(1) It gets ignored because Nigeria has very little media or international presence.

(2) It *doesn’t* get ignored in the sense that there are millions of us in the first world who want to stop using oil for energy. Such a move would neatly solve the problem raised here.

There’s been a 15 year effort to bring them to trial for the cancer rates and slo-mo environmental catastrophe the local communities have been living through. But, once again, it’s not in the US so not much international interest.

Check out the recent film “Crude” for the story, or a current op-ed from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinion/05herbert.html

Joking aside, you are correct. Corporations, under national and international law, only exist to make a profit. If no one stands up to them, they will abuse human beings and the environment every time. The logic of the market is diametrically opposed to the logic of the living planet.

I’ve compiled my own research on the topic here:
http://www.urbeingrecorded.com/news/2010/06/03/research-brief-emerging-models-of-non-state-power/

What’s unknown is how much additional environmental destruction is the result of MEND’s attacks on oil infrastructure, ie are they primarily motivated by economic disparity or is there indeed great concern for the environment as well…

There needs to be a environmental-damage tax applied to all oil companies that is based on the number of barrels of oil extracted, whether or not it ever makes it to consumers. And this tax revenue ought to be split between environmental conservancy organizations and R&D for better green energy. Ha! Sorry, I just laughed at the thought of such a bill ever passing, or even being proposed….

http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/

kz

Start here.

Glenn Beck would be proud of these guys.

The Iraq war purposeful spillage was an enormous release of oil, but that was done willfully. What is really astounding is the regular spillage from ordinary drilling, rig spills, and transportation.

Quite fascnating

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/06/how-bad-is-bp-deepwater-horizon/

Even the most ardent libertarians/anarcho-capitalists, who reject the very legitimacy of modern governments, would all agree that society must devise some manner of peacefully correcting wrongs that one party has inflicted on another.

Remember, to many on the right, the rights of “private property” are hugely important. This article documents point of this article is a wholesale violation of those rights.

Regulation is focused on preventing perceived problems before they happens. The usefulness of this is variable. For instance, with the toys cited above..well, I would not like them regulated, thank you very much. I simply won’t buy any shit made in China, I would rather trust local handmade toys I can verify.

The largest problems of regulation are these: 1) They are over time tilted in favor of the largest players; so they barely faze them but knock out the little guys. This is very true of, for instance, toys. 2) They provide the illusion that things are taken care of and that there is no risk, so that other safeguards become more lax.

Again, this situation is Nigeria is not due to under-regulation, but rather a complete failure of the court system to protect people from harm.

In general, no government at all is preferable to a powerful government that is corrupted and in bed with the monied interests. Unfortunately, this is the long term state of governments virtually all the time, thus I am happy to call myself an anarchist, looking for different and better solutions to our common problems outside of the state paradigms.

1,500,000 tons/50 years = 30000 ton per year

30000 ton x 7.33 barrels per ton = 219900 barrels per year (www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html)

Gulf oil leak = 45000 barrels a day or the equivalent of a year of Nigerian leakage every 5 days

… and a lot of the oil spilled in Nigeria is due to sabotage (ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/02/nigerian-oil/oneill-text)

The oil and gas industry in the Niger Delta is an immensely complex subject, and so we have put a lot of information here that sets out the issues and our responses: http://www.shell.com/home/content/nga/aboutshell/media_centre/annual_reports_and_publications/

Our joint venture in Nigeria is committed to stopping all leaks as fast as possible and cleaning up all spill sites. Assessment of spills and clean-up is always done in conjunction with communities and government authorities, using community contractor companies where possible.

The sad fact is that the majority of oil pollution in the Niger Delta is caused by sabotage or theft. Most spills are caused by heavily-armed gangs who illegally tap into the pipelines to steal large quantities of crude oil. They spill oil, cause widespread environmental damage that impact the lives of affected communities and leave someone else to clean up the mess.

It is sometimes risky or impossible to send our oil spill response team to stop the leaks immediately because the areas are controlled by these gangs. Some armed, militant groups blow up pipelines and other facilities to stop oil production and draw attention to conditions in the Niger Delta. Last year, thieves or saboteurs spilled about 103,000 barrels from Shell’s joint venture facilities in 95 incidents – an average of one spill every four days. This accounted for almost 98% of the volume of oil spilled during the year.

whatcha think? i think they could do more

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/15/john-robb-interview.html#more

…and they caused the global meltdown. No fooling.

Very little laissez faire going on there.

“It’s not “laissez faire capitalism”, it’s Letting The Free Market Decide.”

This is a succinct lesson in precisely what a free market truly is:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2010/05/the-corporate-state-2.html

In how many oil exploitation markets is the status quo enforced by brutal governments in bed with corporations, all colluding to prevent competition, i.e., to prevent a truly free market? Such an arrangement is a market that is far from free.

The quoted Guardian article was written on May 30, just over one month after the spill. Two weeks have passed since then.

Remember that initial “official” estimates of flow were 1,000 barrels a day, with debate and gradually up-revised figures that bring us to the current ballpark of– what is it now? 25,000 barrels a day?

So, arguing over math and comparisons in total amount spilled in the Gulf disaster versus historic totals in the Niger Delta can be tricky, because the Gulf amounts are still so widely debated… and because the flow is still ongoing.

The Gulf disaster is terrible. The very large number of similarly devastating spills in the Niger delta are also terrible.

Check out the Spill Calculator to see how much oil is really gushing out.

http://bit.ly/BP-oil_Spill

Except it doesn’t work that way. There is no “perfect free market” in your example because your “rival company” will at best ignore and at worst encage and murder those people, who they will call rebels, who recognize another group as their government.

Apart from the oil situation I have no idea how satisfied Nigerians are with their government, but it seems likely that at least those most affected by pollution would abandon the current regime in short order if the costs of doing so were not so high.