From Alaska to Argentina in an Electric Sports Car.

Racing Green Endurance hopes to spin the experience into an electric car startup.

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Michael Kanellos: August 3, 2010

 http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/r…

Jason Leopold is the Deputy Managing Editor at Truthout. He is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller, News Junkie, a memoir. Visit newsjunkiebook.com for a preview.
 http://www.truth-out.org/BP-Executive-Tu…

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BP Executive Turned Alyeska Pipeline Into “Deeply Distressed” Company.

Monday 02 August 2010

by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

Former BP human resources executive Kevin Hostler will be retiring from his current post as Chief Executive Officer for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company in September. (Photo: Alyeska Pipeline Service Co)

Alyeska Pipeline, the BP-led consortium that operates the 800-mile Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), has implemented deep budget cuts, deferred work on a number of important maintenance and upgrade projects, failed to study how relocating engineers would impact the safe operations and long-term integrity of the pipeline and is led by a chief executive who was described by the company’s five vice presidents as “intimidating,” “demeaning,” “aggressive,” “confrontational,” “unpredictable,” “polarizing,” “withering,” “edgy,” “vulgar” and “inappropriate.”

Those are just some of the critical findings contained in a closely-held report, obtained exclusively by Truthout, that was prepared by two attorneys hired by Alyeska to investigate widespread safety concerns raised by a senior employee in an anonymous letter to BP’s Office of the Ombudsman alleging TAPS is vulnerable to a catastrophic spill.

Charles Thebaud and Jane Diecker of the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, conducted the four-month probe and turned over their report in mid-June to TAPS’ owners BP, ConocoPhillips Transportation Alaska, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, Unocal Pipeline Company and Koch Alaska Pipeline Company.

Truthout documented some of the findings of Thebaud’s investigation and the safety and integrity concerns raised by nearly a dozen Alyeska and BP officials in an investigative report published last month.

Alyeska has not shared a copy of Thebaud’s report with its employees and the company downplayed many of the report’s conclusions in a company-wide email distributed June 30 signed by TAPS’ owners.

Thebaud’s report paints a picture of a company where employees suffer from low morale, have a deep mistrust of senior executives and fear retaliation if they openly discuss or raise concerns about safety and integrity issues with them.

The harshest criticism was reserved for Chief Executive Officer Kevin Hostler, a BP executive “on loan” to Alyeska who admittedly uses “anger” to “obtain results,” in violation of Alyeska’s own code of conduct.

Hostler announced his retirement from the company, effective in September, one day after the publication of Truthout’s report last month.

“Although lawful, [Hostler's] leadership style and demeanor have affected the work environment,” the report’s executive summary says. “Employees at various levels of the organizations, in [Fairbanks, Anchorage and Valdez], have either witnessed or heard about [the CEO's] interactions with his executives. Their observations or perceptions have adversely affected some employees’ willingness to raise concerns to [Hostler] and senior management, particularly for non-core issues.”

Hostler’s “conduct has had consequences, even among the executives,” the report added. “The group is admittedly ‘consciously cautious’ and ‘wary’ in how they approach [Hostler] and in the topics they raise. In fact, some are hesitant to raise ‘non-core’ issues with [Hostler], given his unpredictability and demeanor.”

The five Alyeska vice presidents who were critical of Hostler are: Mike Joynor, Greg Jones, Jordan Jacobson, the company’s general counsel, Mike Muckenthaler, Alyeska’s chief financial officer, and Kristi Acuff, who recently retired as senior vice president, employee external relations.

In his own defense, Hostler told Thebaud, “he can become particularly angry if he believes that ‘safety has been ignored.’” That statement, according to a dozen senior BP and Alyeska officials who were interviewed for this story and reviewed the report, said is “laughable” and “a flat out lie.”

“It’s when you discuss safety concerns that he lashes out,” said one top Alyeska executive who has interacted with Hostler over years. “Raising safety concerns means Alyeska will have to spend money and Kevin Hostler and BP do not want to invest money to make sure this pipeline operates safely. That’s a fact.”

Prior to being named chief executive of Alyeska, Hostler spent 27 years with BP, most recently as senior vice president of BP’s global human resources organization. Before that, Hostler was head of BP’s subsidiary in Colombia.

The report said employees have been lodging complaints against Hostler since 2007, which senior officials in Alyeska’s human resources (HR) department failed to address.

In fact, Thebaud’s report also documented widespread problems in the human resources division.

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Interviews with employees “revealed a significant weakness in the quality of the work environment in [human resources]” and determined that the “majority of the [human resources] personnel interviewed do not believe that an open work environment [to express concerns] exists in HR.”

“The HR Director, has a management style that her staff and peers view as aloof and … confrontational,” his report says. “Regardless of the factors giving rise to the current situation, the work environment in HR requires attention. A substantial segment of the workers mistrusts the organization’s leader [Theresa Guim] and is reluctant to raise concerns. The situation … must be addressed.”

The report also said “morale is low” at the Valdez Terminal, where employees who respond to spills work. Thebaud’s report said employees do not trust Kathy Zinn, Alyeska’s Valdez Terminal director, because of her close ties to Hostler and her own brash management style. Numerous employees have left the Valdez Terminal in recent months and the report suggests that the departures may be directly related to Zinn’s leadership.

Scrutiny Following Oil Spill {At THE NORTH SLOPE}

Alyeska has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent months following a 4,500-barrel oil spill at one of its pump stations on the North Slope in May, which, according to a copy of a separate 17-page internal report into the circumstances behind that incident, was largely the result of the company continuously repeating past mistakes.

The spill at pump station 9, about 100 miles southwest of Fairbanks, resulted when oil started to flow back into the tank, after a backup battery system failed during a planned shutdown. Because the power was out and the facility was not manned with trained operators, no one recognized that the relief valves, which open during an outage, were discharging oil into the tank, which eventually overflowed and spilled. The incident forced Alyeska to shut down the pipeline for three days.

The facility is usually unmanned, another cost-cutting measure implemented by Alyeska as part of its long-delayed “strategic reconfiguration plan,” an “efficiency” measure implemented by TAPS’ owners to address declining oil production on Prudhoe Bay.

But a work crew was nearby because of the planned shutdown. The report said the pump station 9 was being shutdown in order to test the fire detection system, which includes isolation of primary power. During one of the tests, two uninterrupted power supply systems failed. The uninterrupted power supply was supposed to provide backup power, but when it failed, it caused critical station control systems to shut down.

When power is lost, five of the pump station’s relief valves are supposed to kick into an open position to prevent pipeline overpressure and flow into tank 190. But according to the report, also lost along with the uninterrupted power supply failure were audible and visual alarms when relief valves open at 5 percent or more. The operators, according to the report, did not realize that a power failure causes the relief valves to open into tank 190. The tank then overfilled and spilled crude oil into the containment area.

Alyeska’s internal report into the root cause of the spill noted that at least four serious incidents have occurred at pump station 9 since 2007, including one on March 22, 2007, that was nearly identical to the spill in May and almost caused an explosion at the facility, but the company has failed to learn from the operational mistakes that caused those accidents.

“A number of significant incidents on TAPS over the last several years, demonstrate a trend of operational discipline deficiencies similar to those at [tank 190],” the Root Cause Analysis and Post Accident Review report said.

Although Alyeska implemented recommendations from previous reports into past incidents, “there is recognition of a need for significant improvement in the organization’s ability to effectively learn from these experiences and prevent recurrence. The previous incident actions have been completed, however, they did not result in the cultural and behavioral changes … Reports and recommendations from previous incidents have not been communicated well throughout the organization.”

A BP master root cause specialist with behavioral safety as well as business management experience reviewed the internal report into the spill and said the findings “indicate a deep and widespread problem that is likely to be reflective not just of the operating environment but also maintenance and integrity management discipline … and highlights a clear and significant risk to the safe operation of TAPS.”

The BP official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the uninterrupted power supply failure and the fact that the pump station is usually unmanned caused the operations control center located in Anchorage to lose all visibility with the facility and was unable to obtain crucial operational data about what unfolded.

“This is the inherent weakness of strategic reconfiguration: unmanned pump station,” the BP official said. “This event could have been much worse if it had occurred when people were not there. Everything is dependent on no power failures, redundant power supplies to work and all equipment to set up in the right safe condition upon loss of power.”

The BP official added that he believes the investigation into the spill “is fundamentally flawed because it does not identify the real root causes that resulted from a failed [uninterrupted power supply] breaker and the response of [Alyeska] personnel to the power outage.

“The recommendations resulting from this investigation as well as other investigations identified in the report lack specificity as to what [Alyeska] needs to do in order to prevent future failures of equipment and people,” the BP official said. “Investigators were not able to replicate the breaker failure and therefore were not able to identify a root cause for the failure. This means that the device remains in service with the likelihood of a similar failure in the future.”

The BP officials said the report’s recommendations, that corrective action should focus heavily on communication and training do not “strongly influence or motivate behavioral changes.

“The condition described by the investigation report and its scale indicates a deep and widespread problem that is likely to be reflective not just of the operating environment but also maintenance and integrity management discipline,” the BP official said. “What was described as an operating discipline issue is likely not to be an isolated condition but reflective of the entirety of [Alyeska's] operation including management of the TAPS mechanical integrity.” The report underscores “a complete lack of management leadership to motivate personnel without fear of retaliation to perform their job duties with the highest degree of integrity and with rigorous discipline.”

TAPS owners have “abdicated their responsibility for proper management of [the pipeline] to a BP executive [Hostler] who exhibits the same flawed management qualities that characterize the BP leadership culture which have led to numerous integrity incidents in the last five years,” the BP official added. “You could describe TAPS as Alaska’s ticking time bomb because of flawed leadership, flawed management, lack of rigorous operational discipline and loss of skilled and experienced staff. The numerous incidents preceding the [spill at pump station 9] are harbingers of a worse event that will happen unless an intervention by an owner with a stronger management culture occurs.” (A detailed story on the circumstances that led up to the spill will be published later this week.)

The BP official said both the Thebaud and pump station 9 reports are cause for serious concern.

“The public, State of Alaska, Department of Transportation and Congress should be alarmed by the findings of the two reports,” the BP official said. Alyeska “is a deeply distressed organization and has a serious systemic issue with operational discipline that is likely indicative of a bigger problem with serious integrity management implications.”

Patricia Klinger, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), said in an interview last month that the circumstances behind the spill are still under investigation by federal regulators.

Additionally, Klinger said a corrective action order was issued to Alyeska May 27, requiring the company to keep personnel on site 24-hours a day, seven days a week and perform inspections every 30 minutes for “leaks and any abnormal operations or activities.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, last week called on Alyeska to conduct its own internal review of the pipeline, in areas such as maintenance and leak detection, to ensure its operating safely.

Alyeska said the company would hire a third party to conduct an independent review of TAPS after Alaska State Rep. David Guttenberg (D-Fairbanks), who has been critical of the company’s cost-cutting measures, said Alyeska could not be trusted to investigate itself.

Anonymous Email Sparks Probe

The investigation conducted by Thebaud and Diecker into the safety issues at Alyeska was sparked by an anonymous three-page email sent to BP’s Office of the Ombudsman last December by an Alyeska employee identified as “Afraidaspill.”

In that letter, Afraidaspill wrote that Alyeska’s Employee Concerns Program (ECP) “is non functional” and that was one of the reasons BP’s Office of the Ombudsman was initially contacted about the safety and budgetary issues. The email noted that BP’s Deputy Ombudsman, Billie Garde, an attorney, had previously represented Alyeska whistleblowers. Garde also formerly worked for Alyeska.

Thebaud’s report said BP’s ombudsman’s office then sent Afraidaspill’s email to Alyeska’s general counsel and, in February, attorneys for TAPS’ owners directed Morgan, Lewis & Bockius “to conduct this privileged, independent investigation on behalf of Alyeska … without guidance, direction, or oversight from Alyeska management.”

Thebaud and Diecker conducted 66 interviews with Alyeska executives, directors, managers, supervisors and “individual contributors” during the course of their investigation and obtained 200 internal company documents from a senior research analyst in Alyeska’s legal department. The questions asked were based on a review of the documents, says the report, which is marked “attorney-client privilege.”

Afraidaspill’s email raised concerns “in seven general topic areas affecting Alyeska personnel and operations,” Thebaud’s report says. “The allegations relate to all three major Alyeska locations – Anchorage, Fairbanks and Valdez.”

The BP official said what’s interesting about Thebaud’s report is that it “narrowly examines [Afraidaspill's] concerns with exactness for substantiation of the concern exactly to the words used to define the concern.”

For example, the email described Alyeska vice presidents as “neutered,” “spineless” and “worn down.” Thebaud’s report said his probe determined that company officials are neither “neutered,” “spineless” nor “worn down” and, therefore, the accusation was unsubstantiated.

“That is very unusual and a narrow viewpoint,” the BP officials said. “To me this was deliberate so that [TAPS owners] could say that they could not substantiate the concerns rather than examine the meaning of the concerns.”

Stanley Sporkin, BP’s ombudsman, and Garde, were both said to be distressed by Thebaud’s final report, which substantiated some of the initial concerns, but ultimately concluded that the issues in the Afraidaspill email and correspondence their office received from other employees had no immediate impact on the integrity of the pipeline.

Sporkin and Garde were in Anchorage last week meeting with BP officials to discuss the report and register their disapproval with the results of the investigation, Alyeska and BP officials said. Ironically, in 2006 and 2007, Garde was working with Alyeska on revitalizing their employee concerns’ program and helped the company establish an open work environment, which Thebaud’s report identified as areas of major concern for employees that contributed to the issues at the center of the Afraidaspill email.

Some senior Alyeska employees, who reviewed Thebaud’s report, said they believed it ultimately amounts to a “whitewash” because it failed to absorb how low morale, poor leadership and a culture of fear has already affected the safe operations of a pipeline that moves anywhere from 600,000 to 700,000 barrels of oil per day and accounts for 15 percent of the country’s oil supply. The employees pointed to the spill at pump station 9 as evidence of how these issues have affected pipeline safety and integrity.

Fears that the investigation would be whitewashed was a prediction Afraidaspill made in an email sent June 21 to Pasha Eatedali, an attorney who works in BP’s Ombudsman’s office, inquiring about the status of Thebaud’s report.

“Concerned that the report will be whitewashed,” the email said. “Since Alyeska is paying for [Thebaud's investigation], there’s a belief that the concern report will not truly relate to the owners state of affairs at Alyeska and the irresponsible decisions that have been made by the President that will/have resulted in concern for safety and integrity,” says the email, which was obtained by Truthout.

This wouldn’t be the first time Thebaud has been accused of whitewashing a report concerning Alyeska. In 2006, Robert Glen Plumlee, an Alyeska financial executive, had accused Thebaud of covering up his claims of widespread financial malfeasance and retaliation by Hostler after he disclosed to Thebaud and federal investigators that he was pressured to boost estimates of how much Alyeska was spending to fight corrosion on TAPS. Neither Thebaud nor Diecker returned a call for comment.

“Bow Wave”

Although Thebaud’s report downplayed the significance the issues raised in the Afraidaspill email would have on the integrity of the pipeline, he did find cause for concern in many of the allegations raised in the email.

One of the main issues alleged that Alyeska, at the direction of BP, implemented budget cuts “over the last couple of years” that has resulted in a “large ‘bow wave’ of deferred projects and program work,” which can result “in an unsafe work place and potential for an environmental spill.”

“The oversight of the integrity of the system is at risk,” Afraidaspill’s email said.

Thebaud’s report said Alyeska slashed its 2010 budget by about $80 million last year due to the “global economic recession and other [unknown] circumstances” resulting in “significant reductions in almost all of the major programs.”

However, “the reductions did not … compromise Alyeska’s safety, its environmental stewardship, or the integrity of TAPS,” Thebaud’s report said.

But a top BP official told Truthout last month “there is a cogent argument for closer TAPS attention because of its age and lower flow rate that create new and unique integrity concerns.”

Still, “the Alyeska CEO and executives readily acknowledge that funding constraints and other circumstances have caused the deferral of some work,” according to the report. “Thus far, however, the deferred work has been work that could be safely and lawfully deferred. But in time, deferral will cease to be an option as conditions or regulatory commitments compel completion of the work.”

The report added that Alyeska officials are now “working with the Owners to develop a realistic, long-term budget that accounts for the timely performance of the previously deferred work” to address the potential safety issues from delaying work on the pipeline, which suggests the company never put together a long-term budget plan.

The report said, “In the past, the budget process focused primarily on whether work had to be done in the following year. Now, Alyeska is creating a five-year project plan to address the ‘bow wave’ with the intent of leveling the work over a three-year period and providing the needed funds. They are particularly concerned about the compression of work over the 2012-2015 period.

“Part of the new long-range planning process will be to identify the risk of not completing a project in any given future year so that the Company and the Owners can plan for when a project can (and must) be completed. Thus, the [Afraidaspill email] correctly notes the existence of a ‘bow wave’ and the potential consequences if the future work is not performed. Alyeska management and the Owners recognize both the condition and the consequences and are taking steps to address the situation.”

The BP official who reviewed the report said the “bow wave” of “capital projects are also indicative of the flawed BP leadership culture because it arises out of the need to generate short-term performance goals.”

“This is how it is linked to the CEO’s performance – to deliver short-term financial results and deferring the long-term to his future replacement,” the BP official said. “That is how the game is played within BP. It is the same type of practice of maintenance deferrals that ultimately led to the North Slope spills in 2006.”

Little Regard for Emergencies

Thebaud’s report said a controversial cost-cutting measure implemented by Hoslter last November, also identified in the Afraidaspill email, to relocate more than 30 Alyeska employees from Fairbanks to Anchorage – more than 300 miles away from the pipeline – was done with “surprisingly little consideration to the potential effect of the relocation on the company’s emergency preparedness and response.”

The relocation, which has been the subject of inquiries by Guttenberg, the Alaska state Representative and most recently, Congress, affects about 30 engineers, scientists and technicians, who are directly responsible for the monitoring and maintenance of the integrity, safety and environmental compliance of TAPS. If integrity management employees need to immediately respond to an incident on the pipeline, they will now have to travel by airplane to Fairbanks, then drive to the area of the pipeline that requires attention. The pipeline does not run through Anchorage.

Hostler’s decision to relocate employees to Anchorage reverses a decision made in 1997 by then-Alyeska President Bob Malone, to move employees from Anchorage to Fairbanks to be closer to the pipeline so they could easily access it in the event of a spill or to perform monitoring and maintenance functions.

“You put your employees on the pipeline … it will improve safety because you’re right there,” Malone said at the time. “It’s clear communication; it’s clear lines of authority; it’s clear accountability, which is most important to me.”

Since the relocation was announced last November, six integrity management engineers have resigned and Alyeska is finding it difficult to fill those vacancies with experienced personnel, according to employees, a warning that was raised in an internal relocation analysis describing the impact of the move.

Thebaud and Diecker were provided with the 39-page relocation analysis prepared by Alyeska integrity employees that documented the inherent risks and increased travel costs that would be realized from moving employees to Anchorage.

The analysis warned that the relocation “will likely result in the inability of the [integrity management] teams to focus attention on core business functions that are necessary to maintain regulatory compliance and leak/spill prevention …”

At a hearing last month before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, Alyeska Senior Vice President Greg Jones testified that the integrity management officials who prepared the relocation analysis no longer stand by its conclusions.

That prompted Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minnesota), a member of the subcommittee, to demand Jones provide the committee with statements from the individuals who changed their position.

But that’s not what the committee was told in a July 26 letter signed by Tom Webb, Alyeska’s engineering integrity manager, who worked on the relocation analysis.

Webb said, “At the current time, I do not know of any Integrity or Safety risks resulting from the relocation,” adding that the measure has resulted in “the loss of over 30% of Integrity Management’s staff.”

According to several Alyeska officials, the committee has not yet spoken with the other integrity management personnel who worked on the report, but they accused Jones of misrepresenting the facts.

Thebaud noted that his “investigation found no written analysis of the effect of the proposed relocation” on the [incident management team], the individuals who respond to spills or emergencies, such as an earthquake, or “staffing levels, experience, response capabilities, logistics, training, or overall effectiveness.”

“Moreover, [Alyeska's] Emergency Preparedness and Compliance Manager reported that management did not discuss with him, or request that he conduct an analysis of, the impact of the proposed relocation on the [incident management team],” the report said. “In light of these circumstances and the evolving personal decision-making by those selected for relocation, the investigation cannot conclude that the relocation will have no impact on the effectiveness of the [incident management team]” when it comes to responding to a spill or other emergencies.

Thebaud said the concerns raised by Afraidaspill surrounding the relocation are “substantiated in part” because it correctly predicted that it would “result in key engineers leaving the company,” placing the “the integrity program at risk” and “reversing the significant progress made by the Company in integrity management in recent years.”

“These losses will, in the near term, place added stress on the organization,” Thebaud’s report said.

But Thebaud’s report then appears to be somewhat contradictory stating he has not found “compelling evidence to support a conclusion that either the loss of personnel or the new work location will have a significant adverse effect on the Company’s performance of its integrity management program.”

That last statement by Thebaud led a top Alyeska official to state: “Well of course not yet. This is an example of a statement being made by someone who has no concept of what Integrity Management for a pipeline is or looks like.”

“This is a case in point that Thebaud was not qualified to perform this part of the investigation. You would not expect any ‘evidence’ to immediately crop up right after these events have occurred – it doesn’t work that way,” the Alyssa official said.

Michelle Egan, an Alyeska spokeswoman, told Truthout last month that the relocation was carefully planned by Hostler and Alyeska managers and that “staff [were being] transferred because of the efficiency and synergy that is gained when [employees] are co-located with the rest of the departments” in the “same building.”

Thebaud’s report said the relocation was actually supposed to be phased in over an 18-month period and finalized in spring 2011. The report further states that Hostler unilaterally made the decision to move up the relocation by a year. The change, coincidentally, came after a news report was published in the Fairbanks News-Miner that questioned the logic behind the relocation and reprinted a separate email written by Afraidaspill critical of the decision.

Disastrous Decision

Several Alyeska officials said the relocation has already proven to be a disastrous move and has neither resulted in “efficiency” nor “synergy.”

Indeed, an email obtained by Truthout sent to senior Alyeska officials July 26 by David Hackney, one of Alyeska’s integrity management engineers, said, “Even in the short time I have been relocated in the Anchorage office, it is already clear to me that moving our operations from Fairbanks puts the safety of operations at risk. As to business efficiency, I have already seen that there are none to be realized.”

“No aspect of my job has become more efficient by being in Anchorage, my cubicle is simply in a geographic location far removed from the ground where most of my work is done,” Hackney wrote, requesting to be transferred back to Fairbanks. “There have been no enhancements in communications, supervision, coordination, or scheduling as to my work. The required move to Anchorage has caused loss of skilled and experienced personnel that cannot readily be replaced … This has a direct impact on the safety of our operations.”

A day after the email was sent, Hackney, who had sued the company for unknown reasons after he raised safety concerns, entered into a settlement with Alyeska and was transferred back to Fairbanks.

Additionally, Truthout has learned that one of the company’s integrity management supervisors is being transferred to Anchorage while the key engineers he’s going to supervise will remain in Fairbanks, an exception the company recently made for those individuals. The decision further contradicts statements by Egan and other Alyeska officials that the transfer of integrity management employees to Anchorage was about “efficiency” and “synergy” and being located in the same building.

Flawed Survey

During the course of Thebaud’s probe, Alyeska also commissioned Dittman Research & Communications to conduct an “open work environment survey” to try and get a sense of how employees felt about raising safety concerns, according to a copy of the 62-page report of the results of the survey Dittman provided to Alyeska in May.

But the survey was fundamentally flawed and designed specifically to shield Hostler from criticism, one of the most damning findings of Thebaud’s investigation. Thebaud’s report said “the 2010 Dittman survey missed a substantial opportunity to measure directly the workers’ perception of [Hostler].”

According to Thebaud’s report, the reason was due to the fact that a previous survey conducted in 2007 by a different research firm resulted in numerous employees complaining about Hostler’s management style.

“In the 2007 survey, the Executive Summary provided eleven ‘Areas of Needed Improvement,’” Thebaud’s report said. “One specifically addressed the need [for Hostler] to improve the workers’ perception of him: ‘Some respondents indicated that certain behaviors and actions of the Alyeska President and CEO have been perceived as having a negative organizational effect.’

“The 2007 survey results contain numerous examples explaining the data. For example, in response to a question about the Code of Conduct, the 2007 survey indicates, ‘Of the 110 comments provided, 31 discuss the President’s behaviors as a concern.’”

Guim, the human resources director, who Alyeska employees leveled numerous complaints about, was largely responsible for skewing the questions in the 2010 survey in such a way that it would not reflect poorly on Hostler or other Alyeska executives.

Guim told Thebaud that she did that because the “2007 survey results were filled with employees ‘venting’ against [Hostler] in highly personal and inappropriate ways, which provided no real insight or value to the survey.”

Hostler appears to have had a say in the 2010 survey as well. He told Thebaud the” 2007 survey was filled with ‘personal attacks’ on individuals and executives. Consequently, [Guim] indicated that the Company did not provide the opportunity for similar unhelpful venting in 2010.”

Thebaud said his investigation did not attempt to “validate or refute” any of the data in the 2007 or 2010 surveys. But the fact that Hostler’s conduct was a major issue in the 2007 survey, caused Thebaud’s investigation to seek information as to why the same questions weren’t included in the most recent survey conducted by Dittman.

“Workforce surveys – particularly anonymous workforce surveys – almost always include some amount of emotional venting and personal challenges to the character and conduct of some managers,” his report said. “Sophisticated survey analysts and reviewers recognize this reality and can properly dismiss or account for outlying information, personal attacks and other suspect information …

“Alyeska’s decision to design a survey that precluded the receipt of such data, creates a potential perception that it designed the 2010 survey to avoid the receipt of harmful information. By not addressing the issue specifically raised in 2007 about the effect of [Hostler's] conduct, the Company does not have survey data to describe or characterize the current perception in the workforce or to determine the effectiveness of any corrective actions taken during the past three years.”

Alyeska has not decided who will replace Hostler when he leaves the company in September.

We know that most paper nominated the American Robert Dudley to replace Tony Hayward at the helm of the sinking BP.
After all one third of the company’s oil and gas wells, refineries and other business interests are in the US, and no less then 40% of its shareholders are in the US – and you bet – the major known disaster they are part of is in the US. So, will an American at top help quiet down the anti-foreigner sentiment projected at Hayward?

But then the following article tells us that this is a case fit to push a woman to the top – if you wish – over the cliff – thus scoring points somehow in a lost situation. You see – women can advance and take over the job from failed men? Will this then hold up? Will it be a fitting American Woman of  Texas – or Alaska – may be?

Day 96 to the Macondo Blow-out: Tony Hayward Out at BP; Don’t Be Surprised If They Pick a Woman to Replace Him.

BY Anya Kamenetz July 26, 2010.

Tony Hayward is reported to be out as the CEO of BP, with a sweet 600,000-pound pension waiting for him (that’s $928K) as a “reward” for not only presiding over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but performing like a whiny schoolboy in the weeks and months since. “I want my life back”? Congratulations, you’ve got it.

If history is any guide, BP may well choose a woman to replace him. During the recent financial crisis and recession, women emerged as the go-to turnaround leadership candidates for institutions and nations in trouble. Carol Bartz as CEO of the embattled Yahoo. Mary Schapiro as head of the beleaguered SEC. Elin Sigfusdottir and Birna Einarsdottir, appointed to run two (out of three) of Iceland’s nationalized banks (New Landsbanki and New Glitni), after the collapse of the country’s financial system and Johanna Sigurdardottir as the nation’s interim prime minister–both the first-ever female head of state in Iceland and the first openly gay head of state anywhere. Elizabeth Warren, currently the leading candidate to head the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and try to make sense of the hash of consumer financial protections. Even at BP itself, before Cynthia Warner left to head biofuels startup Sapphire Energy, she was made the head of a new health, safety, and security group in BP’s refining sector in response to the 2005 Texas City disaster (unfortunately, she apparently failed to have a lasting impact on the oil company with the worst safety and environmental record in the Big Six).

Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam, two British social psychologists, say these kind of barbed opportunities are all too commonly offered to women. They call this phenomenon “the glass cliff.”

In 2008, the S&P 500 fell 38.5%, its worst year since 1937. But the average large company run by a woman was down four points more–42.7%. Women’s average tenure as CEOs tends to be lower and stock performance worse.

Ryan and Haslam’s studies have found the reason behind this: It’s not that women are categorically worse leaders, but that they are disproportionately hired as CEOs only at firms that have been struggling for years. High-flying companies almost never appointed women to top positions. Their controlled experiments confirm that professionals in the business, legal, and academic worlds are far more likely to choose a woman for a leadership role when the enterprise’s chances are dicey.

The glass cliff is a dangerous corollary to the glass ceiling. For many complex reasons, women–along with other outsiders like minorities–tend to be handed the chance to lead only when an enterprise is already on a downward spiral. If BP decides to go this way, you heard it here first.

The Alaska Wilderness League tells us of new Washington chicaneries that endanger the Tongass National Forest by trying to dish out the trees to private clear-cutters. The Environmentalists recommend that we BBQ Alaska wild salmon in order to support the existing communities of that area.

Dear Pincas, Earlier this year, we scored a victory by whipping up opposition in Congress to the “Sealaska bill,” which would give some of the best public lands in the Tongass National Forest to a private corporation for clear-cut logging. This bill would devastate wildlife habitat and local businesses and communities. Our opponents have regrouped and are pushing for this bad bill to be wrapped up with good bills in an attempt to pass the legislation. The Tongass is a world-class natural treasure – it’s up to us to safeguard this special place. Please ask your Representative to resist this political tactic and help protect the Tongass. Read on  – Host a Tongass-style BBQ. Matt Reading Online Communications Director, Alaska Wilderness League

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Tongass BBQs Summer is finally here! It’s time to dust off that grill, buy some wild Alaskan salmon and throw a backyard BBQ, Tongass style. If you’ve never had grilled wild Alaskan salmon, you don’t know what you’re missing. Wild Alaskan salmon is popping up in supermarkets all across the country as people learn about its fresh taste, health benefits (lots of Omega-3 and vitamins) and environmental advantages. When you buy wild salmon from southeast Alaska, you’re supporting a sustainable fishery that keeps the Tongass National Forest thriving. Throwing a Tongass BBQ couldn’t be any easier, just follow these easy steps: 1) Buy wild Alaska salmon at your local supermarket. Grocery chains from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart stock it fresh, but if it’s not available near you, our own Download our Tongass BBQ kit. 3) Invite your friends and family to enjoy wild Alaskan salmon and learn about the wonder that is America’s rainforest, our Tongass National Forest. The type of get-together you have depends on you. It can be an after dinner party, a Saturday afternoon barbeque, or a block party. The key isn’t the setting – it’s letting people know not only what is at stake, but that they too can help protect our lush, vibrant ecosystem in the Tongass National Forest. Wild salmon need a wild Tongass. Eating wild Alaska salmon is a healthy choice for barbeque lovers and for sustainable fishing in the Tongass. And it’s delicious!

Weather Maps

Winds & Weather

El Nino and La Nina. What are El Nino and La Nina? El Nino – (El Nee-nyo) is the warming of water in the Pacific Ocean. La Nina – (Lah Nee-Nyah) is the cooling of water in the Pacific Ocean.

El Nino Weather	La Nina Weather
Rain and flooding along the Pacific coast Warm water disrupts food chain of fish, birds, and sea mammals Tornadoes and thunderstorms in southern US Fewer than normal hurricanes in the Atlantic	Snow and rain on the west coast Unusually cold weather in Alaska Unusually warm weather in the rest of the USA Drought in the southwest Higher than normal number of hurricanes in the Atlantic

Satellite Image of El Nino

• El Nino was first discovered hundreds of years ago by fishermen off the coast of Peru.
• El Nino means “Little Boy” and was named after the Christ child, because it usually starts around Christmas.
• El Nino is officially called ENSO – El Nino Southern Oscillation.
• La Nina means “Little Girl.” It is also called El Viejo, which means “old man,” or an ENSO cold event.
• La Nina occurs roughly half as often as El Nino
• El Nino and La Nina are the most powerful phenomenon on the earth and alter the climate across more than half the planet.
• El Nino may be caused by underwater volcanoes in the Pacific.

 http://library.thinkquest.org/5818/elnin…

================================

THE LATEST NEWS:

El Niño  Has Ended. Possibility of La Niña Watched Closely. —-  WMO-892

Geneva, 6 July 2010 (WMO) – Following the rapid dissipation of El Niño in early May 2010, cool-neutral to weak La Niña conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific. These conditions are more likely than not to strengthen into a basin-wide La Niña over the coming months, according to the El Niño/La Niña Update issued today by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

La Niña is characterized by unusually cool ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific. It is the opposite condition of El Niño, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Both events can disrupt the normal patterns of tropical precipitation and atmospheric circulation, and have widespread impacts on climate in many parts of the world.

By mid-June, the sea-surface temperatures had decreased to approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius below normal over the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, near the borderline of La Niña conditions. Further, below average sea temperatures exist beneath the surface of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.  Forecast models continue to predict further decreases in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperature. In particular, most dynamical models strongly favour further La Niña development.

While it is likely that La Niña conditions will further develop in the next several months, the timing and magnitude of such an event in 2010 are as yet uncertain, with no indications at this time of a particularly strong event in terms of sea-surface temperatures.

WMO prepares El Niño/La Niña Updates in collaboration with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), USA, by consulting climate prediction centres and experts around the world and facilitating the development of a consensus. WMO Members will continue to carefully monitor the situation in the tropical Pacific. The unusual climate patterns and extremes that occur in association with La Niña conditions also occur independently of La Niña, and therefore individual users of climate information should seek detailed interpretation for their locations and sectors. Over the coming months, the climate forecasting community will provide detailed interpretations of regional climate conditions through the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services.

For more information:

El Niño/La Niña Update, full report:

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcasp/enso_update_latest.html

WMO is the United Nations’ authoritative voice on weather, climate and water.

For more information please contact:

Ms Carine Richard-Van Maele, Chief, Communications and Public Affairs, WMO.  Tel: +41 (0) 22 730 8315, Fax: +41 (0) 22 730 8027.  E-mail: cvanmaele@wmo.int

Web site: http://www.wmo.int

On our website, Mr. John Hofmeister is well represented as far back as the beginning of 2007 – it can easily found by using our on-web search button. He was President of Shell Oil Company and as such was part of the Dick Cheney Energy Cabal – the secret group of Major Oil Executives that made National Policy for the US at the time of the Cheney/Bush Administration.

When he retired Mr. Hofmeister created the “Citizens for Affordable Energy” – and wrote a book on why we love to hate the oil business. To us it all smelled rat, and as coincidentally the BP oil-spill happened when he was ready to put the book on the market, Mr. Hofmeister – like an oil-bull thought to lead the defense of BP. We listened to him at the book release event that happened at the New York Foreign Policy Association, and it is all on our website.

Now we are ready to report that we saw on June 28th a milder Mr. John Hofmeister. Seemingly he realizes by now that not only BP is indefensible, but perhaps the whole oil-mantra may have hit bottom. “Yes, the oil spill is a crisis, but let’s not pretend that we can just stop drilling for oil without hurting our economy and getting it from somewhere else, says former Shell Oil executive John Hofmeister.”

On June 28th – a luncheon was organized at the Union League Club, New York City by MINE LLC and by The New Energy Fund.

* * * * *

www.minelle.com as in MINE LLC operates out of Denver and is run by Michelle Ashby, CEO – is mainly a fossil fuels and mining outlet.

www.newenergyfundLP.com is run by Mark Cox, CEO is involved in all forms of energy and emphasizes the alternatives – he has genuine interest in renewables.

“New Energy Fund is the earliest formed, pure play renewable energy hedge fund.  It has been managed by Mark Cox since 2003.  It is celebrating its 6th year of management of assets in the sector.  Despite market fluctuations, renewable energy is being installed at an increasing rate and represents a growth investment opportunity as long as the human energy paradigm is unsustainable.”

www.citizensforaffordableenergy.org is the Houston based oil-front run by Mr. Hofmeister.

After introducing the main actors, let me say that the about 50 people in the room were there because they would like to find good avenues for investment and were ready to listen. having seen the way the BP spill is developing, and there is no place to hide anymore, Mr. Hofmeister came through as a very mild shade of himself.

The Hofmeister line now is: What do we change, how are we going to do energy in the future? And he says that Americans always pick the right solution after they try everything else.

This time Hofmeister tried to endear himself by saying that he spent 25 years on the consumer side of the industry – the gas stations. Only then he moved to the producing side of the industry – so he had the learning experience he said.

I wondered what did that mean, is that how you get a company into trouble by putting onto the production of oil someone who knows to sell gasoline? Let’s have another look at BP I thought immediately. He said that he took over at first the ideas of his predecessor, Mark M. Moody-Stewart, to go into forestry, then solar, but saw that there are no solutions in solar yet as there will have to be developed new materials first – so it will not be the first companies that jump into solar that will make it in the future. Wind will be the first alternate energy source. The Kerry- Lieberman Bill has no provisions for transmission – so it will not work. If you want to succeed you must have transmission corridors. Biofuels can be good for the internal combustion engine – but we are better off getting rid of the internal combustion engine in favor of the Diesel engine.

It gets obvious – the resistance of the energy industry for doing something they did not do before. It will be nuclear, gas, oil, and coal – and they will fight like crazy to maintain your position and space. We get the public policy chaos. And so on …

When the Q&A time arrived I thought to bring up some things that appeared coincidentally that same day in the Financial Times in the Book review  that SheilaMcNulty, the Energy correspondent, had published that same day.

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Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider, by John Hofmeister, Palgrave Macmillan £17.99, $27

* * * * *

She also said: “America’s oil companies must work to educate and build relationships with consumers if they are to avoid being demonised.” and this rings a bell with what Hofmeister said. So PR will do it?

When John Hofmeister wrote this book, the former president of Royal Dutch Shell’s US business could have had no idea it would be published amid an oil spill gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The title he chose could not have been more apt.

In an annual favourability poll by Gallup covering the 24 largest industries in the US, he notes, the industry has for the past seven years been rated 24 out of 24. That alone indicated a ready audience for Why We Hate the Oil Companies; after BP’s disaster it will be wider still.

Hofmeister begins with an anecdote about a meeting in 2007 with Microsoft executives about its plans to build at least six new information centres across the north-west. “We need new electricity equivalent to the output of a 350 megawatt power plant to support them,” Hofmeister recalls being told. “But we don’t know where we’re going to get that much new electricity in Washington or Oregon. Hydropower has peaked, there’s not enough natural gas, coal-burning plants cannot be built here for now, wind is too erratic and no nuclear plants are on the horizon in the time frame of our business growth. Do you have any suggestions about where electricity is going to come from in the future?’’

Microsoft would come up short. Hofmeister writes: “What was clear to me after this meeting was this: in the digital age, we are more power-hungry than ever. Our economic growth depends more than ever on electrons.’’

And yet, he argues, regulators continue to restrict access and limit production that could fuel the global economy. It is a misguided approach: all fuels will be needed and the world’s oil deposits could be relied upon for longer if used more cleanly and efficiently. But the industry has failed to engage and educate to make that case. If “Big Oil” encounters an administration that is unfavourable, it merely retreats to its bunker to wait for a friendlier one.

Hofmeister underlines the extent of public disdain by recounting a visit in 2006 to Pennsylvania, where he dropped in without warning on Shell stations. One manager was rude before finding out who Mr Hofmeister was and grew more so when the latter identified himself, saying: “You disgust me. You make billions, and I squeeze nickels to keep up with my bills.’’ The then Shell Oil president tried to engage, but the manager did not soften. “When the person wearing your logo sees your company as the problem,” Hofmeister reflects, “you know you are in trouble.’’

The issue, he says, is that oil companies do not see themselves as consumer products companies in the mould of Apple, which work to educate and build relationships. They see themselves as wholesale producers of high-volume products. The retail stations are not money makers and in many cases have been outsourced if not sold altogether. But they are where the public’s disdain for the industry is built – on high prices at the pump, first and foremost, but also on dirty restrooms and rude staff. “By the time a tanker’s load of gasoline is delivered to the retail station, the oil executive has moved on to think about the gasoline that will be delivered 10 to 25 years in the future.’’

These executives do not focus on the public, which, therefore, does not understand that while the raw profit numbers for oil companies are huge, earnings, measured in net income as a percentage of sales, are fairly modest, in the range of 6-8 per cent. This is a high-cost business; these numbers are fairly typical for manufacturing companies and well below the earnings of pharmaceutical, telecommunications and beverage companies.

Then there is the threat of disaster. “When the industry makes operational mistakes, they can be spectacular: refinery explosions, well blowouts, shipwrecks and oil spills. Equally spectacular is the industry’s poor handling of such incidents, to the point that they live on as case studies of what not to do in a crisis.’’

His solution? To create a Federal Energy Resources System, modelled on the Federal Reserve, to manage America’s energy and its energy-related environmental footprint. A group of governors with 14-year terms, he writes, could have the authority to make decisions that have been sorely needed for decades.

Would such a body have prevented the disaster in the gulf? Perhaps not, but it might well have seen the need for better regulation and accountability as the industry moved deeper and further offshore in search of new resources. Such oversight would certainly not hurt a regulatory system that has been rudderless for years.

——————————-

My question to him was based on what I marked above in color and predicated that I am asking him not about what he said at the lunch, but on what was said in the book review and is part of what he has in the book.

I asked him about his idea of creating the Federal Energy Resources System in the Dick Cheney fashion with obviously people that call out oil as a synonym to energy? Then I got after the notion that profits in the oil industry are the norm with Pharmaceutical, electronics industries and reminded him that while those industries work mad to innovate and thus make use of those profits inside the industry, the oil industry refused to make any changes and did not innovate – they simply divided the profits at piggish level.

With the attempt to answer those questions and with a follow up on the centralized way of thinking about the alternative ways of the new energy business, the lack of decentralized systems concept in what he said – I felt that the chair was quite right in finding that the time to end that meeting was just right. Mr. Hofmeister is a friendly, smiling man, but too friendly with the Cheney crowd for the country’s good.

“Media Matters for America” analyzes the Rupert Murdoch Fox Chanel myth-making on BP, the oil-spill, and the Obama Administration. We were tempted to title this THE FOX IN THE HEN-HOUSE as viewed by the MOOSE’S REVENGE.

Amazing how far politics and money can go in the US – Thanks to the Internet a media watchdog tells us:

Media Matters for America has compiled a list of myths and falsehoods about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, all of which have been pushed by Fox News.  http://mediamatters.org/research/2010062…

Fox News is BP oil spill misinformation clearinghouse:

Myths and falsehoods on the Gulf oil spill

June 24, 2010 12:34 pm ET

Please see a long list of researched articles of what Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News did as the advocacy outreach of the man who just expressed his view that the US bought Alaska not in order to look at the moose;  frankly, his Royal “WE” may have meant just the oil industry when he said “We did not buy Alaska to look at the Moose,” as reported  from his statement last week at the 2010 New York Forum.

 http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-…

Please go to the original – there is too much there for us to post in long-hand.

I am starting herewith to report about the Richard Attias new New York Forum about which we have already four articles, or mentions, in the last three weeks. the Forum opened today and is very promising indeed, as we expected – so – please do not take this first article from the Forum itself as a negative to this excellent enterprise. Please, one has to start somewhere, and in the nature of journalism as understood by Mr. Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire Chairman and CEO of the News Corporation, the owners of the Fox Chanel among other properties, is that you go for the sensationalism and start with writing about the worse first. So Mr. Murdoch, please see that I am a good learner and I will start by writing about you first.

Dear reader, please note that we do not throw out the baby with the dirty water – we merely throw out here he dirty water first.

Also please note that 500 Executives registered for the two days meeting – 60% from the US and 40% from abroad. Also present 120 people from the media – from many countries.

—————————-

The 2010 New York Forum had two excellent introductory presentations by Mr. Richard Attias – one to the Media and the other to the Meeting’s Opening Plenary.

His two presentations were reinforced in the event for the Press by Mr. Richard I. Lesser, Chairman, North and South America, The Boston Consulting Group, and by the organizer of the Program, Mr. Lance Knobel who also led the following workshop (albeit – it was not the word they used).

INNOVATION LABORATORY ON REBUILDING TRUST!

OUR SPECIFIC EXAMPLE WAS  – REBUILDING TRUST IN FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS – really, can you think of a more up-to-date subject theses days? Low and behold – we came up with many solutions, and the one our table dealt with made specially sense to me. But here I will leave you in suspense for a future posting.

How can you succeed engaging large numbers of people to rebuild trust in financial institutions by using a design thinking-based innovation methodology? The Design and innovation firm IDEO (obviously of Palo Alto)  led this interactive workshop to explore the issue of movement building and fundamental change in our financial institutions. Participants were introduced to the innovation practice of design thinking and then took part in activities focused on finding inspiration from real people rather than demographics or statistics.

Participants learned through a guided experiences on translating observations and insights into relevant ideas and design solutions to be able to use this methodology in their own challenges, beyond the specific case that the session covered.

This was facilitated by Doug Solomon, CTO, IDEO,  and Introduced by Lance Knobel, Director of the Program, The New York Forum.

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After the Introductory remarks by Richard Attias, we finally reach the subject of this posting:

Opening plenary titled -  “REINVENTION: THE CORPORATE IMPERATIVE.”

It said in the program: “Corporate and business leaders have always had to be agile and restless, rethinking their business models for survival as markets and technologies change. But the pace and pressures for change seem greater than ever. How do great leaders navigate through the uncertain terrain of today’s world? What are the key challenges that they face?”

The Moderator was Maria Bartiromo who is Anchor of the Business Program on CNBC.

From her original team she has lost Mort Zuckerman, Chairman and CEO, Boston Properties, and Publisher, New York Daily News, who for reasons unknown to me at this time was a no-show and he was replaced by: Mr. Philippe Camus, Chairman, Alcatel-Lucent, a global telecommunications corporation, headquartered in Paris.

We consider the above change very unfortunate, as it left Mr. Murdoch without any counter-balance on the program, and I am sorry to say that Maria Bartiromo did not stand up to his pressure. This program turned out rather about a discussion about business gripes and the raison d’etre of the event – REINVENTION – was forgotten in the process. But please do not despair. It was the excesses of Mr. Murdoch that eventually turned the event into a success, and it turns out that we had something to do with this.

The Other three members of the panel were:

Cathleen Black, President, Hearst Magazines
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO, News Corporation
Jerry Speyer, Chairman and CEO, Tishman Speyer

and as I am writing this late at night, please forgive me for focusing only on Mr. Murdoch.

————————-

So, my notes tell me that Rupert Murdoch addressed at least the following points:

1. Brazil, India are doing well, Europe is doing badly except Germany, in the Us we will have to grow in the next year at 1.5 trillion debt – this must change!

2. We must have less government and less taxation. Otherwise business will take off to Hong Kong and with them the jobs.
We will see a lot of change to the bad. At mid-term elections things could change. Today we have 20 million out of job. You can change this by having mass formation of small businesses.

3. We need innovation. We educate people and they leave. it is ridiculous to send people away.

4. In the country education is a disgrace. We turn out people illiterate in Spanish and English. You see the single mothers.
The teachers union did unbelievable things.

5. He is skeptic of Climate Change – it is caused by the activities of the sun – we cannot do it by ourselves.

6. A billion people in China moving away from farms and building a coal plant each day. We can talk of G2 as much as we want but we cannot do it alone. Oil and gas will be here for a long time and we will have clean gas.

7.  Alaska – two pipelines through Canada. We did not buy Alaska to save the moose.

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I accept that a meeting like this should provide all points of view – but there is a limit to what a civilized stomach can take, and the comment about the moose did it for me – so I asked at the Q&A session directly from Mr. Rupert Murdoch something like:

Considering that you mentioned that the US did not buy Alaska for the moose, but as this meeting here is intended at the end to provide a missive to the G-20 in Toronto for the end of this week, what would be your advice to the G-20?

I got some more diatribe but no direct answer to my question. This caused me to ask a very short follow-up: “What do you understand by ‘clean gas’?” I got some more diatribe.

———————–

When the meeting broke, several people came over to congratulate me – this included a green investment gentleman from Senegal and an interviewer that taped me for the New York Observer. Then at coffee time and dinner some 50-60 people congratulated me and said they felt exactly like me. I ran out of cards in the process.

There were only two people with whom I spoke that were not happy with my question. There was the US representative of a French newspaper who thought that I should have addressed my question to the moderator and not to Mr. Murdoch, as he thought it took away the possibility from the others to address my question. (this is not really correct because Mr. Speyer did actually enter the question. The other was a Deputy Ambassador to the UN.

from    Al Gore, Repower America <info@repoweramerica.org>

date    Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 12:35 PM
subject    A big win — and what’s next

Dear Pincas,

Yesterday, thanks to your hard work, the U.S. Senate did the right thing — voting with the climate science and against a resolution that would have stripped the Clean Air Act’s protections against climate pollution.

The Senate is to be commended for defeating Senator Lisa Murkowski’s disastrously misguided proposal. But the truth is, in the face of the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history, Senator Murkowski’s resolution never should have even reached the Senate floor.

The fact that we had to work to defeat this legislation is a testament to the continued strength of the fossil fuel lobby. But the fact that we did defeat it gives us fresh momentum for the months ahead, as our nation confronts the costs of our dependence on fossil fuels more directly than ever.

This summer, we can and must set our nation on the path of independence from oil and other dirty energy.

We must confront the growing plumes of oil now consuming the Gulf Coast and soon to affect much of the Eastern Seaboard. We must pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation — our best hope of staving off the catastrophic climate change that will dwarf the Deepwater Oil Disaster in scope and devastation. And we must accomplish all this despite the millions of dollars that big oil will spend to defeat us.

Yesterday’s vote shows that when we work together, we can defeat these forces. Over the last two years, over 250,000 of us have taken action to protect the Clean Air Act, including:
Submitting over 180,000 comments to the administration urging the EPA to enforce the Clean Air Act’s limits on greenhouse gases,
Making over 30,000 phone calls opposing Senator Murkowski’s proposal and Writing over 7,200 letters to the editor.

This summer, it’s time to take exactly the same tenacity and commitment we have shown on these attacks on the Clean Air Act and win the biggest prize of all: comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation that transitions our economy to clean energy.

 http://cpaf.repoweramerica.org/cleanairv…

We’ve won an important battle. Now, it’s time to win the war.

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The problem is that the New York Times announced the voting results on page 22 which is the obituary page.

The above perhaps in testimony that Six Senate Democrats — Evan Bayh of Indiana, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia — voted in favor of the Murkowski resolution. No Republicans opposed it. This might mean that the chances for a Climate Bill before November 2010 might be very low.

White House Eyes Veto If Senate Curbs EPA Climate Power.

 http://robertreich.org/post/604861772/bp…

BP Stands for Bad Petroleum

Saturday the White House warned BP that it expects the oil giant to pay all damages associated with the disastrous oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, even if the costs exceed the $75 million liability cap under federal law. BP responded Sunday saying its public statements are “absolutely consistent” with the Administration’s request.

———————-

Actually, who still remembers that BP wanted us to believe that the letter stand for “BEYOND PETROLEUM?”

In effect BP moved into solar energy and together with the Shell Oil Company became one of the first two oil companies that tried to be seen as ENERGY COMPANIES by going beyond oil. We gave them lots of credit – then watched how Shell was helping destroy Nigeria. BP on the other hand was indeed rather blameless at that time. Both, BP and Shell got into the “ENERGY” business because of push by British NGOs. It was the enlightened part of the UK that did the trick, while the enlightened part of the US had no chance whatsoever because of the hold the US oil industry has on Washington – Democrats or Republicans alike.   It was EXXONMOBIL that actively fought the manmade global warming / climate change “theory” and funded all those self styled scientists – in the US and in the UK – that made sure that the media will conclude that only death is proof of death – what I mean is that only when disaster has occurred this is the proof that we are on the path to a disaster.

OK, disaster is striking the Southern coast of the US and beyond while BP has $10.5 Billion to distribute as dividend to share-holders. This alone is good reason for the US Administration to take over BP as it is unacceptable to see these funds leave the company’s coffers with potential reparation bills amounting to more then twice that amount. The $69 million mentioned by President Obama as first payment requested from BP in order to compensate for the oil-spill is pittance to the real cost of redress in this case. Robert Reich has quite a few important points on these issues.

Let us conclude this introduction by saying that BP will yet turn the clock back to the idea of “Beyond Petroleum” by having proven with their lack of preparedness for this accident that this is the true path to a sane world of the 21st century.

———————-

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His “Marketplace” commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.

: Is this realistic?

A: Not only realistic but it may become necessary – both operationally and politically. If the disaster continues to worsen, it’s untenable for a for-profit corporation to be in charge.

Q: But why should we expect government to do any better job than BP?

A: BP would still be at the job – and its expertise, equipment, and other assets would continue to be utilized. But the federal government would be in overall control of the operation – weighing public risks and benefits, deciding what resources are necessary, getting accurate information and disseminating it to the public.

Q: Why should we trust the government?

A: This isn’t an ideological contest about how little you trust a giant oil company versus the federal government. It’s a matter of accountability. BP’s primary responsibility is to its shareholders. And it will cut corners – as it has before – if that’s the best way to maximize the value of their shares. But only the government, through the President, is directly accountable to the American public, and responsible for protecting it.

Q: Under what legal authority could the President take control of BP’s North American operations?

A: Obama has implicit authority through laws and regulations dealing with offshore drilling, especially the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. By analogy, if a nuclear reactor were melting down, the President would use his regulatory authority over nuclear energy to take temporary control over the plant and the relevant parts of the corporation that ran it. President Truman seized the nation’s steel mills in 1952, arguing that the emergency of the Korean War necessitated it. (The Supreme Court ultimately blocked him but according to Justice Jackson, whose opinion was essentially the majority’s, that was because Truman had no statutory basis for the seizure, not even an implicit one. That isn’t the case here.)

Q: But BP is a British corporation. How can the U.S. government take control?

A: The nationality of a corporation’s shareholders has nothing to do with it. If it is operating within the jurisdiction of the United States and poses a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of Americans, a president would take control of its operations and assets in the United States.

Q: Do you really think Obama would do this? Wouldn’t he prefer to stay away from this mess and keep the responsibility squarely on BP?

A: He may not have much of a choice. If the disaster worsens and Obama doesn’t take control he risks inheriting the mantle of Katrina.

Q: What will force his hand?

A: The White House is already inching toward control. BP’s new admission that it can’t stop the leak until August has shocked a public already deeply distrustful of it. As new evidence emerges of the scale of the disaster, the pressure on the Administration to take full and open control will only grow. Last Saturday Energy Secretary Chu asked BP to cease its so-called “top kill” effort to stop up the gush because he and his team of scientists had concluded it was too risky. Now the White House has to decide whether BP’s continued use of highly toxic dispersants poses more of a threat to the public and the environment than a help. When do these decisions tip over into control? Any time now.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created under President Richard Nixon. Since then it was all downhill. BP has now started to reeducate President Obama.

Our Deepwater wake-up call: Let’s rethink the trade-off between economic development and environmental protection.

- – - – - -

In June 1969, the stretch of the Cuyahoga River that runs through Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire. Time magazine described the Cuyahoga this way: “Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows.”

The spectacle of a river in flames helped galvanize the environmental movement, and the following year, with Richard Nixon as president, the Environmental Protection Agency was established. In 1972, Congress passed the landmark Clean Water Act. Today, the Cuyahoga is clean enough to support more than 40 species of fish.

We still don’t know the full extent of the environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico — the impact on avian and aquatic life, on fisheries, on tourism, on the delicate ecology of coastal marshes and barrier islands. We do know, though, that it is the worst oil spill in our nation’s history, far surpassing the Exxon Valdez incident. And maybe the shocking images from the gulf of dead fish, oiled pelicans and shores lapped by viscous “brown mousse” will refocus attention on the need to preserve the environment, not just exploit it.

“Drill, baby, drill” isn’t just the bizarrely inappropriate chant that we remember from the Republican National Convention two years ago. It’s a pretty good indication of where the national ethos has drifted. Environmental regulation is seen as a bureaucratic imposition — not as an insurance policy against potential catastrophe, and certainly not as a moral imperative.

Yes, many Americans feel good about going through the motions of environmentalism. We’ve made a religion of recycling, which is an important change. We turn off the lights when we leave the room — and we’re even beginning to use fluorescent bulbs. Some of us, though not enough, understand the long-term threat posed by climate change; a subset of those who see the danger are even willing to make lifestyle changes to try to avert a worst-case outcome.

But where the rubber hits the road — in public policy — we’ve reverted to our pre-enlightenment ways. When there’s a perceived conflict between environmental stewardship and economic growth, the bottom line wins.

Barack Obama is, in many admirable ways, our most progressive president in decades. But as an environmentalist, let’s face it, he’s no Richard Nixon. Before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded — allowing, by some estimates, as many as a million gallons of crude oil to gush into the Gulf of Mexico each day for more than a month — Obama had announced plans to permit new offshore drilling. “I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything,” Obama said at the time. “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.”

Obama has wisely backed away from that decision. The technology involved in deep-sea oil drilling turned out to be far more advanced than the technology needed to halt a spill if something goes wrong — essentially, like engineering a car to double its top speed without thinking to upgrade the brakes. This oversight apparently wasn’t noticed by anyone who had the power to correct it.

Calls for Obama to somehow “take over” the emergency response ring hollow. Take it over with what? Hands-on intervention has never been government’s role in this kind of situation. BP and the other oil companies had the undersea robots and the deep-water experience. Other private companies owned and operated the skimmers that remove the oil from the surface. There is no huge government reserve of the booms that are needed to protect Louisiana’s beaches and marshlands; those are made by private firms and are being deployed by unemployed fishermen.

Obama has rethought his enthusiasm for offshore drilling. Now he, and the rest of us, should rethink the larger issue — the trade-off between economic development and environmental protection. In the long run, our natural resources are all we’ve got. Defending them must be a higher priority than our recent presidents, including Obama, have made it.

Energy policy is one of Obama’s priorities. He talks about “clean coal,” which I believe to be an oxymoron, and favors technologies — such as carbon capture and sequestration — that are new and untested. The environmental risks must be a central and paramount concern, not a mere afterthought. Let’s preclude the next Deepwater Horizon right now.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

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But the Washington Post, afraid of looking too progressive in a Sarah Palin dominated US political backwaters town, has balanced above excellent article with a second one that caters to the political sharks. Please read the two articles not just as a sandwich were our future is the filling. Read it rather as an effort to blunt the call for non-fossil future. In effect, this second article is nothing less then the Hofmeister defense of BP which we posted as our original article after we listened to this former CEO of Schell Oil Company on his launch at the US Foreign Policy Association on his start of a book-release campaign in defense of Big Oil.

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Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama’s tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, we’ve had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

So we go deep, ultra deep — to such a technological frontier that no precedent exists for the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

There will always be catastrophic oil spills. You make them as rare as humanly possible, but where would you rather have one: in the Gulf of Mexico, upon which thousands depend for their livelihood, or in the Arctic, where there are practically no people? All spills seriously damage wildlife. That’s a given. But why have we pushed the drilling from the barren to the populated, from the remote wilderness to a center of fishing, shipping, tourism and recreation?

Not that the environmentalists are the only ones to blame. Not by far. But it is odd that they’ve escaped any mention at all.

The other culprits are pretty obvious. It starts with BP, which seems not only to have had an amazing string of perfect-storm engineering lapses but no contingencies to deal with a catastrophic system failure.

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News Alert: Top Interior official overseeing offshore oil and gas drilling to retire.
Monday, May 17, 2010
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Chris Oynes, the top Interior official who oversees offshore oil and gas drilling for the Minerals Management Service, announced Monday that he will retire on May 31, 2010. (Here we have the first insider to pay a price.)

Oynes, who oversaw oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico for 12 years before being promoted to MMS associate director for Offshore Energy and Minerals Management, has come under fire for being too close to the industry officials he regulated.

His announcement comes as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar unveiled a series of reforms on how the department will conduct onshore oil and gas drilling.

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ON CBS – FACE THE NATION, Sunday, May 16, 2010 – Senator Charles Schumer of New York had the following to say:

Schumer: Gulf spill makes passing climate bill more difficult.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico would make passage of a climate bill this year more difficult because the bill includes a compromise allowing for the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) described the spill as an “environmental disaster of gargantuan proportions,” and called for the administration’s response to be a “big part of the inquiry” into what happened. McConnell said “BP will pay for” the damage, but warned that raising the cap on damages too much would create a situation in which only large companies are able to extract oil and gas in the Gulf.


Schumer said that Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings “should not be a farce … they should talk about judicial ideology and philosophy.” He added that he hopes Kagan will be able to bring the court’s liberal and conservative factions together. McConnell said, “Republicans have treated Supreme Court nominees a lot better than Democrats have,” and added that he “can’t think of a single [Democratic] nominee treated like” Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito.

While noting that the question of where and how to try self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was still open, Schumer said, “the chances of him being tried in New York are close to zero.”

After retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) endorsed tea party favorite Rand Paul, the son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul who ran in 2008 for the Presidency, as his replacement in Tuesday’s primary, while Senator McConnell endorsed Paul’s opponent Trey Grayson.  McConnell said he will attend a GOP unity rally at the state Capitol on Saturday. He said the tea party movement is “going to really help” Republicans in November. Schumer predicted that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) will edge out his primary challenger, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) “by a little.”

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So, the hope is in cooperative programs with China and Indonesia – The Halting of Global Warming May Be Possible in a Business Context that is Transboundary. Pitty the loss of President Obama’s trip to Indonesia of two months ago, because of burning internal issues in Washington, at the time we said that President Obama could have revived the UNFCCC efforts by bringing in an Indonesian to head that Climate Change UN agency.

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Back to the BP accident:

People are asking why the industry was not better prepared to react in case of an accident? members of Congress hold hearings and find out that the federal regulatory agencies for minerals management actually had on the books all sort of regulations but nobody bothered enforcing them. Here comes the oil industry that made sue Washington does not bother them – and as could have been expected – the agencies had little interest to interfere with the oil companies.

The New York Times talks of technologies that were supposed to be in place, bur had not changed much in 20 years – booms, skimmers and chemical dispersants. now remember how further the drilling technology has advanced in these 20 years, and how further out into the sea, and how these drilling sites moved to much deeper wells, and it starts looking like criminal lack of supervision. Professor Robert G. Bea of the U. of California at Berkeley, who studies offshore drilling described what goes on now a s”some equivalent of a fire drill with paper towels and buckets for cleanup.” He said that for years the Minerals Management Service argued that “blow-out preventers were practically foolproof.” November 2009, Walter D. Cruickshank, the Deputy Director of MMS told a hearing that the wells had a safety devices to shut off the flow in emergencies. What they did not preict was that the whole rig will collapse. Now the Marine Spill Response Corporation, formed after the 21990 Exxon Valdez disaster, and using equipment and technology from 1990 vintage, is in charge. They where never given budget for research said Steve Benz, the group’s President, though he contended that with C-130 planes they are ahead of the regulatory agency.

President Obama finally came out blasting the “Cosy” relationship with the oil and gas industry, saying that federal government failures were partly to blame for the oil spill. Mr. OBAMA SAID THAT THE DAYS IN WHICH WASHINGTON REGULATORS WOULD ROUTINELY GRANT DRILLING PERMITS BASED ON LITTLE MORE THAN VAGUE ASSURANCES OF SAFETY WERE OVER.

The hearings showed that the books carried requirements for permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species and the agency warned about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf. The MMS allowed BP and dozens of other companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without getting first those permits. Also, doubts were expressed on Accuracy of Government’s Spill estimates – they were given as 5,000 barrels a day but are much larger – a huge plume  in the water is depriving oxygen from life in the gulf. Ian R. MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, who is a specialist in analysing oil slicks, made calculations and gave notice of intent to sue the agency over its non-compliance with the law -It seems the agency thinks its mission is to help the oil industry evade environmental laws,” he said. One thing seems for sure – MMS will have to be broken up into a regulatory agency and a separate fee collecting office for the royalties – as if that could help. Really how do you get it to obey the already existing regulations?

Indeed – something is fishy with BP when the company, the rig owner – Transocean, and the drilling contractor – Halliburton of old fame, through accusations at each other, then the only immediate reaction in the US comes from Alaska interests that find Royal Dutch Shell of also potentially endangering the Alaska coast. We say here that these are coincidentally the two European companies that compete in the US for drilling sites with the US-based multinationals. Just going after these two companies and not even mentioning in the same context the US companies, might easily be interpreted a US oil-industry ploy to decrease competition. This is not a neat way of doing business either.

The CNN ireport – LIVING IN A TOXIC TOWN. CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta invite you to put on video what you know.
 http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories….

Living in a toxic town

Many residents of Mossville, Louisiana, suspect their proximity to more than a dozen chemical plants may be responsible for what they say are high rates of cancer and other diseases in the area.

Is there a place near you where pollution is making people sick? CNN is investigating the environment’s effects on health as part of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Toxic Towns USA special. We want you to join us in the newsgathering process.

“Put yourself on video and document conditions in your area, or take photos of what’s around you. Tell us what industrial or chemical pollution may be contributing to health problems for you and those you love, and be sure not to put yourself in a dangerous situation,” CNN writes.

“Tell us about toxic towns near you and Dr. Gupta may report on your community.”

This is a good piece on the engineering challenges presented in capping a spewing oil well 5,000 feet underwater.

‘Dome’ is a temporary method of containing gulf oil spill.

By Fred Tasker | The Miami Herald, Friday, May 7, 2010.

The 78-ton steel containment dome that crews lowered over the Deepwater Horizon site on Thursday night represents the best immediate chance to slow the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico from the blown-out well.

But even if it works — a big “if” that may not play out for days — it’s still a temporary measure subject to weather and other conditions.

“A dome might slow the leak, but it can’t stop it,” said Dr. Philip Johnson, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Alabama.

The only permanent solution is to drill relief wells to shut off the flow, Johnson and other experts say. And BP says that will take three months. Because of that, a half-dozen other methods — from burning the oil to dispersing it with chemicals, continue at full speed.

Workers lowered the four-story dome onto the seabed surface late Thursday night, but said it will be Sunday or Monday before they will know if it’s working.

Oil has been leaking in three places since the April 20 explosion. One small leak was capped Wednesday. The containment box will be lowered over a much bigger leak in a pipe that’s responsible for about 85 percent of the oil that’s coming out.

“This kind of system worked very effectively after Hurricane Katrina,” said Greg McCormack, director of the Petroleum Extension Service at the University of Texas. “But it was in much shallower waters, mostly less than 200 feet deep.”

At 5,000 feet it will be much harder.

“It’s pitch black down there. There are no divers. And there are all kinds of currents,” McCormack said.

If the box being lowered Thursday can contain the bigger leak, a second box being built may be used to stop the smaller leak at the blowout preventer.

Even with two domes in place, the method depends on piping the oil up to a ship, which will siphon it into smaller ships to be carried away. But, Johnson notes, “if a hurricane comes, you’re in trouble.” Hurricane season starts in June.

Relief wells are the best solution, the experts say.

“It’s the standard method when you’ve lost control of high-pressure wells,” said Greg Pollock, head of the oil spill division of the Texas General Land Office.

BP began drilling the first of two planned relief wells near the broken well on Sunday. Tony Hayward, BP’s group chief executive, estimates it will take three months to complete.

One other alternative BP engineers are considering is to try to plug the leaking well from the top instead of drilling a relief well to cap it from the bottom. That would take two to three weeks.

Three months to drill a relief well is “an optimistic estimate,” says Dr. Don Van Nieuwenhuise, geology professor at University of Houston who helped drill two relief wells for an earlier Gulf oil well blowout. The oil in the area beneath the BP well is trapped in shale under great pressure.

Drilling into it could create new leaks if not done carefully, he said.

Ever since the oil rig exploded, dozens of BP and Coast Guard ships have been cruising through the oil slick on the surface of the Gulf spraying dispersants into it. Dispersants are mixtures of solvents, surfactants and other compounds that break up the surface tension of the slick, making the oil more soluble in water.

Wave action pulls the oil apart into even smaller droplets, which remain suspended beneath the water or fall to the ocean floor. It helps protect onshore birds and animals, but wildlife experts fear its effects on fish and other animals living beneath the sea, according to the National Academics of Science.

In another novel attempt to reduce oil damage, BP workers on Wednesday injected about 3,000 gallons of dispersant directly into the leaking well on the seabed.

So far, Coast Guard and BP vessels have used 190,285 gallons of dispersant and have another 55,611 gallons available, according to the Deepwater Horizon Response Operation.

The use of dispersants has won only grudging approval from environmentalists and even petroleum engineers.

“Dispersants are chemicals. Chemicals aren’t good in the environment. It’s a trade-off,” McCormack said.

Meanwhile, BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and an army of volunteers are using several other strategies to stop damage from the gushing oil.

• Controlled burning: On Thursday, favorable weather conditions finally allowed cleanup crews to conduct a controlled burn of oil on the surface. An earlier successful burn took place April 28, destroying thousands of gallons of oil, but rough weather had frustrated several attempts since.

In a controlled burn, boats maneuver through the oil slick towing buoyant, fire-resistant booms to gather the oil into a thick, flammable pool. When a “boomful” of oil is gathered, it is towed away and ignited. When an oil slick burns, residue hardens and drops to the ocean floor. • Oil-skimming boats: BP and the Coast Guard have at least 35 ships in the Gulf skimming the oil from the surface and pumping it into barges.

“Rough seas can limit its effectiveness, but you have to use every method available,” Pollock said.

• Floating booms: These are miles-long, 20-inch-tall devices of vinyl fabric with a foam float stitched inside for buoyancy that can be stretched along the water. They can help contain oil slicks at sea, redirect them into planned areas for recovery or disposal and hold them back from environmentally sensitive areas.

The Deepwater Horizon Response Operation reports that 535,870 feet of booms had been deployed, with another 664,9891 feet available. They are being used offshore in the Gulf to redirect the oil slick, and near shore to protect shorelines at six locations including Pensacola. For days, rough seas have disrupted many of the booms, hurting their effectiveness.

Despite all the efforts, there are no guarantees.

Said Pollock: “I just hope things can happen quick.”

U.S. Oil Spill Hurting Energy Moves In Congress

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Arctic Explorers Get Nasty Surprise: Rain

We wrote about this in regard to the earthquakes and follow-up tsunamis, now we learn that we are not the odd-balls we thought we were – others say now that the melting glaciers in Iceland will bring about further volcanic eruptions. These eruptions will be more frequent and stronger. This reminds us also of the prediction for future hurricanes. watch the words of Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland.

Ice Cap Thaw May Awaken Icelandic Volcanoes

A thaw of Iceland’s ice caps in coming decades caused by climate change may trigger more volcanic eruptions by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, scientists said on Friday.

They said there was no sign that the current eruption from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier that has paralysed flights over northern Europe was linked to global warming. The glacier is too small and light to affect local geology.

“Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades,” said Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland.

“Global warming melts ice and this can influence magmatic systems,” he told Reuters. The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose.

“We believe the reduction of ice has not been important in triggering this latest eruption,” he said of Eyjafjallajokull. “The eruption is happening under a relatively small ice cap.”

Carolina Pagli, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds in England, said there were risks that climate change could also trigger volcanic eruptions or earthquakes in places such as Mount Erebus in Antarctica, the Aleutian islands of Alaska or Patagonia in South America.

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MAGMA

“The effects would be biggest with ice-capped volcanoes,” she said. “If you remove a load that is big enough you will also have an effect at depths on magma production.”

She and Sigmundsson wrote a 2008 paper in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters about possible links between global warming and Icelandic volcanoes.

That report said that about 10 percent of Iceland’s biggest ice cap, Vatnajokull, has melted since 1890 and the land nearby was rising about 25 millimetres (0.98 inch) a year, bringing shifts in geological stresses.

They estimated that the thaw had led to the formation of 1.4 cubic km (0.3 cubic mile) of magma deep below ground over the past century.

At high pressures such as under an ice cap, they reckon that rocks cannot expand to turn into liquid magma even if they are hot enough. “As the ice melts the rock can melt because the pressure decreases,” she said.

Sigmundsson said that monitoring of the Vatnajokull volcano since 2008 suggested that the 2008 estimate for magma generation was “probably a minimum estimate. It can be somewhat larger.”

He said that melting ice seemed the main way in which climate change, blamed mainly on use of fossil fuels, could have knock-on effects on geology. The U.N. climate panel says that global warming will cause more floods, droughts and rising seas.

 http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/ob…

President Obama to Allow Oil Drilling Off Virginia Coast.

WASHINGTON (March 31, 2010) – In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling 50 miles off Virginia’s shorelines. At the same time, he is rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska.

Obama’s plan offers few concessions to environmentalists, who have been strident in their opposition to more oil platforms off the nation’s shores. Hinted at for months, the plan modifies a ban that for more than 20 years has limited drilling along coastal areas other than the Gulf of Mexico.

Obama was set to announce the new drilling policy Wednesday at Andrews air base in Maryland. White House officials pitched the changes as ways to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and create jobs – both politically popular ideas – but the president’s decisions also could help secure support for a climate change bill languishing in Congress.

The president, joined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, also was set to announce that proposed leases in Alaska’s Bristol Bay would be canceled. The Interior Department also planned to reverse last year’s decision to open up parts of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Instead, scientists would study the sites to see if they’re suitable to future leases.

Obama is allowing an expansion in Alaska’s Cook Inlet to go forward. The plan also would leave in place the moratorium on drilling off the West Coast.

In addition, the Interior Department has prepared a plan to add drilling platforms in the eastern Gulf of Mexico if Congress allows that moratorium to expire. Lawmakers in 2008 allowed a similar moratorium to expire; at the time President George W. Bush lifted the ban, which opened the door to Obama’s change in policy.

Under Obama’s plan, drilling could take place 125 miles from Florida’s Gulf coastline if lawmakers allow the moratorium to expire. Drilling already takes place in western and central areas in the Gulf of Mexico.

The president’s team has been busy on energy policy and Obama talked about it in his State of the Union address. During that speech, he said he wanted the United States to build a new generation of nuclear power plans and invest in biofuel and coal technologies.

“It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development,” he warned.

Obama also urged Congress to complete work on a climate change and energy bill, which has remained elusive. The president met with lawmakers earlier this month at the White House about a bill cutting emissions of pollution-causing greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020. The legislation would also expand domestic oil and gas drilling offshore and provide federal assistance for constructing nuclear power plants and carbon sequestration and storage projects at coal-fired utilities.

White House officials hope Wednesday’s announcement will attract support from Republicans, who adopted a chant of “Drill, baby, drill” during 2008′s presidential campaign.

The president’s Wednesday remarks would be paired with other energy proposals that were more likely to find praise from environmental groups. The White House planned to announce it had ordered 5,000 hybrid vehicles for the government fleet. And on Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department are to sign a final rule that requires increased fuel efficiency standards for new cars.

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_	Obama just announced a new plan for offshore drilling–can you take a stand to oppose this concession to the oil industry? www.350.org/dont-drill

Dear friends,

We read some disappointing news this morning–and you probably did too.

President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar announced a significant expansion of offshore drilling. According to the New York Times, this move is in part a concession to oil companies.

From the New York Times:
“The new plan now grants one of the biggest items on the oil industry’s wish list – access to vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling.” ¹

This isn’t what coastal residents want–more drilling threatens health, wildlife, and decades of community struggles to keep our coastal areas safe. Not only that–more drilling means more Carbon pumping into the atmosphere, when what we really need to do is rapidly move away from fossil fuels.

This is a step backward, there’s no question about it, and it doesn’t even need to happen.

Will you take immediate action to urge President Obama and your elected officials to scale back their offshore drilling ambitions?

http:/www.350.org/dont-drill

My home state, California, has seen incredible damage from oil spills–the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969 helped to spark the very first Earth Day–and I’m not willing to sit quietly and see even more areas opened for drilling.

Expanded offshore drilling was one of Obama’s campaign promises, so in some ways this news isn’t surprising. What about other campaign promises like 100% auctioning of pollution permits, or five million new green jobs? ² These are the real steps forward toward 350 ppm–not more drilling.

We can and must do better. We still have time to choose a path to clean energy that doesn’t rely on even more fossil fuels, and even more handouts to oil companies. This year, we’ll be getting to work locally, modelling the clean energy future in our own communities. But today, we need to speak up.

Please contact President Obama today, urging wiser action on offshore drilling: http://www.350.org/dont-drill

Many thanks,

May Boeve
U.S. coordinator, 350.org

PS: Minutes after today’s news broke, we created this Facebook page: “1,000,000,000 Strong Against Offshore Drilling.” Will you join me & show the kind of groundswell of anger this news inspires–by inviting many of your friends to join too? Thanks for getting the word out, here’s the link.

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1. “Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time”: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html?hp

2. Obama’s Energy Factsheet from the Campaign:
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf

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Offshore oil drilling:

We see from today’s shocking news story “Obama to Open Offshore Areas to
Oil Drilling for First Time”
(nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html?th&emc=th) that Drill
Baby Drill is alive and well.  For the American people to be sucked in to
tolerate more deliberate global warming as well as ongoing war for oil –
just because Obama cares more about health care than Bush did — does not
bode well for anyone.  There are no jobs or health care on a dead planet.
Killing the biosphere is exactly what fossil fuels and other industrial
activity are doing (along with small-scale deforestation, overfishing,
tilling the soil while losing topsoil, etc.).  O-bomb-a would have us
believe there is no alternative.

It so happens that a back-burner, all-but-defunct project of ours,
“Committee Against Oil Exploration (CAOE) – Campaign Against Offshore Oil”
comes up high in any Google search on “offshore oil drilling.”  Over the
years we’ve periodically gotten inquiries, and our standard response has
been “The information on that page (culturechange.org/caoe.html) is good,
but we have not been funded to pursue the issue since 2002.”  We’ve
responded to requests for interviews, but that’s all.

As the Google search result says, “CAOE seeks to protect sensitive
ecosystems from oil pollution and promote maximum conservation to curb
dependence on all fossil fuels.”  How more timely could this be, with
Obama’s announcement?

The CAOE (pronounced kay-oh, or K.O. as in knock out) webpage is down now,
as I write this.  I curse our shoestring budget that results in poor web
performance.  But we are resuming efforts to deal with the burning issue of
offshore oil drilling.  One way we’ll do this is to participate on the
“White House Wall” of Facebook.  Culture Change’s facebook activity will
also be increased.

Bolivia is about to host the World People’s Conference on Climate Change
and the Rights of Mother Earth, April 19-22.  An interesting dilemma:  Just
as some Zapatistas felt burning plastic was okay because it was capitalist
plastic, let’s hope that indigenous fossil fuel exploitation is not seen as
excusable because it’s not Yankee.  Mother Earth doesn’t care if the
burners are leftists or rightists.

Watch for reportage on all of the above from Culture Change.

Jan Lundberg
Culture Change
P.O. Box 4347, Arcata, CA 95518 USA
Tel/fax: 1-215-243-3144
http://culturechange.org

also at - http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-s…

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