Nydia Ywalmoriel
11-11-2008, 12:18 PM
Hello all :)
I decided to share this video and pdf link with you guys because I thought it was striking, and drove a point home about the global oil trade that we don't normally think about. Americans tend to think of the oil business as a lucrative one, and of the glittering palaces of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states and thus assume that being an oil exporter would, under most circumstances, yield net benefits for such countries; hence I was somewhat surprised to read that in most of the world oil extraction measurably and significantly *lowers* the standard of living for the citizenry of that country as the wealth accrued goes to a tiny few while the disruption to former ways of life and a more balanced economy is massive (the percentage of Niger Delta residents subsisting on an adjusted dollar a day rose from 39% to 70% between 1960 (when oil extraction moved into the region) and the present, as an example). And although some of us may be acquainted with just what a dirty job oil work is via knowing/knowing of people who have done it for a living in the Gulf of Mexico or elsewhere, in most of the world where oil is actually extracted, it is far, far dirtier, and further degrades quality of life for people living in regions where the oil extraction, processing, and transportation are done due to the massive environmental degradation, toxicity due to exposure, and injuries due to fires/pipeline ruptures etc. Particularly striking in the photomontage off the first link is an image of women in the Niger Delta baking massive platters of cassava cakes (a staple) in the heat from a natural gas burnoff, a practice which has also gone on since the 1960s...
Here's a link to the photomontage (with narration): http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/11/10/what.matters.niger/index.html
and here is one to the pdf of the original article (mouseover to the free online version on the top banner and click on the 'oil addiction' entry).: http://whatmattersonline.com/
The text below the photomontage on the front page is somewhat hyperbole-laden and preachy, but don't let it bias the material inside. As we as a world and a nation get hungrier for the ever harder to extract petrochemicals, we would do well to think on these images and the potential price of our engaging more heavily in the extraction business here. Even if we think of these things happening on the other side of the world, their impact is global in terms of short-term destabilization of economies, governments, and ways of life, and in both short and long term morbidity, mortality, and environmental degredation. But 'clean coal' will save us! ;)
Regards,
Nydia
I decided to share this video and pdf link with you guys because I thought it was striking, and drove a point home about the global oil trade that we don't normally think about. Americans tend to think of the oil business as a lucrative one, and of the glittering palaces of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states and thus assume that being an oil exporter would, under most circumstances, yield net benefits for such countries; hence I was somewhat surprised to read that in most of the world oil extraction measurably and significantly *lowers* the standard of living for the citizenry of that country as the wealth accrued goes to a tiny few while the disruption to former ways of life and a more balanced economy is massive (the percentage of Niger Delta residents subsisting on an adjusted dollar a day rose from 39% to 70% between 1960 (when oil extraction moved into the region) and the present, as an example). And although some of us may be acquainted with just what a dirty job oil work is via knowing/knowing of people who have done it for a living in the Gulf of Mexico or elsewhere, in most of the world where oil is actually extracted, it is far, far dirtier, and further degrades quality of life for people living in regions where the oil extraction, processing, and transportation are done due to the massive environmental degradation, toxicity due to exposure, and injuries due to fires/pipeline ruptures etc. Particularly striking in the photomontage off the first link is an image of women in the Niger Delta baking massive platters of cassava cakes (a staple) in the heat from a natural gas burnoff, a practice which has also gone on since the 1960s...
Here's a link to the photomontage (with narration): http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/11/10/what.matters.niger/index.html
and here is one to the pdf of the original article (mouseover to the free online version on the top banner and click on the 'oil addiction' entry).: http://whatmattersonline.com/
The text below the photomontage on the front page is somewhat hyperbole-laden and preachy, but don't let it bias the material inside. As we as a world and a nation get hungrier for the ever harder to extract petrochemicals, we would do well to think on these images and the potential price of our engaging more heavily in the extraction business here. Even if we think of these things happening on the other side of the world, their impact is global in terms of short-term destabilization of economies, governments, and ways of life, and in both short and long term morbidity, mortality, and environmental degredation. But 'clean coal' will save us! ;)
Regards,
Nydia