It's quite understandable that, in our anger, we want someone to bear absolute responsibility here, but to be totally fair: the CEO probably had very little to do with this. While he should've been more hands-on, it's not like the oil spill is any better for him either. This is one of the big problems with ANY large organization: One hand doesn't know what the other is doing, and often, individual decision-makers can't see the forest for the trees. I'm not saying he should be let off the hook, but I don't think it's fair to act like he's a mustache-twirling captain planet villain any more than it's fair to act like people opposed to drilling were and are patchouli-soaked, filth-ridden hippies.

I wish you were right about that, Charles, but I don't think so. I saw on Maddow that there was a nearly identical oil spill in the gulf in 1979. That one lasted 9 months. Memories are short & profits are huge. All will continue as before.

@1 -- You bring up a good point, but if the CEO isn't responsible here, then who is? Isn't this the other side of the giant income and privilege that comes with being the Chief Executive Officer?

This is the problem with the corporate structure as we know it. Responsibility for success goes to the top in the form of immeasurable wealth and privilege. Responsibility for failure goes to the bottom in the form of lost jobs, lawsuits, and PR smears. The top dogs take all the credit, and the rest of us get all the blame.

Screw him. If he never worked another day in his life, he'd still have more money than 90% of the planet.

Drill, Baby, Drill.

We should be setting the executives of BP and Halliburton adrift on an oil-soaked barge, and toss them a box of matches.

@1 To quote the Amazing Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. But that's not how it works in America, is it? The people who make the most money from corporate irresponsibility are always the furthest from blame when something goes wrong, and that is a load of immoral bullshit.

I'm sure this will unfold just like the financial collapse. They'll find a scapegoat to send to prison, a la Bernie Madoff, while all the others laugh at all of us peons and collect their bonuses.

No one is calling BP's CEO a "mustache-twirling Captain Planet villain". He's the Chief Executive Officer of a company whose egregious fuckups have essentially killed the Gulf of Mexico. He has assumed the power, he should assume the responsibility.

Most of the reporting ignores the very real issue that Peak Oil has been unmasked as a scam.

BULLSHIT CHARLES!! Seriously, Americans don't give a fuck about the oil disaster, it just makes for good TV for the time being.

Nothing changed after the Valdez, and not only that SUV sales EXPLODED a couple of years after that disaster. The only thing the BP CEO is worried about is that BP stock is dropping fast; BP probably won't be around much longer before it get's bought out by someone else. So yes, his life IS going to change.

The oil industry sez "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

2 & 8 FTW.

When you gamble with the well being of the planet, you don't get to whine.

We need a death penalty for corporations in these cases of gross criminal negligence. That would include attaching personal liability to all the executives' wealth.

what uh is gonna change again?

no more annihilating industrial accidents? no more capitalism? people are finally just gonna chill fucking out and play hackey sack?

Folks, let's not think that this hideous avoidable catastrophe will change one single solitary thing in the oil industry. The nattering about the end of "oil culture" is absolute bullshit.

They will continue as they have always done. Now and forever. Pretending otherwise is foolish in the extreme.

To me, this spill just shows in graphic detail the unacceptable systemic risk at the heart of non-sustainable energy sourcing. The same problem exists for nuclear waste...sooner or later, shit goes very, very wrong.

If the inevitable crisis is worse than the benefit, that's an unacceptable risk, isn't it?

@7 You are a moron.

Peak Oil is not the peak of existence of oil, it's the peak of production of oil. Easy to acquire oil with huge returns on investment is dropping, which is why the oil industry is bothering to drill into a well 5000 feet below the surface in the Gulf to begin with.

The real fucking question is what happens when there is a 15% gap between production and demand and what kind of price spike that creates. The entire industrialized world runs on oil, therefore the cost of everything depends on the cost of oil. What happens when things cost too much for anyone to buy? The best case scenario is that the prohibitive costs of transporting goods basically reverses globalism. The worst case scenario is massive collapse and a resurgence of totalitarian governance along with more resource wars. The biggest problem is that capitalism fundamentally relies on growth and it needs ever increasing production of oil to grow.

You are like the moron who steps outside in the Winter in your shorts, yelling "Where's the global warming, SCIENTISTS?!"

They're hiring Cheney's friends to defend them. Big fucking surprise! It is after all Cheney's oil spill.

@2 so there was an identical spill in 1979?

Seems we recovered OK from that one.

@14 for the actual Peak Oil win.

@16: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil… is the 1979 one; the Deepwater horizon spill is shaping up to be WAY larger than that.

The guy said that he would like his life back. Well, guess what? This will end someday and he WILL get his multi-million dollar life back. But what about the Gulf? What about the environment? What about the people losing their jobs? What about them, sir? When will they get their lives back?

What an ass.

@16 - here's the clip from Maddow about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmhxpQEG…

hey- you know how there was that rash of suicides at the iPhone plant in China because that one guy lost the prototype? I want to introduce this practice to the corporate culture of these fucking oil companies. Have some shame and humility people!

I hope you're right, Charles.

@1 - "the CEO probably had very little to do with this"

If the CEO had very little to do with "this" in the sense that their company was drilling 5000 below sea level without being properly prepared for the worst case scenario as they said repeatedly that not only something like this would be beyond impossible but that they were undoubtedly prepared for the worst case scenario BP has way bigger problems on it's hands because their CEO is a complete airhead. The CEO had everything to do with this because, as was said before, with great power comes great responsibility. You want to make more than 99% of the world? Get ready when you fuck up because shit's about to get real.

I'm not trying to say that Tony wanted this to happen, I'm sure as a human being personally he's a fun guy, but he wants to make this sound like something that can happen to anyone, at anytime, by pure chance. Tony wants his life back, I want my planet back from people like him. I'll cut him a deal, he gets his life back when his company does something impressive.

Oh he wants something (whiny baby noises).

Well, hey guess what? I haven't owned a car since Gulf War I.

Maybe I'd like to be picked up at my door and taken everywhere I want to go.

Maybe I'd like to not have to deal with smelly/loud/scary fellow bus riders.

Maybe I'd like to ride my bike without fear that some distracted soccer mom is going to plow into me.

Maybe I'd like to walk from place to place without feeling like I'm one of the freaking dispossessed.

Maybe I'd like my planet back.