stereotypes were true, the undisputed fact is that BP and the other companies involved ignored their own engineers who knew of solutions; this fact has been all over the AP. Eventually, even without the alleged pressure from environmentalists, they’d have been out in deep water by necessity, and if they ignored their own engineers now, who is to say they wouldn’t have done this then?
Nathan
[...] — Unit Interactive, Irony [...]
Perhaps you should learn to distinguish between an accident resulting from a “mistake”:
“Oops! I read this label wrong and I caused an oil spill!”
And short-sightedness, incompetence, and seemingly willful neglect: All things which put those workers in ultimate peril.
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