I always enjoy the marketing employed in real estate ads. When you see “quaint” or “cozy”, I think that it really means, “That’s amazing that they were able to fit 2 bedrooms in here. When I see the description of ” unique”, I immediately assume, “The builder didn’t want to clog the master bedroom with a closet” or, “even Frank Lloyd Wright thought this looked strange”.
To me, “all offers considered” means, “For the love of Pete, they are going to foreclose, if you don’t buy”. “Backyard Paradise?” Well, I’m not sure if that means you’ll need a mosquito net or that it has plants and flowers with strange names, that will put immense pressure on you to keep them alive.
I am starting to think that oil companies use the same kind of marketing for platform oil drilling. I previously blogged on offshore drilling, but now want to call your attention to a story that I saw on 60 Minutes on Sunday night. The story is titled “Blowout, The Deepwater Horizon Disaster“. Survivor Mike Williams describes in detail his personal experience on the platform that recently blew up in the Gulf, as he describes the platform that was on fire and the explosions, which caused him to jump 90 feet into water that was covered in oil and ready to go up in flames.
The story would be the kind of fiction book that you can’t put down. Instead, this Chief Electronics Technician, in charge of the oil rig’s computers and electrical system, tells the true story of what he saw in the days leading up to the explosion. Now that I have heard that side of the story of how he escaped this fiery inferno that killed 11 other crewman, and also hearing the warning signs that were ignored by BP which have caused the continual oil leaking in the Gulf, for a period of 3 weeks; If you watch the video, it will just disturb you. Can corporate oil drilling America be this dirty?
For a legal blog, I really can’t do the story true description justice. BP is under scrutiny for this one. However, how quickly we forget. In 2005, a Texas refinery of BP also exploded, killing 15 workers and leading to a 108 million dollar fine, the highest workplace fine in history. For the current explosion, BP reminds us that they are spending money around the clock, in an effort to fix the current leak. They tell us that it has already cost them 500 million. What they don’t say is that, in just the first 3 months of this year, they have already realized a profit of 6 billion.
When I hear politicians talk about how Virginia needs offshore drilling to create jobs and to make us self sufficient, I wonder who has their ear. How are they equipped to even make that decision when such money and profits are at stake? Then, the marketing begins to tell us that technology is so advanced that problems of the past have been solved and that any spills can now be quickly corrected. I could attach those basic words from some of our State politicians. Instead, I just hope that voters will not put up with this “oil marketing”. This oil leak has probably delayed these false promises for a little bit.
BP in the news right now. Companies such as Conoco and Exxon are out there drilling and turning profits. Unfortunately, based on the assertions of one former BP employee, there is another platform that shows all the signs of a massive leak, according to the attached story, and BP is refusing to address those early warning signs. The employee claims that the profit is just too large and getting larger for them. Why not profit over safety?
Sitting in our chairs, it really is hard to know truth from fiction. According to the facts of this Gulf explosion, BP knew about the problems and ignored them, choosing to push forward and faster because of the expense involved and the profits that were being lost. In one planning session, a BP representative pressured everyone at the platform meeting to keep pushing ahead, that they were falling behind schedule, and to just ignore signs such as floating rubber that indicated a problem below the drilling surface.
Dr Bob Bea, a Professor of Engineering, has been asked by the White House to analyze and give recommendations about this Gulf explosion. He also consulted on the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster for NASA, and was part of the review team for the National Science Foundation which assessed the Katrina Disaster. When the reporter for 60 Minutes, Steve Pelfrey, asked him what he thought would be the right thing to do at that point, Bea said, “I express it to my students this way, ‘Stop, think, don’t do something stupid.’”
Doesn’t this story remind you a little bit of the real estate marketing, as I described. I half expect someone to print something like “it makes for a great fixer-upper”. When I see the BP Oil television ads that tout how eco-friendly they are to the environment, I wonder if we will start to see politicians advertise that, “I was the one who stopped BP from drilling near the Virginia coast”.
Please click the Facebook “Share” button below this post to let others know you enjoyed reading it. Thanks!
