"The Oil Spill" Sorry I can't Resist

I had planned to get on with some of the really grave environmental issues facing us but then I get derailed by other stuff. How did I get worked up over the oil crisis in the Gulf? I started by looking at the folks in the White House who are supposed to know something about off shore drilling. Oh dear, it turns out there ain’t nobody. Start with Mr. Salazar Interior Secretary. I wouldn’t put him in charge of my cat Aldo. He doesn’t know sheeeit from shinola about oil well drilling.

So what do we expect from him? Nothing. And you can go through that whole panoply of Washington folks including Nobel Laureate, also a Cabinet member Mr Chu and none of them would know a deep sea drilling platform from a health spa. So what’s the point of either or all of them visiting what BP is doing? Nor would they know what to do about a clean up and even if they did they would not know HOW TO MANGE THE EFFORT.

As a result of recent Internet research I have learned the following. Big ocean going oil carriers now have a vacuum cleaner ability to pick up oil spills. I thought I had discovered a great idea of picking up the oil with a vacuum types suction system. Sucking into a tank where the oil will float and the water will sink. You drain off the water and ipsfacto you got the oil that you can then sell to the refineries. Like so many of my inventions it is already invented. So, why isn’t it being done? It turns out that the worlds tanker fleets are all loaded to the gunnels with oil waiting for the price to go up. Does anybody in Washington know about all this? I doubt it.

Now why is it that? Washington politicians are not good at solving catastrophe problems. Remember Katrina. No, I don’t think this Administration is doing much better than the previous one. Or the previous one to that one going all the way back to Herbert Hoover who also didn’t have a clue what to do in face of the the great depression. There is nothing in learning to be a politician that helps a person to learn HOW TO MANAGE.

The oil problems in the Gulf are in dire need of a manager and I’m afraid that our President simply doesn’t know beans about managing. Now why should he? He was a Professor of Constitutional Law. That is not particularly helpful in trying to understand and manage an enormous oil spill.

My point is about the failure of the Administration to get out there and find some folks, maybe in Saudi Arabia who in fact do have some knowledge of how to handle “well blowouts” as well as clean ups. For God sakes don;t send in Cabinet people like Salazar, Napolitano, Sebilious or Dr. Chu to reassure the Gulf folks fishermen who are watching their livelihood go up in the oil bath that is engulfing the Gulf. A special decommetdanion should go to Elizabeth Birnbaum head of the Minerals Management Department at Interior. She, poor thing has resigned. But why was she put there in the first place? The whole department has clearly let the extraction industry folks run it. Man. did I ever learn my lesson about those folks.

In the 50ies I did a stint for the Miners Union in Butte Montana. Anaconda Copper had one single agenda. How to make more money on extracting copper from the Butte hills. They didn’t give a damm about the safety of the miners or the destruction of the land they left behind. There is now a lake in Butte that is the largest super-fund sight in the country. That reflects the history of all the extraction companies in the world. They have a very singular intention. That is dig for the profits period. Nobody at Interior seemed to understand that simple historical fact. FDR was the exception when he hired a farmer, Henry Wallace to look over Agriculture and Harold Ickes to go after the Utilities at Interior.

One of the biggest failures so far in the Obama Administration has been his appointments. As I think back over the various administrations in my lifetime this crowd turns out to be one of the weakest, The single ability that seems to be lacking in all of them is how to think about making things work. That quality has nothing to do with the political ability to sound good and make people like you. It has to do with being able to figure out how to get things done. Kate, who spent many years as a consultant working for major “500 companies” often will remark. “that so and so
from GE or Xerox could figure out how to manage that mess in the Gulf within a week.”

Therein lies the problem. The government in Washington has simply lost, or never had that ability to do any real problem solving because they lack any experience in the management of everyday disasters. If you need more evidence for my argument just look at the mess in Haiti. Millions upon millions of relief money. Who is thinking about how to rebuild the country so when the next disaster strikes, and it will soon, as we get into the Hurricane season. What will help create a stable state in that very poor ravaged place?

Does our problem start with our young who seemed to want only to get into Goldman Sachs and make huge bonuses by knowing how to shuffle the money around in derivatives? That may be attractive but it certainly isn’t what the world will need as we get further into the coming planetary catastrophes resulting from global warming. How about incentives to help future generations learn how to Manage in a Crisis?