trailer trash

The recent BP drilling disaster has unleashed turbulent commentary about “Peak Oil”, as last week President Obama poignantly labelled the spill the “environment’s 9/11”. Coverage has spiralled even further as BP now admits that there are not the resources or tools to contain a deepwater oil leak. BP’s failure to disclose the truth now poses further questions about its approach to safety in general - ‘big buck’ corporations involved with BP or with similar critical production techniques are now being lined up for heavy scrutiny.

Obama takes an awkward stance on the Oil Crisis

It’s a relief to see that Obama has realised the severity of the spill. Following his attacks on BP’s continued failure to contain the oil blow-out, he has taken the unusual step of calling a special press conference to discuss the ongoing crisis. For those who didn’t manage to catch it, a session was broadcast live from the White House on YouTube, followed by a virtual Q&A session with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. For the full interactive experience the White House embedded a Google moderator form into the YouTube channel that enabled the public to vote for their favourite questions. See if  Gibb’s online answers satisfied the digital population here.

It’s fair to say that our over reliance on fossil fuels is driving companies to take unnecessary environmental risks as highlighted by the Gulf oil disaster. Our trust and dependency on the ‘Peak Oil’ industry is examined widely in JTD title PetroApocalypse Now?, a short but scary journalistic investigation into the industry. Filmmaker Andrew Evans highlights oil’s pivotal place in society, a resource more central to the planet’s development than many realise. Evan’s argument that is a drug we have all become regulated by and tolerant to is a hard to ignore. Catch it in full here.

Source offers a peak into how the oil industry has had direct effect upon developing communities. Director Martin Marecek sets out to investigate the site of the world’s first oil well in the Azerbaijan town of Baku – a place eagerly explored by foreign investors, all of whom are hoping to line their pockets with the country’s hidden source of wealth. With much of the population living under the poverty line, the country’s post-Soviet government is promising that oil will turn Azerbaijan into a “proper country”, and a prosperous one at that. But what does this mean for its people? And will “the black stuff” be more of a curse than a blessing for this struggling country? Watch it in full here.