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Selected Recent Presentations and Publication

Thought of the month ...

May 2010: "This spill fundamentally threatens our way of life." says Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (see NYT, 2010/05/29) caused by BP's operation of an oil well about 1,600 m below sea surface. BP's activities are propelled by a ruthless greed for cheap and abundant energy combined with the lazy inability of citizens of the modern North Atlantic empires to use energy efficiently. The unabated trends in our societies for more and bigger force us to do everything possible to get more energy fast, cheap, and continuously. We take more and more and greater risks. Even the risks of disasters that "threaten our way of life," take away things precious to us - like the delicious taste of Gulf Coast oysters, destroy the livelihood of many, degrade unique ecosystems, and, to the extreme, threaten life on Earth. Having to make the choice between these risks and changing our lifestyle in a precautionary way, many of us vote for the risks. BP and its limited attention to risk reduction is a result of our lifestyle. And then we are all so surprised when disaster strikes. The oil spill was expected and predictable. Other more extensive human-made disaster are to be expected and predictable. My rule is "The worst possible disaster will happen - one day." Therefore, all we do should be guided by keeping the worst possible disaster at a level that will not threaten our existence. Currently, humanity is walking the tight rope of building not one but many worst possible disasters into the system with each of them having the potential to put us out of existence.

Looking at pictures of officials talking about the oil spill, I see a group of children who were left alone at home and have done something rather bad - and they don't know how to correct it. "`We have not been able to stop the flow,' said Doug Suttles, the London-based oil giant's chief operating officer. `We have made the decision to move on to the next option,' he added" (see Reuter, 2010). It amazes me how little we are prepared for the expected (see, for example Rachel Maddow, which discusses the extremely poor quality of BP's disaster response plan for oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico). There was no well-developed plan how to handle a malfunctioning of crucial parts of the oil well - something to be expected to happen. This is similar to the absence of plans for to-be-expected volcano eruption (see story of the month, May 2010).

Will we be able to get the key message of the oil spill? Which is: "Left home alone, don't play with the matches, you might not be able to extinguish the fire you are likely to start."


If you have a story, thought, or picture worth to be considered as story, thought or picture of the month, please feel free to inform me about it by sending an e-mail to hpplag@unr.edu.