BP should be on the hook for an additional $25bn to restore environmental damage from the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster,
even if the company is hit with a record-breaking $17.6bn in fines at a civil trial next week, campaign groups said on Thursday.
BP will face the largest environmental fines in US history in a civil trial in New Orleans next week. The proceedings, which are expected to last until the fall, will apportion blame for the 2010 disaster between the oil company and its partners on the blown-out well, and assess fines based on how much crude oil actually flowed into the Gulf of Mexico.
John Kostyack, vice-president of wildlife conservation for the National Wildlife Federation, said BP should be held accountable for additional damage to the coast and waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
"If you look at about $25bn, that at least gets you in the right scale of payments," adding that he had based his calculations on the environmental damage assessments that followed the
1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska and then scaled up, in terms of barrels of oil spilled and inflation, to apply his findings to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Courtney Taylor of the Environmental Defence Fund also called on the judge to impose the maximum fine on BP. "Any trial or resolution of this case needs to be at the high end," she said.
Comment: Don't get us wrong, we are all for "raising the awareness of the [dangerousness] of the phenomena among the population and the politicians." The danger is real, and whatever happened in Chelyabinsk was just a small reminder of what may yet transpire. But, there are several factors that have to be considered. Factors that make us highly suspicious of the UN's and other politicians' intentions regarding the threat from space. As George Orwell's quote goes: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." And there is enough evidence to indicate, that for quite a while the PTB's agenda was to keep the reality of cosmic threat under a tight lid in order to maintain the illusion of control.
Consider the following information:
Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified
Objects apparently pass us by all the time and we don't notice them until they're here:
Bus-sized asteroid shaves Earth with one day's notice
Have you heard about Dark Comets? Imagine trying to track one of those!
We think what it comes down to is the fact there is no comprehensive, global, civilian Near Earth Object monitoring or tracking system. Lots of programs have been floated over the decades; some take off, but most flop, usually because of a lack of funding. The space threat just wasn't taken seriously enough. The renowned astrophysicist Victor Clube and others tried to warn them but our Dear Leaders didn't see any profit in it. Instead, the scientific funding, research and technology were all funneled into sustaining the Cold War, and when that ended, the War on Terror. Perhaps it will change, but we are not holding our breath.
Read the following articles and listen to our radio broadcast to learn more on the topic:
SOTT Talk Radio: Cosmic Catastrophe, Drones and Social Hysteria
Celestial Intentions: Comets and the Horns of Moses
Fireball explodes over Russian city: Widespread panic and structural damage, Thousand people injured
Russian meteor - Another shock to the system