Environment Forum

What offshore miners know

– Dr. Beverly A. Sauer is a professor of management communication at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. Any views expressed here are her own. –

Despite massive attention to environmental impact of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the death of 11 rig workers has not had the same impact as the tragic deaths of 29 coal miners in the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.

One article in The Washington Post described events at the moment of disaster, but there has been little tribute to the knowledge and experience these workers bring to the job of managing risk and preventing future disasters.

The Deepwater disaster bears surprising similarity to a mine disaster.

In the Sago disaster, methane accumulated in a sealed area of the mine. Seals failed, and workers were trapped when a methane explosion ripped through the mine’s primary escapeway.

Lessons from the Exxon Valdez spill

–Riki Ott, PhD, has written two books on the Exxon Valdez oil spill impacts on people, communities, and wildlife, including the recently released Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.  Any views expressed here are her own.–

I remember the words, “We’ve had the Big One,” with chilling clarity, spoken just over 21 years ago when a fellow fisherman arrived at my door in the early morning and announced that the Exxon Valdez had run aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and was gushing oil.

For the small fishing community of Cordova, Alaska, where I lived and worked as a commercial fisherma’am, it was our worst nightmare.

That nightmare is reoccurring now with BP’s deadly rig blowout off the Gulf Coast – with haunting parallels to the Exxon Valdez.

I was not at all surprised when officials reported zero spillage, then projected modest spillage, and then reported spill amounts five times higher than their earlier estimates.

As the spill continues, I imagine that even the newly reported amounts will continue to vastly underestimate the actual spillage.

Human “Message from the North” to climate negotiators

If you want to send a message, the old Hollywood saying goes, call Western Union. But environmental activists chose a different medium to get through to climate change negotiators: they put their bodies on the line — in this case, the Alaskan tundra — to spell out “Save The Arctic” and sketch the outline of a caribou.

Members of the Gwich’in Nation gathered last weekend near Arctic Village, Alaska, to send what they called a “Message from the North” to environmental diplomats gathering this week in Bonn, Germany.

The Alaskan activists want permanent protection from oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, on the far northern edge of Alaska where caribou roam, along with urgent action to address climate change.

The Gwich’in people, who live in this area, were celebrating 20 years of activism to prevent oil drilling in the refuge. But climate change is a new and increasing threat, and even without drilling, they say the region has seen some of the most extreme impacts of global warming.

“Indigenous peoples live at the point of impact and are among the first to experience the catastrophic effects of climate change – the wisdom indigenous peoples offer is crucial to the survival of all life,” said Robby Romero, UN ambassador for the environment and founder of the native rock band Red Thunder, which performed at the event. “Everything new is hidden in the past – It will take traditional Indigenous wisdom and modern technology working together to lead us on a path of healing.”

The aerial image of the protest was created by artist John Quigley in collaboration with the Gwich’in Steering Committee and 350.org.

Photo credit: Lou Dematteis/Spectral Q/Redux (People of the Gwich?in Nation gather on the tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge near Arctic Village, Alaska, May 30, 2009)