Thursday, May 27, 2010

Big Oil

It was fascinating and frightening watching an ex-President of Shell on CNN talking about the Gulf oil spill. What I heard was that it was the public's fault forcing the oil companies to drill in deep water. He was angry that Shell had had to spend $300 million to get the right to drill in the shallow water of the Arctic. In between there were ads selling high speed cars. Consumers wanted oil and Americans shouldn't be dependant on foreign sources was his view, so the oil companies were just doing what the consumers wanted. The program was interlaced with ads for fast cars. (It's interesting that one of Exxon's board members is from Big Auto.) His lack of connection with the views of the rest of the world was frightening in its insulation. He's saying that there 3500 wells in the Gulf and this is the only one that's gone wrong, seriously.

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