Nigeria’s Agony Dwarfs the Gulf of Mexico oil spill

http://www.puppetgov.com/2010/05/31/nigerias-agony-dwarfs-the-gulf-oil-spill-and-the-us-and-europe-ignore-it/

Well, let us call this (another) 'inconvenient truth' - all along the same lines as the GoM oil spill..

The oil companies have been raiding and raping the Niger Delta in Africa for the last 50 yrs. Very much happens there that we never hear about... I mean, I live on the continent and this is the first time that I have come to know the real extend and gross negative impact it has on this sensitive ecological area that sustains much more than just an eco system!! It is the very lively hood of drinking water, fishing and vegetation for human beings, that now barely lives beyond the age of 40 due to the contamination of their habitat, as well as being the life blood of the rest of the continent as waterways are all somehow connected. Our own waters close to Cape Town, has been called 'dead' by anglers and divers on occasion.. Dolphins are a scarce sight nowadays, that I've noticed myself for a long time already..

It made me realize that one of the very ways to 'awake' is to really wake up! about what went wrong and is still going wrong in the world around us.. and then find the solutions. Getting the monsters out from underneath the bed, so we can deal with them..

A couple of phrases from the article that really struck me:

"In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico.."

"That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today."

"On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards."

"..Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: “Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable.”

"With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution."

"It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that secret. However, two major independent investigations over the past four years suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far."

"According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone."

"Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil development in Ecuador, said: “Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to care.”

Well, now we know.. now we care.. and now we need to find Real answers to a Real Global Threat that has been obscured from us for so long, but blown wide open the day the GoM Oil Disaster exploded onto the pages and screens of our daily lives and minds...
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Copied from http://www.gaiasouls.com/groups/profile/1703

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Yogi Sinzapatos
http://a-plan-for-peace.com