Yabby

You make assumptions about many who post here simply because we have alternative views to yours. I do not write rubbish, for that you need AGIR.

Yes, I do know that some corporations are investing in alternative energies. Converseley, I know that many corporations are fighting against innovation in order to maintain the status quo - remember the electric car scrapped by GMH back in the 80's? Imagine, if you can, all corporations transitioning towards sustainable technologies, imagine if they had started doing this 30 or 40 years ago. We would not be in the mess we are today. However, that is expecting vision to trump vested interests.

Your own vested interests determine your point of view on these pages to the point where you are sounding like a broken record.

As for costing sustainable energy why aren't we paying MORE for fossil energy and less for clean in order to hasten the transition? Because the oil industries are stuck in their own mire of short term greed.

Corporations behaving like, well, cowboys.

"Under International law, offshore oil rigs like the Deepwater Horizon are treated as ships, and companies are allowed to "register" them in unlikely places such as the Marshall Islands, Panama and Liberia — reducing the U.S. government's role in inspecting and enforcing safety and other standards."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-inspection-20100615,0,7349376.story

What will the crustacean concoct to excuse this little exercise in avoiding responsibility?

*remember the electric car scrapped by GMH back in the 80's?*

Of course it was scrapped, it made no sense at the time. In 1999
oil was still at 10$ a barrel, China was using very little, the
lithium battery had not yet been invented. It was before its
time. There has been no reason that taxpayer funded research
could not tinker with these things and they did. CSIRO played
around with electric cars for a while.

But it is gamechanging technologies, like the invention of the
lithium battery, plus the rising price of oil, that has turned
things around. Look at how many car companies are playing with
electric cars now, virtually all of them. Because now makes
sense, then it did not.

Look what a bloke like Elon Musk has done with Tesla Motors and
his ventures with solar. Even Toyota has now bought a stake
in Tesla and Musk started with absolutaly no knowledge about
making cars. His claim to fame is as cofounder of paypal.

This is the great thing with our present system. It gives
entrepreneurial and innovative guys like Musk the possibility
to come from nowhere, show that they have aptitude in thinking,
raise huge amounts of capital and change the world, not just
dream about changing the world.

*As for costing sustainable energy why aren't we paying MORE for fossil energy and less for clean in order to hasten the transition?*

Because Govts are not silly. They know that people vote out of self
interest, somebody has to pay and people makes claims as you do,
until it costs them more. They want everyone else to pay, just not
them. Tell me which Govt will win office on the basis of increasing
the cost of electricity or petrol by 30%?

Err Severin, yes indeed, ships register all over the world, is
it illegal? Do they make the laws? Were they breaking the
law?

Perhaps you should wait until the official findings to see
what went wrong on that rig. Was it BP? Was it Transocean?
Which of their employees was it and why?

Why were the drilling plans approved by MMS?

It will all come out in the end, it just takes time and I am
not going to jump to conclusions as you do.

As I've pointed out before, they have been drilling offshore
for 40 years, this is the first major incident that I can
remember, so being human, complacency would have set in.

What I do know is this. Under the Jones Act, ships in US
waters are quite restricted. I am actually a supporter of
Obama, but I do question why he has not suspended the Jones
Act for the cleanup. The claim is that there are in fact
Dutch and other vessels that are very good at cleaning up
oil in the sea, but they cannot legally operate in US waters
because of the Jones Act. So they are not being used to
minimize the damage.

Now that may well increase work for locals, but I would have
thought that minimizing the damage would be frist priority,
above all else.

“Because Govts are not silly. They know that people vote out of self
interest, somebody has to pay and people makes claims as you do,
until it costs them more. They want everyone else to pay, just not
them.”

Well not quite Cowboy because you see pollution and other damage to the natural environment has been caused by the world's biggest polluters and with impunity. Of course if the polluters were made to pay it may indeed wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable.

The biggest single impact on the annual $2.2 trillion damage (estimated by the UN,) accounting for more than half of the total, were emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Other major "costs" were air pollution such as particulates, health costs and the damage caused by the over-use and pollution of freshwater, groundwater and oceans.

Of course we hear the usual threats from the perpetrators and their dancing boys, however in 2008, Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion!

And who has paid for the environmental carnage these grim reapers have perpetrated on an outraged planet for a hundred years? Not Exxon, not BHP, not Rio, not Barrick Gold, not Shell not ......! So if they and their partners-in-crime wish to continue operating (including those who fly the flags of convenience) they will need to pay for the damage they cause – not the taxpayer, simple! Their profits will be less obscene but they will remain profitable. If they wish not to continue – great stuff. The graveyards are full of ‘indispensable’ corporate criminals!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/09/2620966.htm
http://www.terradaily.com/2007/071009154249.xytavr0w.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/villagers-sue-bhp-billiton-for-5bn/2007/01/19/1169095978975.html
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=5321
http://protestbarrick.net/downloads/barrick_report.pdf

Good old predictable Yabby. You make many assumptions in order to appear as if you actually have something pertinent to say.

1. I never suggested that cleaning up the Gulf mess was not a first priority.

2. As for who is to blame for the Gulf catastrophe - I am sure BP is not alone. Nor did I claim that one company was responsible.

3. That the early model electric was not perfect does not mean it should've been scrapped. The combustion engine is not exactly perfect either.

4. I have already acknowledged that some corporates are investing in sustainable technology just not nearly enough and to reiterate, they could've done so decades ago.

5. I never claimed you weren't a supporter of Obama, so what?

6. >>> ships register all over the world, is
it illegal? Do they make the laws? Were they
breaking the law? <<<
Many things corporates do are 'legal' doesn't make it right. That is what we call 'scheming'.

Given the following discovery, I wonder just what you have in your grasp when you prattle off your usual excuses for corporate scheming and your completely unwarranted comments about women.

"If you want to negotiate a tough deal, make sure you are sitting on a hard chair, say US researchers.

In a mock haggling scenario, those sat on soft chairs were more flexible in agreeing a price.

The team also found candidates whose CVs were held on a heavy clipboard were seen as better qualified than those whose CVs were on a light one.

It shows that the "tactile environment" is vital in decision making and behaviour, they report in Science.

Overall, through a series of experiments, they found that weight, texture, and hardness of inanimate objects unconsciously influence judgments about unrelated events and situations.

It suggests that physical touch, which is the first of sense to develop, may be a scaffold upon which people build social judgments and decisions, the Harvard and Yale University researchers said."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10408041.stm