27 January 2014

There is no such thing as “safe deep sea drilling”

Last week the leader of the Labour Party, David Cunliffe, announced that his party "has never opposed in principle to deep sea oil exploration, but if it is to proceed it needs to have the world's best practice environment standarts, full liability cover and clean up capacity." Unfortunately, there is no such thing as "safe deep sea drilling".

Last week the leader of the Labour Party, David Cunliffe, announced that his party “has never opposed in principle to deep sea oil exploration, but if it is to proceed it needs to have the world’s best practice environment standards,  full liability cover and clean up capacity.” Unfortunately, there is no such thing as “safe deep sea drilling”

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It is the very opposite of “safe” on so many levels. Not only  no laws, equipment or compensations can make up for the environmental damage if an oil spill happens. Also, the constantly warming climate, which fossil fuel companies are responsible for, will create even more very “unsafe” extreme weather events and all kinds of other dramatic impacts for local communities all over that world. 

Ironically, The Labour Party is going against their own words and “calls for action” on this one. Not so long ago, right before Christmas, they were asking people to send a Christmas card to John Key “to remind him what really matters to us”. One of the cards said: “Dear John, what I’d like for Christmas is Oil-free beaches”. Couple of weeks later, Labour is basically saying – possible oily beaches is fine, as long as they have an equipment to clean it up afterwards.

Seems like they are the ones who need to get and re-read their own Christmas card, and remind themselves what really matters.

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