ForumGarden

The Nigerian Spill is much, much bigger than the Gulf Oil Spill. Why haven't we heard more about it. Your thoughts?

Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it | Environment | The Observer

So this is a my oil spill is better than your oil spill thing?

Good question.

Did you read through the comments following the article?

LarsMac;1314971 wrote: Good question.

Did you read through the comments following the article?


Yes I did and it appears that FG members care to ignore this Nigerian Spill as well as the press

Lon;1315758 wrote: Yes I did and it appears that FG members care to ignore this Nigerian Spill as well as the press


Mostly because this is the first I've seen of it.

Yes it is totally wrong. Yes, it needs to be stopped and quickly.

Question is, who is responsibly and how do you set about getting them to sort it out?

The major breach they highlight was "several years age" - what is the situation now?

If :-

Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, says that 98% of all its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants and only a minimal amount by deteriorating infrastructure.


is true then blaming the oil companies will get us no-where.

If the oil companies are majority nationalised then they have little say in policy anyway.

Sounds like it is the government as the first port of call to change the situation.

Hear of it more?? This is the first I have heard of it.

That’s the news for you, sanitized, streamlined and the same all over the world. We are only told what they want us to know

The oil companies own Nigeria, so it is no surprise we have not heard anything about it.

Actually there are reports all over the place - you've probably seen them but just not taken them in or their import. It's an old story I suppose, unless someone is shitting on your doorstep you don't care where they ****.



This was a sky documentary. Don't like murdoch but sky does have some good programmes.

YouTube - nigerian oil spill

and if you wonder what motivates the somali pirates

YouTube - Ross Kemp In Search Of Pirates 2 (3/5)

or how about south america

Ross Kemp: Exposing The Violent Side of The Amazon - Sky1 HD

If you look at any country where a left wing government has been overthrown and replaced by a right wing one with the help of the US/UK/EU/ look for the oil, except for chile where allende made the mistake of nationalising the copper mines. The biggest culprits are shell and BP in africa and US companies in south america.

posted by bryn mawr

is true then blaming the oil companies will get us no-where.

If the oil companies are majority nationalised then they have little say in policy anyway.

Sounds like it is the government as the first port of call to change the situation.


Which government - we all are paying the price for this, it's been going on for decades.

gmc;1315828 wrote:



Which government - we all are paying the price for this, it's been going on for decades.


Whether the Nigerian government is corrupt (almost certainly) and being paid by the oil companies (almost certainly) is a different question - they remain the first port of call in any attempt to correct it.

The difference is how you go about disincentivising the crime - pressuring a group of multi-nationals is a different proposition to putting pressure on a national government.

The world is paying the price and we need to stop it whether it's been going on for decades or just started - the fact it's been going on so long is our problem and something we need to resolve asap.

Well, from what I have found out recently, the Nigerian "oil spill" is more the result of an on-going, intermittent attack upon the oil distribution infrastructure within that region, and the overall affect seems to be to ruin the local ecology of the particular area.

The global affect is relatively minimal, so the media doesn't really care.

Compare that to the the recent one in the Gulf of Mexico, which is sudden and large, and promises to affect the ecology of the entire northern Atlantic region, and, so far, has the attention of the media in North America and Europe, at least until the next "great catastrophe" captures the media's attention.

Personally, I have to say the Deep Water Horizon spill promises to have a far more lasting impact on my own life than the one in Nigeria ever will, so It is the one I find more interesting.

I think one thing that is becoming clear through this thread is that unless it happens to you, it doesn't really count. How many Americans have heard of Piper Alpha? (Maybe you all have - I'll be interested to see)

In what way is the Nigeria mess different to the American mess? In both cases it is companies taking advantage of bribed inadequate legislation. You can call it political contributions if you like.

The long term threat? Well, no worse than the Exxon Valdez, Brittany or the Torrey Canyon - or all the tankers sunk in WW2! It does seem that the long term effects aren't as bad as might be feared. Thank Heavens.

Still pretty awful, though.:-1

Yes, I know about Piper Alpha.

It was terrible.

It is interesting how the media focuses on something, and then turns their collective eye away, and we all forget shortly.

For instance, is that volcano in Iceland still blowing ash into the air.

I am not discounting the problem in Nigeria, but I have family who make their livelihood from the shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico.

I also know more about the food cycle in the Gulf, and how it will be affected by the marshlands along the Gulf being covered in oil.

It will be a lot worse than Exxon Valdez.

LarsMac;1315962 wrote: Yes, I know about Piper Alpha.

It was terrible.

It is interesting how the media focuses on something, and then turns their collective eye away, and we all forget shortly.

For instance, is that volcano in Iceland still blowing ash into the air.

I am not discounting the problem in Nigeria, but I have family who make their livelihood from the shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico.

I also know more about the food cycle in the Gulf, and how it will be affected by the marshlands along the Gulf being covered in oil.

It will be a lot worse than Exxon Valdez.


It's only natural that what affects you directly concerns you the most. maybe some good will come out of t in that people will take more seriously the need to find an alternative to oil for fuelling cars. I happen to think we have more important uses for oil than just burning it as fuel. You could put a good case that oil companies have hampered development of alternatives and car companies need an incentive to develop other engines like being told to do it. It requires a technology shift.

People have been reporting on the niger delta and south america and elsewhere for decades I always assumed it was common knowledge but clearly I am wrong. People who express concern about environmental issues get a bad press usually perhaps the gulf will make people less ready to dismiss them as anti-business, tree-huggers, hippy weirdo unamerican, etc etc.

The icelandic volcano is still blowing but they have developed radar that can measure the density of the cloud and steer round it. Hekla is still set to blow. There's nothing to be done about it except wait till it happens and perhaps plan alternatives to air freight for our fresh food from abroad.

Yes, I know about Piper Alpha.

It was terrible.

It is interesting how the media focuses on something, and then turns their collective eye away, and we all forget shortly.

For instance, is that volcano in Iceland still blowing ash into the air.

I am not discounting the problem in Nigeria, but I have family who make their livelihood from the shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico.

I also know more about the food cycle in the Gulf, and how it will be affected by the marshlands along the Gulf being covered in oil.

It will be a lot worse than Exxon Valdez.


I bow to your clearly superior knowledge in the matter. I regard this as a terrible tragedy for all concerned. I'm a birdwatcher in a little way, and we have many important wetlands on our east coast - on the North Sea where all the oil rigs are, so I have some conception of the likely damage. It's the combination of sheer quantity and sensitive location. :-1

(gmc has covered the volcano. I live in SW London not far from Heathrow, so at least if planes get grounded, we get beautiful clear skies!)

Actually I can think of hundreds of examples where man's activities has rendered the land infertile through deforestation, overfarming, overfishing (that's happened in the past on several occasions) industrial waste dumping. In a way this is just variation on a theme. It's getting more serious now as there are fewer places left to go and we make bigger messes. There's always been someone pointing out this or that was a bad idea and we should think before doing things but no one listens. Cassandra has become synonymous with overly pessimistic doom and gloom merchants but she was right.

gmc;1315986 wrote: It's only natural that what affects you directly concerns you the most. maybe some good will come out of t in that people will take more seriously the need to find an alternative to oil for fuelling cars. I happen to think we have more important uses for oil than just burning it as fuel. You could put a good case that oil companies have hampered development of alternatives and car companies need an incentive to develop other engines like being told to do it. It requires a technology shift.

People have been reporting on the niger delta and south america and elsewhere for decades I always assumed it was common knowledge but clearly I am wrong. People who express concern about environmental issues get a bad press usually perhaps the gulf will make people less ready to dismiss them as anti-business, tree-huggers, hippy weirdo unamerican, etc etc.

The icelandic volcano is still blowing but they have developed radar that can measure the density of the cloud and steer round it. Hekla is still set to blow. There's nothing to be done about it except wait till it happens and perhaps plan alternatives to air freight for our fresh food from abroad.


The Western collective consciousness is finally beginning to develop the idea that we should re-think our fuel requirements.

We are starting to see a move towards biological fuel options, but gasoline will be the fuel of choice for at least the next couple of decades, I fear.

I have long been a proponent of bio-diesel as a fuel alternative, and if that ever gets real attention, I am sure it will come with its own extreme hazards. People in other countries have razed forests to turn the land into oil palm groves.

Humans are creatures of extremes.

We will continue to rely upon oil until we have sucked nearly all of it out of the ground, and made the air un-breathable.

Then we will hustle about trying to make the alternative as profitable as humanly possible until we have found a way to ruin it for the common man.

Life goes on.

A comment by some oil spokesman type on the news went along the lines that 'There would have to be a 100 such oil spills before the price of oil becomes prohibitive'

Meaning the oil companies can afford to clear up after such spills and still make massive profits.

An article from the National Geographic in 2007

Nigerian Oil - National Geographic Magazine