Herding Cats

Breaking America’s Oil Addiction

Brown Pelicans covered with oil after BP oil spill

The saddest picture from the oil spill that I have seen.

In the wake of the BP Oil spill I have decided to cut as much oil out of my life as I can. I did some research and learned that it is in well, everything. Which I find even more disturbing. While oil really is in everything we consume from contact lenses to linoleum I am bound and determined to stop my house holds consumption of it as much as possible. There are many natural brands of cleaning products out on the market and even 100% biodegradable un-plastic bags for trash available now. Last night I bought non-chlorine all natural color safe bleach by Ecover and some all natural fabric softener by Seventh Generation. It was a good thing to do, but it disturbs me that the cost of the environmentally friendly products is so much more expensive than the chemical stuff. What I paid for a tiny bottle of fabric softener would have bought me a large bottle of the chemically laden (and don’t forget the animal tallow!) stuff. Why is it that all the products that are bad for humans and the environment are the ones that are government subsidized? The earth gets the rottenest end of the oil spill/environmental rape and pillage of the earth and our children will have to pay the ultimate price. They will be the ones stuck with an earth that has an ocean full of dispersed oil and weird storms due to global warming and whatever environmental disasters big business can think up in the meantime. I was born in 1977, here is a list of ALL the recorded oil spills in my lifetime.

1977
April, North Sea: blowout of well in Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons.

1978
March 16, off Portsall, France: wrecked supertanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 68 million gallons, causing widespread environmental damage over 100 mi of Brittany coast.

1979
June 3, Gulf of Mexico: exploratory oil well Ixtoc 1 blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude oil into the open sea. Although it is one of the largest known oil spills, it had a low environmental impact.

July 19, Tobago: the Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain collided, spilling 46 million gallons of crude. While being towed, the Atlantic Empress spilled an additional 41 million gallons off Barbados on Aug. 2.

1980
March 30, Stavanger, Norway: floating hotel in North Sea collapsed, killing 123 oil workers.

1983
Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran: Nowruz Field platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil.

Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa: the Spanish tanker Castillo de Bellver caught fire, spilling 78 million gallons of oil off the coast.

1988
July 6, North Sea off Scotland: 166 workers killed in explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum’s Piper Alpha rig in North Sea; 64 survivors. It is the world’s worst offshore oil disaster.

Nov. 10, Saint John’s, Newfoundland: Odyssey spilled 43 million gallons of oil.

1989
March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska: tanker Exxon Valdez hit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus gallons of oil into the water, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Dec. 19, off Las Palmas, the Canary Islands: explosion in Iranian supertanker, the Kharg-5, caused 19 million gallons of crude oil to spill into Atlantic Ocean about 400 mi north of Las Palmas, forming a 100-square-mile oil slick.

1990
June 8, off Galveston, Tex.: Mega Borg released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston as a result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room.

1991
Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 mi off Kuwait. Spill had little military significance. On Jan. 27, U.S. warplanes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.

April 11, Genoa, Italy: Haven spilled 42 million gallons of oil in Genoa port.

May 28, Angola: ABT Summer exploded and leaked 15–78 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola. It’s not clear how much sank or burned.

1992
March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil spilled from an oil well.

1993
Aug. 10, Tampa Bay, Fla.: three ships collided, the barge Bouchard B155, the freighter Balsa 37, and the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.

1994
Sept. 8, Russia: dam built to contain oil burst and spilled oil into Kolva River tributary. U.S. Energy Department estimated spill at 2 million barrels. Russian state-owned oil company claimed spill was only 102,000 barrels.

1996
Feb. 15, off Welsh coast: supertanker Sea Empress ran aground at port of Milford Haven, Wales, spewed out 70,000 tons of crude oil, and created a 25-mile slick.

1999
Dec. 12, French Atlantic coast: Maltese-registered tanker Erika broke apart and sank off Britanny, spilling 3 million gallons of heavy oil into the sea.

2000
Jan. 18, off Rio de Janeiro: ruptured pipeline owned by government oil company, Petrobras, spewed 343,200 gallons of heavy oil into Guanabara Bay.

Nov. 28, Mississippi River south of New Orleans: oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, La., dumping 567,000 gallons of crude oil into lower Mississippi. Spill was largest in U.S. waters since Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989.

2002
Nov. 13, Spain: Prestige suffered a damaged hull and was towed to sea and sank. Much of the 20 million gallons of oil remains underwater.

2003
July 28, Pakistan: The Tasman Spirit, a tanker, ran aground near the Karachi port, and eventually cracked into two pieces. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking 28,000 tons of crude oil into the sea.

2004
Dec. 7, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska: A major storm pushed the M/V Selendang Ayu up onto a rocky shore, breaking it in two. 337,000 gallons of oil were released, most of which was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan Bays.

2005
Aug.-Sept., New Orleans, Louisiana: The Coast Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled during Hurricane Katrina from various sources, including pipelines, storage tanks and industrial plants.

2006
June 19, Calcasieu River, Louisiana: An estimated 71,000 barrels of waste oil were released from a tank at the CITGO Refinery on the Calcasieu River during a violent rain storm.

July 15, Beirut, Lebanon: The Israeli navy bombs the Jieh coast power station, and between three million and ten million gallons of oil leaks into the sea, affecting nearly 100 miles of coastline. A coastal blockade, a result of the war, greatly hampers outside clean-up efforts.

August 11th, Guimaras island, The Philippines: A tanker carrying 530,000 gallons of oil sinks off the coast of the Philippines, putting the country’s fishing and tourism industries at great risk. The ship sinks in deep water, making it virtually unrecoverable, and it continues to emit oil into the ocean as other nations are called in to assist in the massive clean-up effort.

2007
December 7, South Korea: Oil spill causes environmental disaster, destroying beaches, coating birds and oysters with oil, and driving away tourists with its stench. The Hebei Spirit collides with a steel wire connecting a tug boat and barge five miles off South Korea’s west coast, spilling 2.8 million gallons of crude oil. Seven thousand people are trying to clean up 12 miles of oil-coated coast.

2008
July 25, New Orleans, Louisiana: A 61-foot barge, carrying 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel, collides with a 600-foot tanker ship in the Mississippi River near New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel leak from the barge, causing a halt to all river traffic while cleanup efforts commence to limit the environmental fallout on local wildlife.

2009
March 11, Queensland, Australia: During Cyclone Hamish, unsecured cargo aboard the container ship MV Pacific Adventurer came loose on deck and caused the release of 52,000 gallons of heavy fuel and 620 tons of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, into the Coral Sea. About 60 km of the Sunshine Coast was covered in oil, prompting the closure of half the area’s beaches.

2010
Jan. 23, Port Arthur, Texas: The oil tanker Eagle Otome and a barge collide in the Sabine-Neches Waterway, causing the release of about 462,000 gallons of crude oil. Environmental damage was minimal as about 46,000 gallons were recovered and 175,000 gallons were dispersed or evaporated, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
April 24, Gulf of Mexico: The Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible drilling rig, sank on April 22, after an April 20th explosion on the vessel. Eleven people died in the blast. When the rig sank, the riser—the 5,000-foot-long pipe that connects the wellhead to the rig—became detached and began leaking oil. In addition, U.S. Coast Guard investigators discovered a leak in the wellhead itself. As much as 60,000 barrels of oil per day were leaking into the water, threatening wildlife along the Louisiana Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared it a “spill of national significance.” BP (British Petroleum), which leased the Deepwater Horizon, is responsible for the cleanup, but the U.S. Navy supplied the company with resources to help contain the slick. Oil reached the Louisiana shore on April 30, affected about 125 miles of coast. By early June, oil had also reached Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Read more: Oil Spills and Disasters — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html#ixzz1DlgH21eY

Disturbed yet? I hope that you are. I am pretty disturbed by the fact that there has been at least one major oil spill happening almost every other year that I have been alive for my entire life! This is just one of those situations where if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.  Being disturbed and uncomfortable is a good thing when the sour taste in our mouth is used for a better good. The vote that has the most impact is the money vote. Where our hard earned dollars are spent and on what has a great impact. Do you really want your hard earned money to go to some evil corporation who doesn’t give a fig about you or the environment? If we all lay off the oil as much as we can it will make a difference. Did you know that only 50% of a barrel of oil goes into our gas tanks? The other half is to satisfy our consumer lust for oil. Here is a short list of products you will find it in.

Nearly everything in our lives is made from oil, made by machinery and systems dependent on oil, and transported by oil as either gas or diesel fuel.

Ammonia, Anesthetics, Antihistamines, Artificial limbs, Artificial Turf, Antiseptics, Aspirin, Auto Parts, Awnings, Balloons, Ballpoint pens, Bandages, Beach Umbrellas, Boats, Cameras, Candles, Car Battery Cases, Carpets, Caulking, Combs, Cortisones, Cosmetics, Crayons, Credit Cards, Curtains, Deodorants, Detergents, Dice, Disposable Diapers, Dolls, Dyes, Eye Glasses, Electrical Wiring Insulation, Faucet Washers, Fishing Rods, Fishing Line, Fishing Lures, Food Preservatives, Food Packaging, Garden Hose, Glue, Hair Coloring, Hair Curlers, Hand Lotion, Hearing Aids, Heart Valves, Ink, Insect Repellant, Insecticides, Linoleum, Lip Stick, Milk Jugs, Nail Polish, Oil Filters, Panty Hose, Perfume, Petroleum Jelly, Rubber Cement, Rubbing Alcohol,  Shampoo, Shaving Cream, Shoes, Toothpaste, Trash Bags, Upholstery, Vitamin Capsules, Water Pipes, Yarn

http://www.3k88.com/products.htm

In light of all this information I hope you decided to start cutting down on the amount of oil you consume. In addition to switching over to all natural and sustainable cleaning and beauty products I also do 99% of my laundry in cold water (only bedding and pet bedding get a hot water wash) and use my clothes line in the summer. If we all do something it will have a positive impact on the environment.

I leave you with this short five minute film about the state of our beaches in Alabama.