It’s a way different world than the one I was born into. Yes, we have a lot of technology. But a tree or a coral reef made only of pixels or only available to see in a museum or aquarium just isn’t enough for me. That’s the direction we’ve been going and we’re getting closer and closer to it all the time. Each time the population doubles, those changes will be even more recognizable. Hopefully, humans are smart and caring enough to do something about the deterioration before there is not enough of the planet to support them anymore.

These ten oil spills, all massively larger than the Exxon Valdez, were all smaller new stories, either because the ships were offshore, or dropped their toxic loads in less developed parts of the world. The Valdez spilled 10 million gallons off the coast of Alaska, the smallest spill in the top ten was four times larger.

Kuwait – 1991 – 520 million gallons
Iraqi forces opened the valves of several oil tankers in order to slow the invasion of American troops. The oil slick was four inches thick and covered 4000 square miles of ocean.
Mexico – 1980 – 100 million gallons
An accident in an oil well caused an explosion which then caused the well to collapse. The well remained open, spilling 30,000 gallons a day into the ocean for a full year.
Trinidad and Tobago – 1979 – 90 million
During a tropical storm off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, a Greek oil tanker collided with another ship, and lost nearly its entire cargo.
Russia – 1994 – 84 million gallons
A broken pipeline in Russia leaked for eight months before it was noticed and repaired.
Persian Gulf – 1983 – 80 million gallons
A tanker collided with a drilling platform which, eventually, collapsed into the sea. The well continued to spill oil into the ocean for seven months before it was repaired.
South Africa – 1983 – 79 million gallons
A tanker cought fire and was abandoned before sinking 25 miles off the coast of Saldanha Bay.
France – 1978 – 69 million gallons
A tanker’s rudder was broken in a severe storm, despite several ships responding to its distress call, the ship ran aground and broke in two. It’s entire payload was dumped into the English Channel.
Angola – 1991 – more than 51 million gallons
The tanker expolded, exact quantity of spill unknown
Italy – 1991 – 45 million gallons
The tanker exploded and sank off the coast of Italy and continued leaking it’s oil into the ocean for 12 years.
Odyssey Oil Spill – 1988 – 40 million gallons
700 nautical miles off the cost of Nova Scotia.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a disaster, but so were the 33 oil spills that were, in fact, worse.

Gosh.. and the planet is still here… how can this be? :)

This is one of the things I really enjoy as a professional in the social media sphere, transparency is coming whether the businesses wish it to or not. Bad business policies, which a little Google research shows BP has in abundance, will come to light of day. Look at what cell phone cameras did for Guantanamo.

This will slowly have the effect of weeding out the unethical business practices as they no longer remain sustainable.

This engineering failure comes just as things were starting to stabilize in the aftermath of Katrina and the Levee Failure. So this is the second time in five years for people and businesses to have the rug yanked out from under them.

A fellow NOLA Blogger’s father was one of the dead in the initial failure of the rig. How do you think his family would react to “rebranding”?

A company needs to have ethics, or play by the rules. Neither is the case with BP. I know I’m losing business (in a bad economy) by taking a public stance but that is not business I would want.

I went through this after Katrina and the levee failure, the media games are nauseating and transparency is notable in it’s absence.

Congratulations, b…I think you just won this debate….or maybe you and Leroy both did, rather.

… Just saying

I could hardly disagree more. I’ve written my own post about it, “The One Thing BP Is Doing Right In Social Media,” in which I use your post as a counterpoint, so I’ll just excerpt what I’ve written in part there:

This is ghastly. Encouraging a corporation to take over a rogue parody account – even recommending that they threaten them – is the absolute wrong signal to send on so many levels.

Mixing in “real” messages with the satirical ones? It’s hard to imagine how this would be perceived. I know how *I* would perceive it: as a sad corporate attempt to “use” social media. And it would be the quickest way I know of to cause a sharp drop in the number of Followers of the account. The satire, the truth-behind-the-humor is the whole point of the account: rake BP over the coals for their arrogance and indifference.

The last sentence in Barone’s post really gets me.

Just because a joke was started at your expense, doesn’t mean you can’t get in and leverage the heck out of it.

I almost don’t know what to say here. There is absolutely no way BP should be “leveraging the heck” out of any joke about what’s going on in the Gulf. There is value in satire, but the value cannot and should not be co-opted by the company being satirized.

First, I strongly object to leveraging the heck out of a joke about a catastrophe like this when the leverage is intended to HELP the corporation that is cause of the catastrophe. It’s hard for me to imagine why anyone with any ethics or morals at all would want to do that. It would be insulting. Let’s leverage the joke alright…at the butt of the joke, at BP. Don’t suggest that they adopt it and use it in order to put a better face on their PR. What, so BP are the only ones who come out clean after this thing?

Second, as a corporate PR strategy, embracing the BP_GlobalPR account would be corporate suicide. As if BP hasn’t already been shown to be cold and calculating and UNsympathetic to what’s going on, all they would need is to be seen as mocking the Gulf spill, as well.

EMBRACE it?

The ONE thing BP is doing right in social media is IGNORING it.