At Climate Camp last week our main target was the Royal Bank of Scotland for it’s part in bankrolling climate change, but a secondary one was Edinburgh based Cairn Energy.

Cairn aren’t a famous name like BP or Shell, but right now they’re at the heart of one of the biggest battles that the environmental movement faces in the next few years: the fight to stop extreme oil extraction.

More and more geologists now suspect that the world is approaching peak oil, the point at which we will have reached the maximum rate of global oil production, after which the rate will decline and oil will become harder and harder to extract. Most of the world’s most easily tapped reserves of oil are in production or in fact have already peaked. With declining availability, the price of oil gets pushed up. This problem is made even worse by the fact that financial speculators on the commodity markets take advantage of the situation, and push the price up even further. In this situation it becomes profitable to get oil from places so extreme that before companies wouldn’t have bothered.

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As we’ve previously reported, the US is currently facing probably its worst environmental disaster of all time, in the shape of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A disaster caused by the corporate greed of BP, determined to drill no matter the consequences, and the incompetence of government regulators compromised by oil company money.

But just how big is the oil slick? Well, over at If it was my home they can use google maps to show you compared to your local familiar terrain. Here’s the spill compared to Scotland. Oh dear.

A sign put up by people in Louisiana who face the destruction of their environment and livelihoods

As Leftfield previously reported, the US is currently undergoing one of its worst environmental disasters of all time. Last month, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico started an oil spill of gargantuan proportions. For weeks huge quantities of oil have been pouring into a pristine natural environment, devastating the species that live in it as well as the lives of the people living along the Gulf coast. Gulf fishermen are likely to be left without a livelihood.

As the full weight of this catastrophe sinks in, attention is increasingly turning to the role of the Obama administration in supporting BP, the company that operated Deepwater Horizon.

BP is the fourth largest company on Planet Earth. As of 2007 it had $292 billion in revenue. They use some of that money to directly influence the American political process. In 2008, the year of the last Presidential elections, the biggest recipient of BP’s cash was Barack Obama, who got $71,051 for his campaign.

In 2009 BP allocated $16 million for lobbying Congress. They allocated another $3.5 million for the first quarter of 2010.

The year following Obama’s election, the US Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service exempted the Deepwater Horizon from a detailed environmental assessment, concluding that the risk of a massive spill was unlikely. This followed intense lobbying by BP to have their rig exempted from the rules of environmental protection laws. In a letter to the White House, BP said the waiver would “avoid unnecessary paperwork and delays.” Those assessments that did take place claimed, in accordance with BP, that a spill like the one currently going on was impossible.

The massive spill seen from space: note the scale

Considering the billions to be gained in profits, BP must have considered the money they put towards getting Barack Obama elected money well spent.

In their application to drill, BP themselves admitted they weren’t going to put in place any further environmental protection measures than the bare minimum required by regulations.

Kierán Suckling, executive director of the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, said the federal waiver “put BP entirely in control” of the way it conducted its drilling.

“The agency’s oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-stamping British Petroleum’s self-serving drilling plans,” Suckling said.

Freed from the possibility of proper inspection, it turns out that BP then went on to drill deeper than they had been licensed to. And a safety valve to turn off the oil in case of an explosion was not installed, because it was considered too expensive.

Since the disaster, Obama has struggled to look tough on the issue, claiming BP were completely responsible and will be made to pay. But this distracts from his own role, and the role of his government, in allowing this disaster to happen.

Since the US government declared Deepwater Horizon safe, 11 workers have gone missing, presumed dead. Oil gushes from the sea bed at the rate of 4000 barrels a day, and already covers an area larger than Puerto Rico. Efforts to cap the spill with a specially manufactured tower have so far failed, and the tower has had to be pulled out. Hundreds of people have already been made unemployed due to the devastation of fisheries, and as time goes on many more will lose their jobs. The damage to unique ecosystem of the Gulf will likely last centuries.

It seems unbelievable that BP or the Obama administration thought you could drill through 13,000 feet of rock below 5,000 feet of water without significant risk. But that’s the corrosive effect of capitalism: the people running BP, an entity with more power than most countries, cared more about the short term profits to be made than the centuries of damage they could do. The US government is corrupted and controlled by these powerful companies, and can’t be relied on to protect its own people.

Its beyond urgent that the global energy economy is taken out of these hands of these corporations. Putting energy in the hands of people, and meeting our needs on a not for profit basis is one of the most crucial issues facing the human race.

Updates: The Centre for Biological Diversity reports that even after the spill had begun, the Minerals Management Service has been offering waivers on detailed inspections, and continues to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for the drilling industry. So far, nothing has changed in the government’s pro-oil stance, which comes at the expense of living things that live near oil fields, including human beings.

In his latest column, Fidel Castro (the retired leader of the Cuban revolution) mentions the spill:

“Such developments as the recent environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico show how little the governments can do against those in control of capital. These are the ones who, both in the United States and in Europe, through the economy of our globalized planet decide the fate of the peoples.”

'The Spill' by Venezuelan cartoonist Eneko

One of the worst environmental disasters in US history is currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, and the reactions to it are an indictment of the capitalist oil industry and their bought-and-paid-for politicians.

After an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig, operated by BP, an underwater oil well is currently discharging 790,000 – 4 million litres of oil a day into a precious marine wilderness that is home to a whole range of species that have already been pushed to the brink of extinction by human activity, such as loggerhead turtles. Eleven workers are missing, presumed dead. The spill already covers an area the size of Puerto Rico.

Louie Miller, Mississippi State Director of the Sierra Club, said: “I don’t think I’m overstating the case by saying this is America’s Chernobyl.”

The US government has put the blame for the disaster on the shoulders of BP, who recently announced a 135% increase in profits for the first quarter of 2010. Although BP have accepted responsibility, also involved were the notorious Halliburton of Dick Cheney/privatising Iraq fame, who were responsible for placing a concrete cap on the undersea well. But what all of this ignores is the responsibility of the government itself, after just last month Obama announced permission for further offshore oil drilling in US waters, a decision that was slammed by environmentalists.

The burning, sinking Deepwater Horizon rig

The fact of the matter is that accidents like this are inevitable with offshore oil drilling. Just last year, a similar blowout took place in the Timor sea off Australia, but unlike the current disaster, didn’t receive the same worldwide media coverage. Obama rejected calls from environmentalists to cancel planned lease sales in the mid-Atlantic for more offshore oil drilling in the aftermath of the disaster. His was just the most public face of a massive PR offensive to try and keep the offshore oil drilling programme on schedule.

Obama’s stated motivation is to reduce the dependence of the US on foreign oil, primarily from the Middle East, which is a real strategic consideration for US imperialism. But more simply, politicians in the US need millions of dollars to be able to fight and in election campaigns, and most of that money comes from corporate donors such as the oil industry.

Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a state whose Gulf coastline will be devastated by the oil, told the Senate on Friday “I don’t believe we should retreat” on offshore drilling. In a complete betrayal of the ordinary people of her state, who are set to face the destruction of their environment and livelihoods, she pushed hard for continued extraction. She has repeatedly tried to downplay the disaster to the media, claiming it will soon be resolved, rather than the truth which is that this will devastate the Gulf of Mexico for years to come.

The reason for her hard work? Between 2000-8, Landrieu received $547,000 from oil companies, making her one of the highest recipients of oil money in the US Congress.

The spill seen from space. See the tiny white dot of a plane in the upper left for a sense of scale.

Mainstream media outlets have also picked up the slack, with articles such as the New York Times’ ‘The spill vs. a need to drill,’ which claimed that a fossil fuel free future is “decades away”. The fact remains however that this propaganda is only required to cover up the obvious: the huge amounts of investment being poured into the offshore drilling programme could be used to transform the US and world energy economy to one dependent on wind, solar and other non-deadly forms of power.

BP itself has also been busy. Although the costs of the clean up have already wiped 6% off their market value, federal law itself limits the non cleanup costs for BP to $75 million. But BP have found an ingenious way to try and get out of their obligations to the communities they have devastated: they are tricking local fishermen out of the right to sue them for the damage to their livelihoods.

It works like this: BP are paying local fishermen to help with the cleanup operation. These fishermen, who very shortly aren’t going to have virtually any fish left to catch in the dead waters, are desperate for cash and sign up. But the contracts contain clauses exempting BP from responsibility, meaning the fishermen are waiving their right to make BP pay for their environmental crimes. BP claim this is just a legal mixup, but the consequences will be the same.

The Gulf of Mexico is a region of incredible ecological diversity and natural beauty. But it is also home to fascinating human cultural diversity, with a people who are the products of waves of settlement over centuries, including the Cajun people descended from French colonists, Native Americans, descendants of African slaves and other European peoples. These human communities have already faced the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, and the failure of capitalism to protect them from natural disaster. Now, they have to face a disaster directly caused by the actions of the capitalist oil industry. For the sake of humans and the ecological homes they inhabit, it’s time for the world to start bringing the oil industry to a conclusion, and taking energy industries out of the hands of profit making corporations in order to transform the energy economy into an ecologically sustainable future.

Yeah Baby!

Looking for a quick way to raise some extra cash? Have you ever considered lying to the world and then sending over a million innocent civilians and British soldiers to their deaths? Because it’s really pretty lucrative in the long run.

Former Prime Monster Tony Blair has been raking it in since he moved out of Downing Street. Embarrassing details have just emerged of just how much he’s made as a result of the war in Iraq that he helped start, so embarrassing that he’s fought to keep them secret for nearly two years.

South Korean oil consortium UI energy paid Tony Blair for a major consultancy as part of their efforts to increase their already massive interest in the oil fields of Kurdistan (in Northern Iraq.)

On top of that, the Kuwaiti royal family have been paying him £1 million to advise them. Kuwait has been in the news recently for the massive fines imposed by a court on a parliamentarian and journalists for criticising the PM. Incidentally, the Prime Minister in Kuwait has to be a member of the Royal Family, and is selected by the Emir.

Blair also makes huge sums through consultancies to a range of governments (mostly in the Middle East), as well as public speaking appearances. And of course, let’s not forget the £63, 468 pension and office allowance of £84, 000 a year that is paid for by the UK taxpayer!

All in all it’s estimated he’s made about £20 million since leaving office.

But most shocking is that starting a war for oil has ended up being so personally lucrative for Blair. If you were in any doubt that the war in Iraq was all about oil, just look at how closely personally he’s been working with oil companies.

The autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq is one of the most closely allied areas with US/UK forces. The Iraqi government in Baghdad has been angered by separate deals struck by Kurdish authorities with foreign companies like UI energy.

UI boasts of its links with prominent figures, such as former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, US Congressman Stephen J Solarz, the former US secretary of defence Frank C Carlucci, and US commander for the Middle East General John P Abizaid.

The contacts and influence Blair built up in the US and throughout the corrupt US-backed regimes in the Middle East have helped him get rich.

And what’s more, Blair knew how embarrassing this would be when it came out, and so asked the advisory committee on business appointments (which monitors top government officials work when they leave office) to keep it secret for 20 months. He claimed this was because of “market sensitivities”, but after he asked for yet another extension of how long his deal with UI was kept secret, the

"FFS, I told you not tell anyone about my business!"

committee lost patience.

When we marched against the war, with slogans like ‘No war for Oil!’, many people pictured faceless oil corporations. But in fact it’s now clear that the people at the heart of the war, the ones with blood on their hands, like Tony Blair, personally had a huge interest in it. Put simply, Tony Blair killed over a million people to make himself rich. He’s responsible for the crime of the century, and should be put on trial as a mass murdering war criminal.