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(©BP p.l.c) Before boat deck/After boat deck
Some public relations photos recently released by BP, supposed to show the world that they are actively working on the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, were so obviously and poorly Photoshopped that Wired Science put out a call to show them how it’s done right. The call did not go unanswered.
submitted by Ferrofluid
Notice the Ring of Power. So that’s what their plan is!
Link to many more submissions.
Ecologically speaking, devastation of the Amazon rainforest is far greater than the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. So why do we care more about the Gulf?
Dan Aierly of Need to Know on PBS explains:
Here’s what we know about human caring and compassion. First and foremost, it is based on our emotions rather than our reasoning. Joseph Stalin said, “One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” Mother Teresa said, “If I look at the masses I will never act, but if I look at the one I will.” In oil spill terms: We see pelicans and turtles mired and dying in oil, and we want to cry. We hear about families who have had their homes ruined and their livelihoods horribly affected or even destroyed, and we sympathize with their helplessness and want to do something to help them recover. Our compassion isn’t necessarily proportional to the magnitude of the catastrophe. It depends on how much of our emotion is invoked. [...]
Here are a few characteristics that might differentiate the BP oil spill from the destruction of the Amazon. First, it is a singular event with a precise beginning. Second, while the tragedy was ongoing (and we are not yet sure if it has ended or not) it seemed to become more desperate by the day. Third, we have a single organization that we can villainize. In contrast, in the Amazon, there are many organizations and individuals at fault, both in the countries where deforestation is occurring and abroad. And fourth, the Gulf is so much closer to home (at least for Americans).
In 1970, BP collaborated with boardgame maker PrintBox of Scotland to come up with a game that is eerily prescient of the Gulf incident. The game BP Offshore Oil Strike didn’t catch on, and thus became somewhat of a collector’s item. BLDGBLOG got its hands on one:
With this "exciting board game for all the family," released in 1970, BP delivered all "the thrills of drilling, the hazards and rewards as you bring in your own…" Bring in your own "Offshore Petro-Dollars," that is.
The game’s internal monetary supply comes in denominations of $200,000, $500,000, $1,000,000, $2,000,000, $10,000,000, and $20,000,000—which is good because you need to earn a lot of it: "The 1st player to make $120,000,000 cash is regarded as the winner."
After all, it’s "a race to find and develop the riches ‘neath the seabed," where no deepwater is beyond the horizon of possible drilling.
Accumulating this fortune, however, is not without its difficulties. Each player has "Hazard" cards to deal with; here are some of the risks BP thought to include:
—"Accident. Rig shuts down while replacement of key personnel takes place. Miss one turn."
—"Fire breaks out. Pay $2,500,000 for repairs."
—"Hit High-Pressure Gas—Rig Damaged. Specialists called in."
—"Blow-Out! Rig Damaged. Repairs cost $2,000,000"
—"Drill pipe breaks. Pay $500,000 for replacement."
—"Strike High Pressure Gas. Platform Destroyed."
—"Blow-Out! Rig Damaged. Oil Slick Clean-Up costs. Pay $1,000,000."
Lots more pic at BLDGBLOG: Link
In the 1970s, BP and a gaming company called Printabox made a board game about offshore oil drilling. It was called BP Offshore Oil Strike:
Up to four would-be tycoons can compete at exploring for oil, building platforms and laying pipelines to their home countries.
But BP Offshore Oil Strike players must also avoid the dreaded ‘hazard cards’, which state: ‘Blow-out! Rig damaged. Oil slick clean-up costs. Pay $1million.’[...]
The mint-condition game, made by Scottish company Printabox, was donated by a private collector to The House On The Hill Toy Museum in Stansted, Essex. It was very rare and ‘obscure’, said museum owner Alan Goldsmith, who added: ‘The parallels between the game and the current crisis… are so spooky.
Link via Kotaku | Photo: Masons
The Upright Citizens Brigade, a comedy troupe, describes a nightmarish environmental disaster: someone at BP international headquarters spills coffee. The executives take immediate and sensible action to contain the damage. Warning: some foul language.
via reddit | Official Website
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is getting progressively worse, as the media reports that the latest effort to stop it, the "top kill" method, is not working. So far, an estimated five million gallons of crude oil have leaked into the gulf.
Asylum has put together five interesting ways to understand just how much oil this actually is: enough to fly a full Boeing 777 jet around the world, six times, for example.
Let’s do some simple math. There are 42 gallons per barrel of oil. That means 5 million gallons of crude oil equals about 119,047 barrels. From those barrels we can create 56,666 gallons of actual gasoline. So what can you do with nearly 57,000 gallons of gasoline? For starters, you can hop into a Hummer and drive from New York City all the way to Los Angeles. And back. About 100 times.
Link – via mentalfloss
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by nmiller.
The BP oil spill that’s filling the news as well as the Gulf of Mexico is big. But understanding just how big has been difficult, until now. A new tool, created by Paul Rademacher, allows you to understand exactly how big the spill is, as well as overlay it over any other map to compare it to the size of familiar distances. You can see here that it is twice as wide as the distance between Washington, DC and Baltimore!
Link – via houstonist
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.
Green is in, and big corporations left and right are jumping on the bandwagon … but are they really trying to be environmentally-conscious or is it just a case of "greenwashing"?
WebEcoist takes a look at the world’s worst offenders – take, for example, BP:
BP’s ad campaign with the theme ‘Beyond Petroleum’ led the public to believe the company was headed in the direction of cleaner, renewable fuels. But, it turned out the company was spending more money on advertising than on green efforts, leading Treehugger to ask, “What does BP stand for these days? Beyond Propaganda? Bye-Bye Planet? Bad Pollution?” After all those greenwashing ads, BP went and dropped $3 billion to buy into oil from the Alberta Tar Sands. Each barrel of oil out of the tar sands generates about two thirds of a ton of CO2, meaning BP’s 200,000 barrels a day will generate about 127,000 tons per day.
