Have Britain and America fallen out ‘big time’?

The fact that one of our largest companies, BP, has covered America’s beaches and nature reserves in oil has apparently driven a rift between the two countries the size of the Atlantic Ocean.

The turmoil began on the 20^th April, when BP’s ‘Deepwater Horizon’ oil rig blew up, killing 11 crew member. The US Government are angry because the rig did not have proper measures installed, and had malfunctioning equipment that was not repaired, so  thousands of barrels per day have since leaked from the snapped pipe beneath the destroyed oil rig. What the USA are also annoyed about is the fact that the rig did not have a cut off valve on the pipe, so that when the pipe to the rig snapped, oil was free to pump out into the Gulf of Mexico, even though US law does not say that such equipment is necessary, which is the case in all European oil drilling nations. The two nations, which for the past century have been about as separable, in the immortal words of Edward Blackadder, as “a Frenchman living next to a brothel”, have fallen out hugely over the disaster. It seems that somehow, us giving America a ‘thousand barrels per day’ of black gold, is wrong! I suppose it is quite like a homeless man throwing an oil drum full of pound coins at Bill Gates!

Barack Obama, saviour of the world, has even likened the spill to 9/11. Okay America, so why don’t you invade France over their “weapons of mass destruction” , steal their oil, and then come after us when Tony Hayward, the ‘most hated man in America’ has already gone to hide in some cave in Scotland.

Having said all that, I don’t even dislike America.

Some of their ideas, such as the cheeseburger, Television dramas, and Sarah Palin are not all bad.

But still, can Obama not see that torturing BP is really not doing any good for anyone? BP, as David Cameron so valiantly praised it, is the provider of millions of British pensions. At a time when the world is only just emerging from the largest recession for 70 years, is it really a good thing to prod one of the most fragile and major economies in the world? It is very irresponsible of America. If anything, they should be to blame, for the lack of legislation in their laws that states that oil rigs must have a ‘Blowout Preventer’, as the laws of nearly every other major drilling nation says there must be. BP didn’t really do anything wrong, they did not go against US law any more than any of the US oil companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A US public servant hired to look at the rest of the oil rigs in the bay said that every single other company was not prepared for if such a horrific event happened on any of their rigs. All of them had just the same faults as BP did, and any such accidents on any other rig would result in the same catastrophe as is currently happening.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that the Gulf of Mexico spill is a horrific incident, and the company involved should have to pay, but it is the fault of not just BP, but of the US government, of all of the companies drilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and especially of human nature. So BP shouldn’t be the only one to pay. One thing is for certain, America should get out their buckets and scoop up the oil floating around in their bay, ‘cause BP certainly aren’t going to give them any more.

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3^rd of December, 1984 : On the night of December the 3^rd, 1984, the people of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh were probably just about ready to get to bed. That was, however, apart from those few men working at the United Carbide gas plant simply going about the standard water cleaning of the tanks which held the gas that United Carbide sold around the world. What they didn’t know was that at the time, that water was slowly seeping into tank 610; something that would cause the gas to steadily leak out of the tank it was held in. By 11.30 in the evening, people in the city began to experience the effects of the gas leak. As men, women and children lay in their beds, they began to suffocate, cough violently and some even began vomiting. And yet, despite the fact that people fell unbelievably ill, and despite the fact that over 8000 people were said to have immediately died as a result, and despite the fact that this gas leak was almost entirely the fault of the company involved, it took two days for UNIL (United Carbide India Limited) to decide to offer ‘immediate’ assistance.

20th of April 2010 : 36 years later, an ocean oil rig caught fire. By the 19^th of May, the oil washed up on mainland Louisiana. The oil managed to collect on the shore and killed off, to some extent, the large fishing industry on which many of the people of Louisiana depend on for a living. This time, the pressure to take action on the company involved – BP – took barely any time at all and there was voracious criticism all round. Within a week, 7 million gallons of oil had already spilled into the sea, killing wildlife by the thousands and choking off the income supply of farmers who lived around the area.

UNIL, an American owned company, some 3 and a half decades after the Bhopal chemical disaster has still left around 400 tonnes of toxic waste which now pollutes the groundwater of the area. It’s a fact which means that, like the farmers of Florida and Louisiana, people have been too scared to farm or use the water in the area. And all UNIL offered in compensation to the widows of those dedicated United Carbide workers? 200 Rs. per month. That amounts to about four dollars and twenty-five cents.

In total, Union Carbide offered the sum of $470 million in compensation and in a recent film, ‘Twenty Years Without Justice: The Bhopal Chemical Disaster’, it doesn’t seem to have made much visible difference. On June the 16^th, President Obama said that he would ‘make BP pay for the damage their company has cost’, despite ignoring his own country’s damage caused to places like Bhopal  and also the fact that the United States consumes oil more than any other place in the world. The compensation figure was cited to be around $20 billion; a number BP agreed to. Undoubtedly, the people of the American states affected are going to find themselves a lot better off than their Indian counterparts. It’s unfortunate that, at the time of the Union Carbide disaster, India wasn’t on the world stage. Perhaps then, like America, they could have claimed tens of billions of dollars in compensation.

So, at the end of it all, if anything hopeful and optimistic came out of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and all the disasters that have been ignored before it, it’s perhaps that America will see the dangers of environmental exploitation and the value of corporate responsibility .There have been a lot of lives lost, ignored and destroyed. Because this happened on the Sheriff’s doorstep, maybe some progress will be made.

by Harish

Links : Timeline on the events of the Bhopal Disaster

Report studying the economic conditions of people living in India

Blog article written by Norman Tebbit describing President Obama’s rhetoric

Twenty Years Without Justice: The Bhopal Chemical Disaster

BP Agrees to Put $20 Billion in Escrow Account for People Affected by Oil Spill, White House Says

Deepwater Horizon Rig Disaster — Timeline

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