Oops,We seem to have broken the Earth!

Here are some lines from from the Guardian by Naomi Klein in the Guardian. Her observations about the continuing Gulf oil leak,the climate crisis in general and the reactions to it are truly disheartening.

If Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP cannot plug the hole in the Earth that it made. Obama cannot order fish species to survive, or brown pelicans not to go extinct (no matter whose ass he kicks). No amount of money – not BP's recently pledged $20bn (£13.5bn), not $100bn – can replace a culture that has lost its roots.

As climate change negotiations wear on, we should be ready to hear more from Dr Steven Koonin, Obama's undersecretary of energy for science. He is one of the leading proponents of the idea that climate change can be combated with techno tricks like releasing sulphate and aluminium particles into the atmosphere – and of course it's all perfectly safe, just like Disneyland! He also happens to be BP's former chief scientist, the man who just 15 months ago was still overseeing the technology behind BP's supposedly safe charge into deepwater drilling.

In other petroleum related news:

Fly away to a clean ocean

Corporate sensitivity and the small people in the year 2010

BP chief executive Tony Hayward, often criticized for being tone-deaf to U.S. concerns about the worst oil spill in American history, took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race off England's Isle of Wight.

Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico to watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.

I seem to remember Capt. Joe Hazelwood of Exxon Valdez fame being roundly vilified by the government, press and the public(his ship and his image even had a cameo in the movie Waterworld). Maybe times and attitudes have just changed or Tony Hayward’s ilk don’t consider themselves to be of the small people whose lives can be disrupted by the disaster in the gulf. Fly away to a clean[er] ocean.

"It's a well-known event in the British calendar. He's entitled to private time with his family," said BP spokesman Robert Wine.