Saturday, June 05, 2010

BP Chief Sold Shares Weeks Before Oil Spill

COLLAPSENET TM LAUNCHES, TUESDAY JUNE 8, 2010

http://www.collapsenet.comhttp://www.collapsenetwork.comhttp://www.collapsenet.net

May 21, 2010 – CollapseNet ™, a long-anticipated new effort from internationally-recognized author, lecturer and activist Michael C. Ruppert, will officially launch on Tuesday June 8, 2010. The site will be a first-of-its-kind effort to promote the rapid and focused sharing of information between millions around the world who are preparing for the collapse of human industrial civilization – The Lifeboat Movement.

CollapseNet will also feature regular video and written updates, commentary and analysis from Michael C. Ruppert, the sole subject of the critically- acclaimed feature documentary Collapse. DVD sales of Collapse begin on June 15th, 2010. The film, directed by two-time Sundance Winner Chris Smith, has been mentioned as a strong candidate for Best Documentary at the 2011 Oscars.Michael, the author of two books, is a former LAPD detective and recognized investigative journalist, is known for having thoroughly predicted the 2008 economic crash starting in 2000, as well as many other geopolitical and economic events over the last decade. More than half of the predictions he made during the filming of Collapse (March-June, 2009) have come true since its theatrical release at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of that year.

“There are millions of us around the world who see and understand what is happening,” says Ruppert. “Worldwide reaction to the film has proved that. CollapseNet will – as fast as our maps can populate – demonstrate that the Lifeboat Movement is global, vocal and rapidly standing up to meet this supreme challenge. We apologize or justify ourselves to no one. All we ask is that governments and those who disagree leave us alone. We will be here to help your children build lifeboats when they are ready.”

Ruppert’s newest book, “Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post-Peak Oil World ” – on which the movie was based -- lays out in stark, clear and simple detail the challenges we face as the realities of Peak Oil and diminishing energy supplies collide with a hopelessly corrupt and collapsing economic paradigm based upon infinite growth.

“The essence of survival as human industrial civilization disintegrates,” says Ruppert, “will stem from one thing only; the relocalization of all things necessary to sustain life, civilization and culture. Most important will be relocalization of food production so that as much food as possible comes from within the shortest possible distance. As collapse progresses, all other essential life-sustaining needs will have to be met close to home because there will not be enough energy to either grow crops using current methods, or to produce other critical goods and transport them across great distances.” – Currently, ten calories of hydrocarbon energy are required to grow every calorie of food consumed in the industrialized world. “The only way to prevent a massive die-off is through permaculture and petro-chemical-free agriculture and the skill sets needed to support local communities after the social contract has withered. This must be undertaken by neighborhoods and communities rather than increasingly ineffective and dysfunctional national and regional governments.”

The collapse of human industrial civilization will bring with it a host of unforgiving challenges including the breakdown of governments, economic collapse, the end of fiat currency, massive civil unrest, displaced populations, permanent blackouts, infrastructure failures, fresh water shortages, famine, war, widespread disease and suffering. The tragedy of Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico has drastically reduced what time there is to prepare and forever changed the global playing field. It has unleashed an immediate host of unforeseen and unforgiving new challenges.

CollapseNet launches with the premise that a large reduction in human population is inevitable. CollapseNet’s greatest mission is to limit and mitigate the losses and suffering from this while helping people to prepare to maintain a recognizable quality of life. CollapseNet has no political affiliation and is not aligned with any religion, political ideology or nationality. Although based in the United States, CollapseNet’s proprietary software is, at launch, scalable and operational on a global basis. “I'm fairly confident we will have a presence in at least 40 countries before the end of 2010,” says Ruppert.

“There are a lot of things we hope to do with CollapseNet,” Ruppert adds. “We’re going to expand our video capabilities and move into special web-based programming as we grow. We’re going to find ways to help those with needed skills, information and on-site reporting get vital information into the right places quickly, securely and efficiently. CollapseNet will become what lifeboat builders around the world need it to become, as circumstances dictate. And we'll do it without the vacuous wasteland that is mainstream, publicly-traded media throughout the world. CollapseNet will never trade its shares, or its integrity, in the marketplace.”
*******************************************************
From Jenna Orkin

Headlines
BP chief sold shares weeks before oil spill
NASA Pictures of Gulf Leak
Obama secretly deploys special forces
Barter Banks
China Property Woes Worse than US
Gulf of Mexico oil spill: cap 'capturing 1,000 barrels a day'
Marcellus Shale Gas Rupture Forces Evacuation

Economy/US
Could We Actually See Negative 2% GDP Growth In Q3?
U.S.'s $13 Trillion Debt Poised to Overtake GDP: Chart of Day
Dollar Soars; Euro, Euro/Swiss, Forint Hit New Low; Hungary’s Prime Minister says Economy in "Very Grave Situation, Default Talk Not an Exaggeration"
Hungary Says Default Comments Were `Unfortunate', Can Finance Its Spending
SEC Postpones Single-Stock Circuit Breaker Meant to Prevent Market Crashes
Euro Weakens Below $1.20 for First Time Since 2006 on Debt Crisis Concern
Venice sells off its heritage to plug cash blackhole
About 2300 Running For Congress, Most in Decades

Terror/Intelligence/Science
Knesset Member Denies Israel's Account
Israel Seizes Gaza-Bound Aid Ship; Organizers Say Boarded Without Violence
California Officials Caught on Tape in DC Meetings
ACLU Sues for Records of Govt's Unconstitutional Use of Spying Powers
WikiLeaks Founder's Mission for Total Transparency
Drug Firms Encouraged World Health Body to Exaggerate Danger of Swine Flu
Anti-fear drug 'could help wipe painful memories'
Scientists solve mystery of resistant flu virus
Australia: Experimental Drug Used to Control Virus Spread
Newsweek: Scientists analyze Jews' genetic code
Tailor-made Medicine
Refining medicine to treat patients more effectively sounds like an unmitigated advance. But what of the other potential uses for the information garnered?
Quasi Black Hole Created

Environment/Energy
James Cameron: BP Turned Down Help Offer
Lab Tests Confirm Underwater Layers of Gulf Oil from Elizabeth Miller
Petrobras Strikes Black Gold With New 380 Million Barrel Offshore Oil Discovery
They're baaaack...
Moving US Energy Policy to a Decentralized Grid - from Jon Noel
U.S. Climate-Satellite Capabilities in Jeopardy
Australian restaurant charges you 30% more if you waste food

And...
Japanese PM Puts Ex-Swimsuit Model In Charge Of Declining Birthrate

18 comments:

Cutler said...

Keep up the good work on the Deepwater Horizon accident. An up-to-date overview can be found in the Encyclopedia of Earth:
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

businessman said...

Why is it that the links posted the last few days to collapsenet.net and collapsenetwork.com take us to Web pages on godaddy.com? At the minimum you might want to have those two URLs point to collapsenet.com.

Unknown said...

Most recent update... LMRP actually pumping 6,000 barrels of oil to the surface.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/bps_latest_containment_system.html

agape wins said...

6,05,10; 6:38pm.
Has anyone looked at the links I posted on 5,24,10 here they are again:

http://tinyurl.com/y9cphg2

http://www.fragmentsweb.org/stuff/photking.html

http://tinyurl.com/28qnvyl

http://tinyurl.com/26aam5p

Here is one more,

http://www.wadehamptoncamp.org/hist-boc.html

This is what it will look like where you are, do you see the fire dept., the "Police", how about the "Guard", or regular Army.

How long do you expect the Cameras, Cell phones, and other high tech equipment to work, how long for the short wave citizens band to work?

"9 meals from Anarchy"

http://tinyurl.com/33gxdun

The Sheeple will revert to wolves, they will sack everything,
you think they will spare the communication system, how will your battery equipment pick up a signal which is never sent?

The powers will hole up and let the virus run its course, & attempt to pick up the pieces!

I expect Sabastian to be in the pack, you chose which one I mean.

"e Brutto" said...

BP bashing - your top headline.
Repeating MSM disinformation designed to make your totally corrupt country look good in comparison to a country that actually looks after its citizens when unemployed, sick or old.
Unemployment benefit does not run out.
[While we have a tax base]
No tent cities here.
If your politicians are weak minded enough to destroy your environment for a bung you are no better than others which also have perennial oil leak problems.
Officials took bribes to allow a cut off without the extra safe guards countries like Norway insist on.
Compensation is limited by law again as a result of pork going to your government.
BP seems to be willing to pay out more than they are obliged to.
The fault is all yours for allowing your country to be run by people whose concept of society evidently does not extend beyond their immediate circle.
This is just my opinion of course no offence.

Unknown said...

NYTimes: Imagining Life Without Oil, And Being Ready

"In bleak times, there is a boom in doom."

Dave Z said...

I'm skeptical of what Simmons has said about the oil spill, however, his intensity and his status must be reckoned with.

Please see this link:
possible leaks found with ROV

A person named avonaltendorf on theoildrum.com has witnessed 'bu ROVs that have been scanning the seabed away from the wellhead.

Earlier he wrote this, "Viking Poseidon ROV 2 went to the bottom -5300 ft, no question that I saw what I saw. No other reason for the ROV to be there. Seafloor is bubbling with hydrate blizzard. There is a subsurface migration miles away from the well."

He didn't say it was oil, but it is very curious at least.

Low Roller said...

The sale of substantial stock positions after MMS had been notified by BP that BP wanted to use a cement plug on March 10,2010 750ft from the bottom of the well seems to be both actionable under Securities Law and Criminal Law considering the circumstances of April 20, 2010. I believe that Tony Hayward should be prosecuted, since he obviously knew the severity of the situation. It was severe enough for a sale of 1/3 of his stock, but he failed to protect the lives of the oil rig workers. Where are the investigative reporters? The March 10, 2010 emails are part of Congressional Testimony and the press have been mute. I agree with Simmons that there is more than one site of oil leakage. The government has the power to commandeer the ROV and investigate.
I have not seen BP outright deny the scenario painted by Simmons. This tells me that he may be right.
Are they just buying time to come up with some solution short of the slant well nuke? I can understand that the word nuke is politically explosive. I truly feel for the folks in the Southeast. I suspect that this mess will be dragged out due to a perfect storm of politics and corporate power. I agree with Mr Ruppert that this is a Black Swan Event that brings to light the erroneous assumptions that we have the technology to economically access all the earth's oil. We have been wasting time since 2008 allowing Wall Street to hijack the money that could have been used to develop any and all alternative energy options. We are so myopic and arrogant. Our government is so captured. We better wake up.

businessman said...

Thanks for that NY Times article, Mitchell. That may be the best mainstream media article I've read describing what the people from the Peak Oil community know we're up against.

Unknown said...

<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jun/02/sun-king-oil-john-browne> This Guardian op-ed</a> by Tom Bower epitomizes a tendency – ever more prominent – to vilify BP specifically as (in Bower’s words) “a rogue corporation”. Bower does more than single out BP, he puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of one man, who is no longer employed by the company: former chief Lord John Browne.

How convenient for the industry, and all concerned, to fix the blame on a man who has already retired with his millions.

Actually, Browne makes an easy target. He’s a definite creep case who made millions cutting corners before he was forced out of BP leadership over embezzlement to pay upkeep on his lover. This, after being knighted and made a life lord, and receiving a Responsible Capitalism Award (declares Wikipedia). Browne seems to rank with the Taliban as a contemptible foe.

BUT WAIT A COTTON-PICKIN MINUTE. While it’s apparently true that BP has been involved in many recent disasters that resulted in heavy pollution and loss of life, including the pathetically slow Exxon Valdez cleanup, let’s remember that the two companies Bower distinctly praises for diligence, ExxonMobil and Shell, have been responsible for their own major horrors.

Most famous is the Exxon Valdez, of course, but there are so many more examples.

The machine is making me cut this in two, so a few examples will be found in the following post.

Unknown said...

In 2004, Shell was responsible for a
disaster off the Siberian coast
. Accused of unsafe practices in a grey whale habitat, Shell later sold out to Gazprom.

Another Guardian article, posted May 31 on this blog,
Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill
, explicitly cites Shell and ExxonMobil over their poor safety records. Here's more about Shell in Nigeria.

Another big oil producer in Nigeria is the French giant, Total. While certainly part of the pollution problem there, Total is more famous for
the sinking of the Erika
off the coast of Brittany, in 1999, which marred the French coast with 200,000 tons of Total oil.

George Draffan has posted a long list of oil spills over the last four decades.

And let’s not forget Saddam Hussein’s deliberate ecocide at the end of the first Gulf War, in which air, water and land were polluted by 520 million gallons of released crude.

Nor should we leave out the ongoing case of Ecuador, where Texaco, later acquired by Chevron, polluted the headwaters of the Amazon, made token efforts at cleanup, and left behind billions of gallons of petro-waste over 1700 square miles of jungle. Chevron’s effort to wiggle out of its cleanup obligation is documented in the film CRUDE.

This is what the oil business is. This is what it does. As long as there are tankers, some will sink. As long as there are pipelines, some will burst. As long as there are wellheads and refineries, some will blow up. As long as there are secretive, profit-motivated companies controlling the process, safety measures will be sacrificed to bottom line.

Enough! The industrial nightmare can only get worse, unless we pull back on this nonsense. Only by releasing our “need” for huge amounts of energy, voluntarily and right away, can we avoid pushing ever deeper into the very behavior which threatens our own annihilation. And we’ll have to give up that glut of energy soon enough. The question is energy decline before, or after, we completely destroy the viability of our home planet.

Kieran UK said...

Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Hungary, Ireland....


P-I-G-S-H-I-?

Any guesses for last one?

Very apt... just a moment of levity for a bleak week ahead.

Elmo said...

@e_Brutto: When did WE ever have anything to say about who runs the world? All I was ever offered was the opportunity to vote for whichever 'evil' I thought would be less 'oppressive'. And I can either choose to accept that reality, or I can go sit on top of a building and shoot politicians as they parade down main-street. Either way, I ain't gettin' what I want!

Buddy the Cat said...

Mike, Jenna-

Since the Deepwater disaster began, BP's 'efforts' to stop the gusher in the gulf have been slow, seemingly brainless and shrouded in BS. The hypocrisy has been hidden in plain sight and I'd like to point out something. Why is the gusher still gushing? Because BP hasn't been working at trying to plug the gusher (I REFUSE to call it a "leak" or "spill"...I know the difference between a leak and a spill as much as I know the difference between buildings that collapse and buildings that are demolished). They've been trying to capture the oil. There's a HUGE difference in the way a problem is approached, starting with what it's called...that is, 'adjusting' the perception of what the problem is. If people perceive the DH disaster as a "leak", it tends to make someone thing it can be fixed with a twist of a wrench, which is complete BS. If people perceive it as a "spill", it tends to make one think it can be mopped up rather effortlessly, which is complete BS. They're not trying to stop it; they're trying to curb the gusher and capture the oil..."containment system"; that doesn't sound like "cap", "plug" or "stop", does it? Tony Hayward's BS is written all over his face. Every time he opens his mouth, he is BSing someone. Yes, it is time to launch Collapsenet. Great timing. I can hardly wait to 'shake hands' with many new people @ Collapsenet. Today is the day I finish offering opinion about events and responding to posts. Futile effort now. Waste of time. It's time to start building a lifeboat.

Unknown said...

businessman, despite its "accuracy", I wonder if that NYTimes article will open anyone's eyes. I doubt it. It's a shallow piece of reporting, I suspect intentionally so, created for the purpose of marginalizing us Peak Oil crazies.

By the same token the people they're reporting on are cut right from the pages of this blog, or from LATOC - that's obvious to us anyway. "Population die-off" is mentioned, but in quotes (marginalization) and without further citation.

What annoyed me the most is that the founder of postpeakliving.com (mentioned in that article) is obviously well-read in MCR, but he gives him no credit at all (I checked the website). Nor does he mention any of the other great PO thinkers.

Consequently he looks like a colorful (and entrepreneurial) trendsetter, a perfect subject for an article meant to marginalize while simultaneously feeding the smug complacency of the BAU mindset.

About your other comment: I agree, it's time to stop trying to convince anyone (except possibly family members). Where it gets very murky and sticky is with neighbors, especially those one is fond of, and whose children play with one's children.

"e Brutto" said...

Kieran
The good 'ole, printing money has got to be the least reliable way of increasing your GDP.
Elmo
Yes, I know say anything nasty about the Pres. and they lock you up without a public trial.
Still we fought 'them' when we had the industrial muscle and won with the aid of some members of the establishment, look at the Reform Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832
One of my grandfathers was a trade unionist 'blacked' from all the firms in his home town.
He died very poor and an alcoholic but people like him who won't back down scare our establishment silly.
After some form of confrontation like the poll tax riots they back down and compromise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_Tax_Riots
To be fair to all your workers of the world types - having the French Revolution over le manche has helped to concentrate our politicians minds.
Along with more liberal regimes in Europe since WII.
Still at the end of the day it is always down to you and how much you value freedom by risking your liberty.
What did you do when congress refused to pay wages due to the continental army - nothing.
The New Model Army mutinied repeatedly if wages were not paid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Model_Army
Just my opinion, probably a bit of reactionary US bashing ;¬)

Unknown said...

Minor qualification to my previous criticism of postpeakliving.com. There are references to e.g. the Hirsch report and a couple of others...but the site still gives the impression it's an original synthesis of all the puzzle pieces. In fairness I guess the courses might have some value for newbies.

Elmo said...

e_Brutto said: "Just my opinion, probably a bit of reactionary US bashing ;¬)"

OK by me! I've been doing it myself since I was 10.