"I Don't Have A Bulletproof Vest, But I Can Drink Acid"
Every sector of society has been left to fend for itself. The airline industry, for example, is so slack in its maintenance that it has seen three catastrophic plane crashes in the past 16 months, which together have killed more than 300 people. The airport at Port Harcourt was shut down in 2005 after an incoming Air France flight plowed into a herd of cows that had wandered onto the runway; it still has not reopened. Tens of millions of people live in urban slums without water or sanitation, restaurants have to hire guards with AK-47s to protect the diners, and the levels of chaos and street violence rival that of many countries at war. A dead man lay on the street near my hotel for two days before someone finally came to take him away.
For an update on one of our most important sources of oil, read the rest here.
Anyone know how this program has been going since we heard about it a year ago?
For an update on one of our most important sources of oil, read the rest here.
Anyone know how this program has been going since we heard about it a year ago?
posted by The Cunning Realist at Saturday, January 13, 2007
5 Comments:
Do you feel safer now, after 6 years of Bush/Cheney at the helm? Too bad Al Gore was so "wooden".
If you're in the market for a car, I'd stop by the local Toyota dealer to check out the latest hybrids. (If you're man enough- Dick Cheney says conservation is for sissies.)
or a bicycle, better still.
Hi. I worked in the Nigerian oil fields in the 80s and my brother is there now. When I was there, Nigeria was considered the worst place for oil workers to work (by the workers themselves), and it has gotten much worse. The corruption was incredible--you were constantly asked for bribes when you arrived (always by people who had submachine guns), but worse was being asked for bribes when you left! Several of my coworkers had to pay over a $1000 apiece to get out of Nigeria--and believe me, it was worth it. (The company reimbursed us whenever this kind of thing happened, which skirts the law, but is necessary or else no one would work there.)
I did exploration in the shallow waters of the Niger river delta, between two branches called the Forcados and Escravos rivers. We worked with villagers often, most of whom were literate (but barely--their educations stopped after the 3rd grade). These guys had aspirations, and ended up being fairly skilled oil exploration laborers--so skilled in fact that we ended up getting some of them passports so they could work in other countries for us. Which was just as well--working as a fisherman in the village was a dead end job, especially when you consider how polluted the waters were.
They lived in huts with no electricity--this despite the fact that gas flares offshore (burning the gas that was then not worth keeping in the pre-gas-boom days) were pumping so much water vapor (and C02) into the air that clouds formed above them. They could have easily electrified the entire delta with the gas they blithely threw away.
One day I was out in a small boat and noticed a brown area in the ocean where the waves were dampened. We went to inspect it, and it was an oil spill, approximately 50 yards wide and stretching as far as we could see. We followed it to its source--an unmanned pumping platform that was gushing crude from below the waterline. This kind of crap was common. The last thing the officials wanted to hear about was oil spills, even though in theory we were legally required to report them.
Cargo ships often went upriver to Warri, and they were in danger of being robbed by motor-boat pirates. Some of these pirates were captured and taken by the regional police to the local Gulf facility, which had a dock and buildings where they could be held until transported to jail. But prior to shipping them off to jail, the Nigerian police tortured them--outside and in public view--for 8 hours.
This country could be great, and the standard of living for its people could be the highest in Africa. Instead it is a barely governable kleptocracy. It is hardly surprising that people in the delta are fighting, considering their poverty amidst the county's oil weath.
After clicking the second link I am once again thinking that the real tragedy here is that we have all we need to make a change. The technology and tools are in place to enable us to change the way we make energy. We could be renewable and sustainable in short order if we only had the will to do it. But we are not making that choice for ourselves or others. That's the real tragedy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6317477.stm
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