SOCIAL: oil spills NIMBY

[adee .]

*this email from a friend & in response to an email from another friend
about an article in yesterday's SFGate. *

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Cindy
Date: Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: [All] Behold the Magnificent Horror
To:


I can't help but point out that as much oil as is being spilled in the Gulf
is spilled *every year* in Nigeria with no real efforts at cleanup or
control. Obviously Soupsters know that this is an issue close to my heart.

This oil spill is the worst in US history, but it's not even close to the
worst in the world.  And we need to be careful that in our understandable
upset about this at home we don't increase the risk to people around the
world -- that this doesn't result in increased and dangerous drilling
overseas so that Americans just don't see the devastation so close up.

Two good articles:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

"One report, compiled by WWF UK, the World Conservation Union and
representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian
Conservation Foundation, calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5m tons of oil – 50
times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska
– has been spilled in the delta over the past half century. Last year
Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels of oil was
spilled and accused the oil companies of a human rights outrage."


And a quote from my friend Nnimmo Bassey:

"We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the US," said Nnimo
Bassey, Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth International. "But in
Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and
destroy people's livelihood and environments."



http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/nigerian-oil-spills-make-exxon-valdez-look-like-drop-in-the-bucket/19483921

" The Associated Press reported that Shell alone spilled nearly 4.5 million
gallons of oil into the Niger Delta last year."

And

Writing in a New York Times
op-ed<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/opinion/02margonelli.html>,
New America Foundation scholar Lisa Margonelli noted: "All oil comes from
someone's backyard, and when we don't reduce the amount of oil we consume,
and refuse to drill at home, we end up getting people to drill for us in
Kazakhstan, Angola and Nigeria -- places without America's strong
environmental safeguards or the resources to enforce them."

Ahoy,

Cindy

On Jun 5, 2010, at 9:07 AM, Maura F wrote:


A perspective I admire...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fg%2Fa%2F2010%2F06%2F04%2Fnotes060410.DTL

~Maura







********************************************************

Cindy Cohn   ---- Cindy at eff.org

Legal Director   ---- www.eff.org

Electronic Frontier Foundation

454 Shotwell Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

(415) 436-9333 x108

(415) 436-9993 (fax)
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