The focus on whether or not this particular spill should have an impact on a few dozen off shore oil rigs in North America really points out how we are not facing the real impact of the problem. For example Brazil is going through a major expansion of offshore drilling (it is so aggressive as to make the location of new platforms off the US coast unlikely simply due to the inavailability of oil platforms, now facing years of delay in delivery).
The US should immediately ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty and bring the community of nations together to work together to establish a world wide standard to the problem of how we use our oceans and atmosphere. For example one single oil field Brazil is projected to build 300 platforms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupi_oil_fieldOn May 1, 2009, Petrobas pumped the first crude oil from test well at Tupi field. The celebration ceremony for beginning of production was held aboard the Cidade de Sao Mateus floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO). The first producing well will provide output of 14,000 barrels per day (2,200 m3/d) while the second well is expected to produce 15,000 barrels per day (2,400 m3/d). Petrobras plans to produce an initial total of 100,000 barrels per day (16,000 m3/d) and 4 million cubic meters (cm) of gas by December 2010.<3> By 2020, Petrobras expects to produce up to 500,000 barrels per day (79,000 m3/d).<3>
Full field development may include up to 300 producing and injector wells with total gross oil production reaching 1,000,000 barrels per day (160,000 m3/d) and 1 bcfd of gas.<4><9> Drilling of first 15 wells has cost $1 billion. It is estimated that the total field cost will come to $50-$100 billion due to complexity of geological formation. Up to 12 FPSO's might be needed to produce oil at Tupi.<10>
That is from a single development. Hundreds of areas have been identified for exploration.
Crude oil in the Oceans is completely fungible. Pollution in the atmosphere is completely fungible.
For these reasons it is no longer possible to establish national protocols for how we use the Oceans and the Atmosphere on a national basis.
The only solution to establish criteria, monitoring and accountability is to establish a UN agency (styled like UNESCO, UNHCR, UNICEF, et al., they are not really UN agencies but Intergovernmental Committees using the UN rubric) that works to establish a universal code with a tax for producers that would fund a world wide monitoring agency and a world wide disaster response capability.
The nation state system is simply not going to be adequate to establishing the kind of universal criteria that is now needed. The same applies for the atmosphere.
Currently UNESCO has a small intergovernmental committee called the Intergovernmental Oceanic Commission but what is needed is a full blown United Nations Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency to
1) Establish universal standards for drilling, and other commercial uses of the Oceans and the Atmosphere.
2) Create a license fee that establishes a producers fund that will pay for the work of UNOAA.
3) Establish world wide monitoring capability (paid for by the fund)
4) Create and manage a world wide disaster response capability (paid for by the fund).
The link to the quaint but ineffective Intergovernmental Oceanic Commission is here:
http://www.ioc-unesco.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=14&Itemid=112The neocon response:
The US has not even ratified the UN Law of the Sea Treaty which was opened for signature 28 years ago.
In 2004 Bush and establishment Republicans like Senator Lugar tried to push the bill through:
here is how a neocon put it:
http://www.americanpolicy.org/un/seatreaty.htmSenate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) and his allies are mad because they had hoped to sneak LOST through the Senate before anyone noticed. Opponents to the Treaty foiled that trick and blasted it to the nation. Americans rose up in protest and now the Law of the Sea Treaty is stuck. Lugar seemed genuinely shocked by the strength of the anti-treaty protests. Now it appears LOST is being held up without a scheduled vote by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_non-ratification_of_the_UNCLOSWhat prevented it from going ahead? This statement from the high priestess of the neocon movement probably killed it:
On April 24, 2004 Jeane Kirkpatrick (Reagan Administration United Nations Ambassador 1981-1985), testified against United States ratification of the treaty before the Senate Armed Services Committee, in which she argued that "Viewed from the perspective of U.S. interests and Reagan Administration principles, it was a bad bargain," and that "its ratification will diminish our capacity for self-government, including, ultimately, our capacity for self-defense." <2>
With a Democratic controlled Senate Chairman Biden passed the bill to the floor of the Senate:
And on "October 31, 2007, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send the treaty to the full U.S. Senate for a vote.<4>" Norm Coleman was one of the leaders in opposing the treaty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_non-ratification_of_the_UNCLOSSOS Clinton has made ratification of the treaty (which Bush also supported) a priority.
More than 150 nations have joined it and other nations have indicated that they will join when the US ratifies it:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN31335584The U.S. Navy already follows many of the rules established by the treaty and backs ratification. It says the treaty will give sailors greater protection under international law.
U.S. ratification also should draw other nations into related partnerships, the Navy said on Wednesday, citing the Proliferation Security Initiative that allows the United States and allies to search ships suspected of carrying weapons.
Specifically, Indonesia and Malaysia have told the U.S. military they will join that initiative if the United States ratifies the Law of the Sea treaty, according to Rear Adm. Bruce MacDonald, judge advocate general of the Navy.
Another example of how the radical right in the US continues to have a disasterous impact on the quality of life not just in the US but outside of our borders and threatens our basic ability to coordinate and cooperate with other nations to solve real problems.