Re: The Greenpeace Chronicle

John Beardmore said:

> In message
> <pan.2005.10.24.00.47.37.87722@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Andy
> Baxter <news4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>>John Beardmore said:
>
>>> And why should the combined effects of one aspect / impact be given
>>> special pleading while other are assumed to be unworthy ?
>>
>>I'm thinking of a situation where someone has worked out, for example,
>>that dumping the brent spar would lead to an increase of some toxic
>>substance in the fat of edible fish in the North Sea by 1.5 parts per
>>million. They might decide that this was not a health hazard, and
>>therefore 'acceptable'.
>
> Yes - I see what you mean, but if a single incident could raise the
> level by 1.5 ppm permanently I would be inclined to rule out dumping.
> Was this in fact the case ?

I've no idea - just saying why 'treating each case on its merits' could
sometimes miss the point. The point being that it wasn't just about the
Brent Spar, it was about a broader policy around what to do with a load of
ageing oil rigs.

> But what sorts of substances persist like this, and why would they be on
> the BS ? The obvious well publicised examples are things like dioxins
> and PCBs.

I was thinking that crude oil maybe contains heavy metals. I don't know
and have no way of finding out whether it is that toxic - just going on
the general idea that it's something which isn't normally in the natural
environment in those quantities, so it may well have harmful
effects. Whether it does or not is something to be worked out in an
environmental impact assessment, which I wouldn't know how to carry out. I
guess what I'm saying is that at first sight, dumping a large piece of
industrial waste machinery into the sea seems like a bad idea, and it's up
to the people who are saying it's safe to prove that it is. Some things
you could be fairly sure are safe - e.g. steel piping from a gas
installation, which won't do anything but sit and slowly rust away, but I
don't think you can say that about the brent spar.

> Can't see why dioxins would be there at all. Can you ? And
> nasty though they are, they don't persist for ever, but do have a half
> life in biological systems typically measured in decades. PCBs maybe,
> from transformer oil ? Would BS be any worse for transformers than any
> other rig or ship of that size ? If a ship sinks, do we mourn for the
> environmental impact of the oil of its transformers ? Again, I don't
> know, but GP didn't make a case based on any specific material - rather
> they made a lot of non specific allegations, whipped up a whole heap of
> activist angst, and in effect lent justification to activists damaging
> property without substantial foundation. Is this responsible ?

I agree on that - they should do their research first to find out whether
there really is a problem before making a media show of it. Where they
come into their own is where some organisation is doing something wrong
but trying to either hide what they are doing, whitewash it in the
media, or just push it through politically without consultation. In those
situations, greenpeace are good at using the media against them by
carrying out dramatic actions that hold people's attention.

> "On 16 February last year, Greenpeace learned that the UK
> government had granted permission for Shell Oil to dump a
> huge, heavily contaminated oil installation, the 4,000 tonne
> Brent Spar, into the North Atlantic despite it being loaded
> with toxic and radioactive sludge."
>
>
> Of course the contents were toxic. You wouldn't eat crude oil would
> you ? But were the contents more toxic than you'd expect for crude oil
> sludge ? And if so, why ?

Why would they have to be, unless it's OK to dump ordinary crude oil
sludge?

> And why were the contents radioactive ? How radioactive were they ?
> Clearly not radioactive enough to stop GP making "plans to take over and
> occupy the rig to prevent the dumping".

That was probably a red herring - it's easy to throw words like that
around without saying whether you mean radioactive at the same level as
granite rock is radioactive, for example.

>>The point being that 'judging each case on its merits' may not be good
>>enough in situations like this. Whether pollution from old oil rigs is
>>like this, I don't know, but it seems pretty plausible that it could be.
>
> OK then. Name the compounds that make it plausible. As far as I know
> (which may not be much), it was a crude oil storage platform. It's not
> clear to me why it would be significantly radioactive, or what materials
> it carried would have significant persistence in biological systems (or
> at least, have any more persistence than crude oil !).

I can't - I have no idea what crude oil contains apart from some
combination of mixed length hydrocarbons. It's high in sulphur, I think,
but I don't think sulphur is that harmful to life. Making a policy of
dumping crude oil at sea in the hope that it will safely biodegrade sounds
like a bad idea though.

> Can you enlighten me ? GP didn't.
>
> GP seem to want me to take their word for it in the absence of
> quantitative data. Presumably if they have made up their minds, they
> have reasonable evidence or empirical data ?

Fair enough - I agree they should get their facts right before taking
action. Mostly I was just pointing out that your claim that 'each case
should be treated on its merits' isn't as straightforward as it sounds.
For example, I would guess that politics being what it is,
once sea dumping was agreed for the brent spar, it would have been easier
for those in favour of it to carry on doing so without as much attention
being given to the environmental risks.

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