Quest for oil leaves trail of damage across the globe

[kpete]

Source: McClatchy

Quest for oil leaves trail of damage across the globe

Like many of her neighbors, Celina Harpe is angry about the oil pollution at her doorstep. No longer can she eat the silvery fish that dart along the shore near her home. Even the wind that hurries over the water reeks of oil waste.

"I get so mad," she said. "I feel very sad."

Harpe, 70, isn't a casualty of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She lives in a remote corner of Alberta, Canada, where another oil field that's vital to the United States is damaging one of the world's most important ecosystems: Canada's northern forest.

Across the globe, people such as Harpe in oil-producing regions are watching the catastrophe in the Gulf with a mixture of horror, hope and resignation. To some, the black tide is a global event that finally may awaken the world to the real cost of oil.

"This is a call to attention for all humanity," said Pablo Fajardo, a lawyer in Ecuador who's suing Chevron over oil pollution in the Amazon on behalf of 30,000 plaintiffs.



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/16/94126/quest-for-oil-leaves-trail-of.html

[sce56]

1. Oil Black Gold or Black Poison!

[Oregone]

2. A bit of both

[ashling]

4. The Black Death

Ring aroung the rosie
:puke:

[azul]

3. The black crude curse.

Sometimes I wonder if oil is still alive somehow as in Fritz Lieber's story The Black Gondolier: The oil is sentient and sends up agents in disguise (Cheney, Gates, etc.) to do us mischief.

The curse of the native peoples of the Americas for dealing so harshly and unjustly with them and this land. Many of the people here now think that oil and tar is real wealth and it has addled their minds. They have tricked themselves and lost their way and perhaps their souls burning up and killing for this black horror. It makes us drive around in circles and honk at each other too. Ha.

[Karenina]

5. Losing Louisiana...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQcPOQXc9vE&feature=channel