January 15, 2016 • 66 mins
There's no two ways about it: oil spills and gas leaks are disastrous, causing massive amounts of ecological damage in a matter of days or hours. So how many occur each year? How many are actually reported, versus covered up? Listen in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:21):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, and I am Ben. Most importantly, as
we like to say at the top, you are you,
we hope, which makes this stuff they don't want you
to know? And we've got a little bit of administrative
business before we we really dive into today's topic. Right, Yes,
we anticipated a bit of let's say, helpful feedback. I
(00:46):
was gonna say the backlash. Well, I mean people are
trying to clarify, right for for us the way they
feel about things or what the way they think something
went down. Um. So that's the great thing about this
conversation that we have. We get to talk for a
while about what we've discovered, and then you listen and
you tell us, yes, so previously, oh wait, let's do
(01:09):
it like can you do like a previously unlost kind
of thing? Previously on stuff they don't want you to know,
we spoke about the modern militias, right, the militia movement
in the US, specifically the UH occupiers in Oregon at
a wildlife Refuge, which represents multiple militia groups and non
(01:30):
militia groups and is now united under the organization the
Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, led by a fellow named Ammond Bundy.
When whenever we touched most topics, we know that they're
going to be um. They're going to be responses from
people who agree with us and think we didn't go
(01:51):
far enough, or people who completely fundamentally disagree with us.
And one thing that I really appreciate about that is
that it gives us a good sense of what we're
doing right and what we can improve upon, because if
no one ever disagreed with us, that would mean we're
doing something massively wrong. But even more importantly, listeners, as
(02:14):
I've said before, the three of us might be on
the air, but for everyone who is listening to this,
this is this is your show, and our best ideas
come from you, and some of our best feedback or
some of the best leads for stuff we should look into,
uh come from you as well. So in the time
between since we last recorded and since this episode is
(02:38):
being recorded, I read a lot of email, read a
lot of YouTube comments, and some tweets as well, and
there were there were a couple of really good points
that were raised that I feel like we must address
so that other listeners who checked out our previous episode
will get some of the full picture. So I want
(03:00):
to just take a second to add briefly some information
that didn't make it into our last episode. And I
also want to thank all of you who wrote in
to help us out with this. So we didn't talk
very much about the Bureau of Land Management, which controls
a lot of rancher rights and federally owned land in
(03:25):
the US. So one of the background stories about the Hammonds,
Dwight and Steve Hammond, who were ranchers, that um, they're
incarceration and re sentencing, which is a really rare thing
that kind of smaxed double jeopardy. They they were the
(03:46):
catalyst for this occupation by Bundy and the Citizens for
Constitutional Freedom. Uh, they were charged with two crimes, or
they were charged, you know, with arson essentially. However, we
read some other sources and uh we we found that, uh,
(04:07):
there's this belief that the Bureau of Land Management was
actually um stitching these guys up, framing them essentially because
they refused to sell their land. To Uncle Sam and
that the Bureau of Land Management was grabbing all of
the other private land in the area and then started
(04:28):
like depriving them of water sources with their cattle, um
and also edging them out the way that a city
would um, a city would use you know, imminent domain
or something, or private developers shore buying up all the
land around a certain area so that you can have
a big, mixed used community. Yeah, and we wanted to
(04:48):
make sure we we at least brought that into the conversation.
So again a huge thank you to all of all
of you out there who helped us out to look
at that. Uh. Also side note, we heard that the
Hermans did notify the Bureau of Land Management before initiating
their first burn, which was in the early two thousands. Yeah,
(05:11):
it seems like a responsible thing to do for a
group of people who are just going to go out
and set a fire, you know, on purpose to hurt people,
if that's you know, when you're trying to When they
were trying to um prosecute these guys, there are all
these questions about is it going to cause harm to
another human being? Could it cause harm to other livestock?
(05:31):
Could it cause harm to all these other things. And
you know, when you're going to go and tell the
Bureau of Land Management that you're going to do this
and for this purpose, I don't know it. For me,
it calls it calls into question a little bit of
the argument about the severity of why these mandatory minimums
should be enforced, or it could also call into argument,
(05:51):
reasonably the motivations of this agency, the Bureau of Land Management.
So we want to put that out there. If you
want to have some more information about this, uh, you
can search the internet pretty easily. I've found some stuff,
you know. I know a lot of our listeners don't
care for info wars, and it's true that info wars,
(06:14):
like many other outlets, has its own bias, right, so
you have to be aware of bias anytime you check
it out. Info Wars has information on this daily wire
as well. Yeah, there, I would say, if you were
going to use I have to just fight back really fast.
I think info wars is a fine source only because
you can use a lot of times what's being blogged
(06:34):
about there and there will be links to other sources
or something that they are sourcing. And that's what I
use info wars for UM. I just I really think
that you can use that as a jumping off point
almost and sometimes when you know, maybe some of the
biases that go into a certain kind of reporting, that's
a helpful place to jump off from as well. In
(06:55):
a lot of ways. Yeah, that's not a bat that's
not a bad idea. Often when we're like watching Fox News,
you know, to get a certain perspective, and then watching
MSNBC and figuring out what's in the middle. Yeah, that's
exactly what I was going to say, because when we're
delving into a topic, what I often try to do
is find the if there are two sides to it,
(07:17):
find those sides, find the clear advocates of each of
those sides, and read what they're saying and what and
what they're not saying, and from that attempt to triangulate
a position. And then of course trying to find the
holy grail of research, which would be pure data, pure
statistics that are not muddied by agenda. And that is
(07:38):
a very difficult thing to find. So anyhow, we wanted
to thank you for that. You can check out this
You can check out this side of that argument by
searching Hammond Land grab and uh. With that, without further ado,
let's go into today's topic, which is something that you
brought to the table, right, Matt. This is something that
(08:01):
piqued my interest. A current event that's coming out of
California in Los Angeles County. Uh. It's a gas leak
that is occurring that I think we're going to get
into a little bit later, at least the specifics about it,
but it's something that made I think us all think
about what what happens when there is an environmental disaster
(08:24):
from a company that is meant to or they're just
trying to make energy out of a fossil fuel or
another type of gas and natural gas, when there's an
accident or when something is leaking or you know, these
are volatile chemicals a lot of the times, and they're
in huge amounts being stored somewhere or you know, in
(08:46):
either stored in the earth in a giant pocket or
in a big facility, and you know it's dangerous. So
just to be clear, this is not an episode about
nuclear catastrophe. This is not about uh, that's a whole
other This is not about Chernobyl or Fukushima. Well yeah,
and it just really quick speaking of that Chernobyl that disaster.
(09:08):
RT I noticed put a story out talking about this,
uh this leak that we're going to talk about, and
they said, it's a Chernobyl in l A essentially, and
uh no, it is not a Chernobyl in l A.
It is dangerous and it is not good, but it
is not Chernoble. Let's say. I mean, I'm always a
little suspect of hyperbolieve that magnitude. Uh yeah, that's a
(09:29):
very that's a that's a good point. It does get
people to click on the website though, right as truely,
I guess that's the age we're living in, which kind
of brings us to the bigger question that we're posing today,
which is how do corporations or do corporations cover up
fossil fuel leaks or in general, other disasters like this.
(09:50):
I'll be honest, I'm excited about this one because sometimes
we look at things where we'll say, well, this is
a theory, you know, this is likely just degree or
there is some sort of seed of truth. But ladies
and gentlemen, today that is not the case. We're going
to we're talking specifically about these disasters concerning fossil fuels
(10:10):
in the aftermath or the lead up to. But I
do want to leave space at the end for us
to talk about other oil related or fossil fuel related conspiracies,
because I think there's so much here that we're not
going to get to in the space of this episode. Anyhow,
you guys know that we are part of an outfit
(10:31):
called how Stuff Works. So we like to start at
the basic simplistic stuff and then build our build our
school of thoughts, right or our analysis from there. So
let's start with first things first. What what is a
fossil fuel? So a fossil fuel is basically a hydrocarbon
(10:52):
deposit like petroleum, our coal, or natural gas, which comes
from accumulated remains of ancient plants or animals. People often
joke that, you know, we're driving around with dinosaur remains,
you know, in our in our cars, right, cars are
powered by exploding dinosaurs. It's carbon, right, It's any carbon
(11:14):
based life form that is embedded pretty deep within the
earth or in tars hands. And do you not remember
a time when you found this out where you were
like that's crazy, Like I thought fossils were reprecious, you know,
I thought like we needed to preserve these things and
put the museums were just we're just gonna burn them
up in our stupid cars. Oh yeah, it's very different. Yeah,
it's very different. It's not Brontosaurus bones. Hold on there
(11:39):
and old I'm gonna put my skeptic shirt on. Hold
on one second. Okay, now that I've got this on,
that is a fine shirt. But isn't it. It's very nice.
It's got a Jurassic Park logo on it. Appropriate, right,
I feel like you're getting at something. No, I'm not
getting anything. It's just something that I remember hearing about
a little while ago. This gas company that I was
(12:01):
not around. I was not I was about fifty years
before I was born. They decided to put a dinosaur
as their logo, the sin Clear Oil Corporation I think
it was called. And it led to this huge myth
that dinosaur fossils in fossil fuels are that's what's in
fossil fuels, obviously dinosaurs. Well, I mean it seems like
(12:22):
it's probably not true. The hydrocarbons that were formed way
back when we're talking about hundreds of millions of years
before dinosaurs, at least according to what we believe scientifically,
the timeline doesn't work out, not not quite. Thank you
for putting that particular myth to bed. I didn't. I
didn't put it to bed. It's still awake and it's
(12:44):
running around. I don't know, as far as I'm concerned,
it's in bed. Well, good night. Well let's talk about
specifically the kind of fossil fuels you mentioned, Nolan. So
we have some pretty good introductions to what fossil fuels
are from something called the environ Mental and Energy Study Institute. Uh.
These these folks have pretty good descriptions about the three
(13:07):
primary sources of fossil fuel. So one, let's start with
the big guy. The frontman of the band is oil.
The oil is the world's primary fuel source, and it
looks like it's still gonna be for a little while,
given how much cheaper it is today. Most oil that
you or I or you know you Matt would use
(13:29):
is extracted by being pumped out of underground reservoirs, and
it can also be found in shale and tar sands.
Shout out to fracking. Once this stuff is extracted, however,
you can't use it right away. You can't drive up
to an oil derrick and pop a nozzle in your
in your car and drive off, or if you try,
(13:51):
you will not get very far at all. Crude oil
has to be processed in oil refineries to create different
end products like oil, gasoline you're using your car, liquefied
petroleum gas, and other stuff too that you know sometimes
we don't think about as quickly, like pesticides, fertilized yeah. Oh,
(14:11):
especially plastics. Yeah. And right now, the US leads the
world in consumption of petroleum rounds nineteen a little bit
over nineteen million barrels a day uh in and imports
four point five million barrels a day. The main countries
(14:33):
that are exporting this product to the US are Canada, Mexico,
Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria. And again, for a long time,
most of the US is for and oil didn't come
from the Middle East. It came from Canada. Common misconception.
(14:53):
But while oil is the prime mover huh in terms
of its use in transit, it is by no means
able to replace the other two sorts of fossil fuel.
Right alright, So another biggie is coal, which is yeah,
it's primarily used for electricity generation, and responsible for about
(15:18):
of the electric power supply in the United States as
of which is down by half from two thousand and seven.
And the I think the US produces something like eleven
and a half percent of the world's coal power, or
at least uses eleven and a half percent. It's one
of those things too, where because the ep A regulations,
it's becoming less and less cost effective for the companies
(15:39):
that are making the money to build new coal plants.
In fact, you very rarely see new coal plants being
built because they have to install these scrubbers, you know,
and like it's all these new regulations, no such thing.
But they are able to you know, minimize or let's say,
mitigate some of the environmental concerns, which as we know,
are a big deal when it comes to coal, and
(15:59):
in several in several states, some of which you may
find yourself in today listeners, such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, etcetera.
Coal production is a huge part of the economy and
you can imagine the economic effects that occur when some
when of the countries electric system relies on coal and
(16:23):
then it plummets the thirty Yeah, I mean, it's like
some of the areas, even around here in Georgia, where
like the the local economies were tied very closely to
the housing market, for example, so that kind of manufacturing
of materials for housing went away certain counties, their unemployment
rate went through the roof. Similarly, in some of these
(16:44):
areas where coal mining is king, um, that's visually nothing
else to do. There's really no other jobs. So if that,
you know, drops, then you're having some problems by and
can I take a Well, I'm going to ask for
forgiveness rather than permission, because there is something that often
bugs me that a lot of people don't understand. When
(17:06):
you hear people touting hybrid or alternative energy cars and saying, oh, well,
I'm not hooked on the fossil fuels. I'm doing my part.
That's fine if that's what you want to believe, as
long as you're not smug about it. Don't don't ever
be smug about what you're doing. It's gross. Just don't
(17:27):
just don't be smug. And here's why. Here's why. Especially
if you have an acquaintance or a friend or a
relative who does that kind of holier than thou act,
check which state you're in because if you are driving
an electric car in a state using cold powered electric plants,
then what they are doing is driving a coal powered
(17:48):
car full stop, and they're just putting the source of
the fossil fuel a little bit further away philosophically, So
feel free to bust them and if they have a
problem with it, send them to me. I mean, I
think it's a it's a personal philosophical bonus. Let's say, Um,
you know, for me, having a hybrid is largely about
just being more efficient, you know, in terms of gas
(18:11):
mileage and things like that. You know, it's a nice
it's nice to be able to feel like you or
maybe making a little bit of a difference. But let's
not let's not fool ourselves. But let's also not be cynical,
ben because every little bit helps. It's it is true
that every little bit helps, right, and if a lot
of people do a little bit, then it adds up. Sure,
But when we talk about coal, as huge of a
(18:32):
deal as coal is here in the US, this is
a very small slice of the pie and the larger
context right which brings us to China is the global
leader in coal production, responsible for forty five of the
world's supply, and as we know, there are places in
(18:54):
China where you just can't breathe. You got were a masking.
It just can't you just gonna you know, just not possible.
And the government is is working to uh to somehow
mitigate that. But yeah, to the point where it is dangerous,
medically dangerous to be exposed for too long and it's
spend too much time. I'm not trying to be on
a soapbox here, but this is uh somewhat of a
(19:16):
window into unchecked you know, capitalism. It's it's funny that
you say that because remember, within our lifetimes, within your
lifetime as well, listener, quite possibly, uh, the country of China,
the People's Republic of China, was painted as this ultimate
uh communists collective. But what we see is that there's
(19:40):
it's not quite as clear cuts. It's a hybrid. I
guess I use the word capitalism loosely. I just mean
in terms of unchecked industry, unchecked you know well, and
and also industrial revolution of ways, the the evolution of
industries over time, and use of energy. You it's this
(20:00):
weird ladder that you climb up as technology increases and
as you get more capital, and you can you can
put more money into that. And there's One of my
old professors used a phrase that I thought was interesting.
He said that when the manufacturing basis of the world
moved towards China, which may not be the case for
(20:23):
too much longer, when manufacturing bases moved towards China, what
was really occurring was that the countries who were manufacturing
stuff in China were really just outsourcing their pollution. So
just like driving a hybrid car in a coal poward state,
it's still the same thing. It's just further away. Push
(20:44):
it over there, further away philosophically, farther away geographically. But
let's be honest, guys, the world as it stands today
cannot function without coal. It just cannot. At this point. Now,
in our lifetimes, it is quite possible that coal will
not be as important as it is. But for now,
(21:07):
if all the coal just vanished, it would the lights
would go out. It would be a lot of places.
Terrible situation. Yeah, and that's not even the all of
the fossil fuel. We've got one more right now. We
have this thing, this thing called natural gas, which I
always loved, called natural gas, It feels so, I don't
know gluten free. What is unnatural gas? Is it? Well,
(21:31):
he's being trapped in the elevator with a flatulent person
as the new father of a young child, I know
what unnatural gases? Oh man, okay, but anyway, great marketing day. Yes,
um so. Natural gas comprised roughly of the United States
total energy use in it's almost a third, almost a third.
(21:55):
You may have seen this stuff everywhere. You may have
seen busses riding around your town that are known natural gas,
or maybe some big trucks, maybe a couple I don't
know if it's fed X or ups were which one
of those that's using natural gas. It's also used to
produce non transportation things too, similar to oil, right, yeah, sure,
if you've got a gas powered let's say, water heater
(22:16):
in your house, or a stove like I do, a
gas powered stove, even lights. Sometimes natural gases in your paint,
your plastics, your fertilizer. So the US actually produces about
ninetent of the world's natural gas and consumes about and
natural gas is most commonly transported by pipeline, which makes
(22:38):
Canada really really important player and exporter to the United States.
While Russia continues to be the main supplier for most
of Europe through the state owned company gas problem and
the pipeline. The pipeline stuff is fascinating because you can
look at maps of proposed pipelines, and you can also
(22:59):
look at maps of wars in our conflicts in Central
Asia and the Middle East and perhaps to be surprised
by potential correlation between the two. And even you know,
there's a new there's a new trend. I don't want
to call it new, but there's a growing trend to
ship this stuff, liquefied natural gas via ship rather than
(23:24):
via pipeline because there's a growing demand for this sort
of fuel. One of the benefits or potential benefits of
natural gases that it burns a lot cleaner than coal
and oil, so you're not going to get as many
of the pollutants, especially when you're burning the stuff. Um,
I think there's something like zero sulfur dioxide emissions, and
(23:46):
then there's all there's also a lot less nitrogen oxide,
and then these little particulate emissions they get released when
you burn the stuff, So that I mean, I would
say that's a big plus for natural gas and for
anyone who wants to be in that business, and for
anyone who want it was going to have natural gas
near their home. Let's say, alright, so as we're getting
to as we're getting to the crazier part, the stranger
(24:10):
part of the show, let's just do some statistics real quick,
you guys, Okay, if I do a few more statistics
started up? Man, alright, So global oil consumption over it grew,
but it only grew a little bit. It grew less
than one percent. It grew point eight percent, and it
was even smaller. For coal and natural gas, they increased
(24:34):
by about less than half a percent. So even though
this demand is still increasing, which is what the the
opposite of what a lot of world leaders want. Uh,
the several countries got together, the G seven, which would
be Japan, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, US, the
(24:55):
whole crew. They have agreed to phase out the use
of fossil fuels. But get this, the end of the century,
which sounds like a long time right here we are
in ten, but it's not very long at all if
you consider again the statistics we just said about energy use.
(25:16):
So there is increased energy consumption in most of the world,
but it's not quite in line with it's not quite
in line with some of the expectations. So there there's
more energy consumption, more people are using fossil fuels in
(25:39):
North America and on the continent of Africa. However, in
the European Union it's actually declining, which is which is
going to UH, which is gonna come back in In
several different shows we do later global oil production growth
over again, these are most recent numbers. We have popped
(25:59):
up by two million barrels a day. UH. Non OPEC
production increased by two point one barrels a day, and
that's the largest increase in the history of humanity measuring
this stuff. So if we look at just the US,
specifically our friends at British Petroleum, UH, according to their estimation,
(26:22):
the US is the world leader in both oil and
natural gas production, and we're regaining that title in oil
with the last time we had it was I love
how I'm saying we as though I get a check
at the end of the day for it. It's the Royal.
It's the Royal we right, UH, and we're in the
US using the Royal. We look at it, look at us.
(26:43):
Ladi DA. The US produced eleven point six billion barrels
of oil in ten billion with a b H, and
that overtakes both UH Russia and Saudi Arabia, who were
producing UH. Saudi Arabia is producing eleven point five billion
(27:03):
barrels and a lot of people don't think about the
US outproducing Saudi Arabian oil. And it's by a slim margin,
but it's still uh, it's still there. The current state
of legislation, as we said, G seven and other countries
have these big plans, big plans, right, we're gonna have
We're gonna have solar energy that's super efficient, will be
(27:23):
powered by the sun and the wind and the water
like some kind of Captain planet. Well, it's possible. I
think it's still possible, but it is absolutely it is
absolutely possible. They just need, you know, a couple of
trillion dollars to set all the infrastructure up, and they
were good. Yeah. I like the idea of combining these
different sources too. You know, you've got like when the
(27:45):
sun doesn't shine, you got the wind, when you got
with his water. I was reading a thing the other
week about how I think it's Portland. Of course, UM
has installed turbines in the plumbing, like the city of
sewage pipes, so when people flush the toilet, it turns
these turbines. They usually to generate some amount of electricity
that gets into the grid. So, I mean, we know
these solutions exist. It's just a matter of a little
(28:06):
innovation and a little bit of you know, investment. But
there's a given take to this because the push for
alternative energy often waxes and wanes based on the price
of a barrel of oil. So when oil was a
hundred dollars hundred u s dollars a barrel, than any
alternative source that could match that cost, that price point
(28:31):
makes sense. Now that the price of oil is plummeting,
there is less of an incentive, So what what's going
to happen. That doesn't mean it's impossible. Such a narrow
view of it, though, you know, I mean, it just
feels like you're not looking at the real issue. I
don't know, it's general you, the general you, and the
royal way. We're starting an army of pronoun hypothetical army,
(28:55):
hypothetical army. But that you know, that's a great point.
That's something that we're going to see how being over
and over again over the next few years. Right. However,
in the long term, that's the goal. That's everybody's goal.
It doesn't matter what ideology there is, it is the
goal is to create some sort of uh energy source
(29:19):
that is that frees us from the strange uh, the
strange cycle of fossil fuel, and right now, fossil fuel
is it's the huge business. You know, oil companies have
fundamentally affected the direction of human civilization, from the way
(29:43):
nations are formed, to the way they fall, from the
which currency people around the world use. And many times
people will say that oil companies are not playing even
in the modern day. They're not playing according to the rules.
And we're gonna get into that right after we take
(30:03):
a short break and you're a message from our sponsors.
There's where it gets crazy. So these ideas of corporations
(30:25):
covering up oil spills fossil fuel leaks are not conspiracy theories,
you know, are conspiracy facts. We're gonna talk about a
couple of examples here, and we'd like to hear your
opinion of this, especially if you have personal experience with
with these events, and I have, uh somewhat, I have
a little bit actually vicariously from a previous let's call
(30:49):
it previous life or something. But the first one I
want to talk about is the deep Water Horizon spill.
As some of our listeners may not remember this, or
maybe it wasn't big news in your part of the world,
but it sure wasn't ours. So travel with us a
two thousand and ten in the Gulf of Mexico one
(31:13):
mile underwater something called the Mircondo Oil Well, and this
is extracting. This is built to extract, uh, some of
those reservoirs we're talking about, and this is a massive reservoir. Right.
It's good business until that is the well blows apart,
which is bad medicine for the semi submersible oil rig
(31:34):
atop the water a mile up extracting this oil. It's
known as the deep Water Horizon, and it explodes, killing
eleven workers injuring seventeen and letting a massive deluge of
oil through the Gulf of Mexico for a long time,
for a very long time. This is a for about
(31:56):
eighty seven days. This is a place where, this place
where a third of the US seafood arrives from. This
is a place where all along the shore, they're they're beaches.
There are small towns that rely on you know, tourism.
The entire space is built on seafood and tourism. I
mean really that almost all of it. And BP, which
(32:19):
was the operator of Deep Water Rising U immediately goes
into panic mode and they say, Okay, we're gonna hire
so many people are gonna mitigate this disaster as best
we can, because we're talking about by the time it's
all said and done, we're talking about two hundred and
ten million gallons of oil, which is something that's hard
(32:41):
to visualize. Yeah, and so BP finds something they call
it disperse into and they say, we're going to put
out one point for million gallons of this dispersing. And
here's what the dispersing will do. It will, uh, it
will attach itself to the oil in the water, will
(33:01):
break that oil into droplets and disperse those droplets into
the vast reaches of the gulf so that it doesn't
reach the shoreline. Yeah. So so we'll make it less concentrated.
And now it's not going to be such a big
deal because well, you know, not all the shrimp are
gonna get you know, infected with oil. Didn't also supposedly
(33:24):
make it easier to like soak up using some other
materials that they had they would put right. They would
not NAT's exactly, but there was some sort of material
they would cast out that supposedly would like actually soak
up the oil. But the disperse it wasn't the only
thing that we're doing, because again, this is just so
much oil. This is one of the largest spills accidental
(33:45):
spills in history, and so they were throwing everything they
could add it. And the best thing about this dispersing,
which its brand name or street name is Core Exit,
was that it was if you follow the right precautions visually,
it was safe to you. So all these all these
employees who are hired to help combat this disaster or
(34:08):
volunteers in many cases, uh, we're also going to be
taken care of. And and you know, the residents in
affected areas. Everybody better core eggs at than oil, right
at least that is until hundreds to thousands of workers
on the clean up started having strange ailments, you know,
muscle spasms, short term memory loss hot and I'm not
(34:31):
talking about hopping in the car and forgetting where you're
driving or walking into a room and forgetting why you
walked in. I'm talking about hopping into a car realizing
you're not wearing pants, which is funny until it really
happens to you. Yeah, it wasn't. These are symptoms that
are similar to things too, symptoms that were being experienced
(34:52):
by veterans. Yeah, with like the Gulf Force syndrome stuff. Yes, yeah, yeah,
that's according to Michael Robo show, Louisiana physician, and he
was a former state senator. He found a hundred and
fourteen patients with these similar complaints and he said he's
never seen this grouping of symptoms together skin problems in
the logical impairments plus pulmonary problems, at least until other
(35:16):
people recognize this as so similar to those who suffer
from Gulf War syndrome, which maybe we should cover to
in an upcoming episode. So j The well is finally plugged.
This is the biggest oil leak in world's history, two
hundred and ten million gallons of oil into the Gulf
(35:39):
of Mexico. Yep. Two hundred and ten The thing is now.
Despite the enormity of this disaster, it's not often remembered,
even though it is one of here's the thing. It
is one of it leads to one of the largest,
most expensive of corporate trials in US history. While this
(36:05):
stuff is happening, bp IS is trying to mitigate the
environmental damage, but they're also doing damage control for their
their public persona. Right, I'm pretty sure I just have
to jump in and say, in my opinion, not the
opinion and house of how Stuff Works or any of
our parent companies. Matt Frederick, citing his opinion here, I
believe that the damage control began to save or at
(36:28):
least mitigate the effects on the company itself well before
anybody made calls about, you know, saving lives. And that's
just my opinion because it felt that way and the
steps that we're taking the corrects it itself. The disperse
itt that was supposed to help people, you know, we
found out that it caused terrible things to humans who
are working with it. We also found out that it
(36:48):
didn't actually disperse anything. What it did is it it
clumped up with the oil and it sank it to
the bottom so that cameras couldn't see. Not to mention
the no fly zone that was instituted over top of
most of the Gulf of Mexico when it was happening.
I just get sorry, I get I get a little
I get upset because I remember when we were covering this,
we made a video about it, and I was really
(37:10):
deep into it, and I just, uh, there's so many
people who are affected by it, and then BP ended
up getting out of a lot of the money that
they were going to have to pay. But it does,
it does go on from there at least. Well, I
you know, I'm glad you you anticipated that we're talking
about the flat no fly zone because that's gonna come up.
But I do have to respectfully disagree because companies of
(37:34):
this size have the ability to do both of those things.
Can currently you know I I I am completely sure
that a plan exists for this sort of stuff on
the PR side as well as on the emergency response side,
because that has to be in place. Well, it should
be in place just for insurance purposes. Okay, So I'm
(37:57):
not saying it's altruism. I'm saying that it's a necessary
step in doing business, and also like having a high
profile response um to aid people that the public would
see as being victims of this right off the bat,
not to mention the long term victims in terms of
the people that lost their businesses, lost their livelihood. I
(38:18):
think that's an important part of any PR campaign, you know,
to be seen as being quick to respond and to
take care of our own people, you know, who we're
putting their lives in danger to, you know, make us
a whole lot of money. Just don't worry about the
residents of the Gulf of Mexico. There's a lot of
goes into this man there and it continues. I I
I'm right there with you. I remember when this was happening,
(38:39):
and the thought that occurred to me was there and
it's never gonna be the same ever again. Like you
know this it's sort of like with Pukushima, and you
know that proved not necessarily be the case with both
of those things. But I remember my brain at the
time seeing that oil gushing out on TV and it's like,
how how how is it still how is it still gushing?
How is this possible? That was definitely there was definitely
(39:00):
image management there, because this is something that um Matt
and I talked about when we were making a video,
which was the snow fly zone supposedly for safety or
some other nominally reasonable cause it seemed like it was
just as plausible that this would be to prevent mass
(39:23):
media images of gigantic oil slicks right nautical miles wide.
But the the other part of it is I used
to have a job before I worked here. It's true,
ladies and gentlemen, I didn't always work here, And in
that job, people would call me when disasters occurred. This
(39:43):
could be something as small as hitting a deer in
the backwoods of Ohio. This could be something as personally
catastrophic as your house part of your house burning down.
This could be something disastrous like the old lady who
(40:03):
called me during Hurricane Katrina because she was in the
third floor of her house the water was rising and
no one else would answer the phone. And having encountering
situations like this, one of the first things that happened
is that whomever is supposed to be the first line
of response for a you know, for like, call this
(40:24):
number in case of a disaster in oil leak have
very very stringent rules about what they can and cannot
say and how to essentially refer people to someone else
who will refer them to someone else. And it's a
it's dangerous it's a dangerous thing. I have a difficult
time ascribing motives with certitude, but we can measure actions.
(40:47):
And if you would like to learn more about the
deep water horizon, you know, I would ask I would
ask you to check out our video on that. Now,
it's early in our career. It's early in our strange
experiment of stuff. They don't want you to so be kind. Well, yeah,
and a lot of there were a lot of pending
things with litigation going on at that time, and fines
that we're trying to be levied against BP, and then
(41:10):
it would get out of some of them, and then
there would be more fines laid on them, and then
these felonies came along a little bit later. Um. I
was reading the scene in the New York time has
been that BP agreed to pay eighteen point seven billion
dollars in total like paying out claims. And the fact
(41:31):
that they can do that and still exists. What does
that tell you about the magnetitude of a company like that,
and just the oil industry, the fossil fuel industry at large.
I mean, it's just of a leviathan. And again I'm
gonna say it like it is. It is true. It's
similar to a large international banking system, whereas fees for
(41:55):
breaking the law become a part of the business. But
it is not the same because these are not anticipated
events and at worst what they committed beforehand would maybe
be negligence. I mean, it's so convenient to it's so
convenient to UM have black and white villains. It is
(42:15):
so convenient, but it is not realistic. And I I
don't agree with the actions personally, but as far as
the facts, the facts speak for themselves. So regardless of
how you feel on a personal level, listeners about what
occurred with the deep Water Horizon spill that tragedy. UH
(42:36):
Congress or the Department of Justice actually gives UH gives
British Petroleum fourteen felonies they plead guilty, and one of
these included lying to Congress. Another included a four point
five billion dollar fine, the largest fine of its time
ever levied against the corporation in the US. So I
(42:58):
wouldn't call this a happy ending, but it is an
ending um of sorts. And this is not to say
that people some of you listening now may be feeling
the effects of core exit or be still living in
an area that remains affected by this spill. This is,
you know, by far, not the only example of these
(43:20):
sorts of things. There is another story. It takes place
a little bit further south in Ecuador. The Lago Agria
oil field was is an oil rich area near the
city of Nueva Loja in the province of Sgumbios, Ecuador. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a oil was discovered there in the sixties, right,
(43:42):
and it's known internationally now for the ecological problems that
oil development created there. So this is the waters polluted,
the soils contaminated, UH and you know, the trees are
being mowed down. Since nineteen, lawyers have tried to force
UH Mexico and its parent company Chevron to clean up
(44:04):
the area and to take care of or provide you know,
medical care compensation for the people who are affected. UH.
In February two thousand eleven, Ecuadorian court said, hey, Chevron,
you owe the people of this area eight billion dollars
in compensation. And Chevron said, nah, nah be that's a
(44:25):
legitimate that doesn't that doesn't make sense. That was a
really good Chevron impersonation. Thank you, Thank you. UM. Some
people do Christopher walking and specialize in Chevron. Uh. The
In two thousand and fourteen, however, the U S Court
said that this verdict was obtained illegally essentially, and said
(44:45):
there was bribing, was corruption, there was racketeering. Uh but
I'm sorry, can I stop me for a wee second?
That term racketeering? I just love, But what does it
really mean? Racketeering is a because you always think of
the Mafia, right and that movie The Rocketeer. Yes, what
(45:05):
happened in the Oh he wore a howlmet and had
a rocket suit and you know, fought the Nazis Um,
totally different word entirely, but if you would, I'm sure
some other people rockets. Okay, So racketeering is uh, it's
kind of a slang term and it comes from racket.
So the reason a lot of people, including myself, associated
(45:28):
with the mafia is because it's like an organized crime thing.
It's when an organized group or institution or association runs
an illegal business. Right, So we're fixing horse races, We're
what's a what's a good illegal thing? Loan sharking? We're
loan sharking. Yeah, mattnite, and you're getting the loan shark list.
(45:52):
That's more or less the image that I had of it,
but I just wanted to make sure or we're lobbying
in a country where that's illegal. Anyhow So, the US
court in says, okay, we'll grant you this injunction. Because
these this ruling had crime involved, you know, in reaching it,
and you know, involved coercion and stuff like that, no
(46:13):
court system in the world will be able to enforce
this um and this ruling. However, and you know this
is not to say that uh Chevron didn't didn't go
back and forth on saying, well, we did attempt to
clean or remediate the area, we've we've done what we're
(46:35):
supposed to do, or there's no proof that this is
associated with us, or that most of these crude spills
occurred after Texico withdrew. So the impact here is, according
to the plaintiffs, that there's a spike in cancer rates
and that it's due to contamination of the water. But
(46:57):
the oil company maintains that there's no causual link. You know,
there's no causation. So after after all of this happens,
people have people have gone back and forth with various
The fight got very very dirty, and it continues today
because I there were some tapes or video that was
(47:22):
a video acquired by people fighting on the Ecuadorian side
that apparently showed uh, engineers are contractors for the oil company,
just disregarding the proof, saying like, oh, uh, let's let's
check here and see if there's still oil in the area. Yeah,
(47:43):
you can find someone was on live leak. I've seen
several of those. Right, it's just blatant. Yeah. And then
the almost called it the Chevronian side, but the oil
company side says we also found videos where where in
an Ecuadorian judge during the time that the trial is
going on, just said out and now all right, yeah,
(48:04):
you know whatever, they're guilty. I'll just I'll like, I'll
basically sit through it and then just say they're guilty, like,
don't don't worry, don't you don't you worry, you're pretty head. Uh.
And you know it's illegal for a judge to do
that or and uh, I'm sure that some judges have,
but you know, it's also you got caught a video
doing that. However, it turned out in a publication that
(48:25):
one of the people associated with recording that video was
actually someone who's contracted with Chevron and blackmailed them, and
that person was moved to the US at Chevron's time
and paid an undisclosed settlement amount. I never would have
expected that, So uh as we are, you know, I
(48:46):
think that it's still in the system now that there's
still a legal battle going on, and we're not sure
how it's how it's gonna work out. There's a lot
of money at stake, and also the time horizon for
this is very long. You know, if you can afford
legal representation, then you have a case, and you're a company,
you have a case that could potentially become immortal in court.
(49:08):
And it helps if you, you know, produce oil, because
then you're basically just pulling money out of the ground,
billions and billions of dollars. That's an interesting way to
look at it. It's also more and more expensive though,
to to create oil, to to refine it, to find it.
Like Norway is going to be quite possibly a lot
(49:28):
of trouble because the um the system of Norway right
wherein the oil is pulled into a state owned corporation.
A lot of the budgeting for that is based on
a price point for a barrel of oil, which is
far higher than there is now. You know, so this
being um involved with oil as a state or as
(49:50):
a company does not make one immune. I'm not saying immune,
and I'm saying filthy rich. This is something that occurred
to me at the top of the show. Um, you know,
with the deep water horizon for example, that's just the
kind of unmitigated disaster that's just so in the public consciousness,
you know, and it's just on TV and it's just
on everybody's mind. You can't really cover it up. There's
(50:13):
things you could probably do, as you were saying, Matt,
to kind of mitigate what the damages will be to
your company in terms of how much you have to
pay out, etcetera. But this, uh, this Ecuador story to
me seems like one that would be easier to cover up.
Not easier, but it's just you know, this is not
what is the top of mind for many people, and
they think about these kinds of things. And I think
(50:34):
that this proof positive that there are um public relations
efforts that do stick. That people, the companies, they rewrite
history so that it benefits them and so you know,
you don't remember these things, and it happens all the time.
For breakfast, you know, that's a good question too. Well, yeah,
(50:55):
it's the it's the out of sight, out of mind thing, right,
that's it's happening in Ecuador and in the American in
the American public's mind. That just it stinks. But that's
the way it is. And I mean, you know, even
talking about the deep Water Horizon thing, I mean, I
was in a rage, and I you know, thinking back
on it now, I am still obviously, but it's certainly
(51:16):
not something I've been dwelling on daily. And a lot
of that has to do with the fact that these
efforts succeed. It was almost six years ago, it's true, Matt.
But can you think of anything that's happened in those
six years that was just drastically, you know, damaging to
our environments, you know, closer to home, affecting the lives
(51:37):
of people you may know, I don't know, it's just
it's a biggie, see your point. Maybe that's why I'm
still feels like an open wound, even though I wasn't
even affected that hard, which is crazy. I'm just one
of those people who goes on the Internet and winds
(51:58):
about it. I guess. No, it's easy to in turn
a lot of these things too. I mean, you're an
empathetic person, as I think are we all in this room.
For the most part, I have three feelings a year.
I'm excited the first one is going to kick in
around August. I look forward to that. But uh, well,
one one point I want to also make the so
(52:18):
towards us is are we not in some way responsible
for these sorts of things if we live in an
oil powered civilization? Right? Uh? And is there is there?
This is such a dangerous question. Is there some way
to look at the cost benefit on a large scale?
And is there some part in the deep dark recesses
(52:41):
of your American consumer mind that's like, well, that's just
the cost of doing business. I don't think it's I
don't think it's entirely fair to call it an American
consumer mind, because there are consumers around the world, of course,
But I just mean in terms of our consumption of
oil as a country and are dependent on it, and
you know, we won't be able to drive our cars
(53:01):
around and now we want all that stuff. I don't know.
Every time I get into my little conversion SUV thing,
I have this tremendous guilt And now that I'm thinking
about it. I'm such a hypocrite. Oh wow, wow, I'm
gonna go. I'm gonna go lay down the corner, guys.
So in and I understand. These are two separate cases
(53:22):
we've talked about so far, deep Water Horizon and the
case in Ecuador. In one case, uh, there was in
one case, one of the contentions was that it was
happened uh pretty far in the past now six years.
And then for deep Water the other one, in the
case of Ecuador, Uh, it was the idea that maybe
(53:45):
this is something happening in foreign countries, so it's a
bit easier to remove it from the public mind. So
what then, what would happen then? In the case where
there was something that was happening immediately like now now today,
and it was a little bit closer to home, that
would be like the situation that's happening in California at
(54:09):
the Lysso Canyon storage facility that holds natural gas and
or methane. Uh. Yeah, there's a big leak happening right there.
It's pretty insane. Yeah. So, uh, a runaway natural gas
leak right above l a Um has emitted more than
a hundred and fifty million pounds of methane since last October.
(54:31):
And you guys, I wasn't even aware of this story
until we started doing this. So just case in point
for real, it's in a place called Porter Ranch north
of Los Angeles. As you said there, Uh, it's a
it's a fairly affluent community or it's fairly well off.
Thousands of people in the area had to evacuate. Um,
(54:54):
we we know about this. It's it's not widespare reporting,
but it's not being exactly kept or raps. The story
starts around October twenty three. According to Amy Goodman, the
community was overtaken by noxious gases. Neighbors were reporting, you know,
the smell. They weren't feeling well, getting dizzy, and thinking
(55:16):
perhaps one house had a major gas leak. Yeah, I
think there's one. There's a bit of a time frame
there around when the gas company itself reported, or the ELSA,
the Elyssa Canyan storage facility actually reported that there is
a leak and active leak going on. And there are
(55:38):
a couple of stories from families who were experiencing the
things you're talking about, Ben, like the weird smells, Like
what is going on? Why is this happening right now, um,
a little bit a little bit before that, just because
it was maybe caught a little not late, but a
little later by the company itself. And the company to
which we're referring in this story is Southern California so
(56:00):
called Gas Southern California Gas Company. On the twenty eight
of October, a few days later, they went public with
a leak, and so Amy Goodman from Democracy Now reports
that the leak is so severe that it will actually
account for a quarter of the entire state of California's
(56:20):
methane emissions in just one month. One of the other
really bad things is that methane is uh not good
for overall global climate change. It's eighty six times worse
than carbon dioxide over a twenty year period um. And
then this one, you know, this one leak is just
(56:40):
putting so much of it out into the out in
the atmosphere. I think it's twelve hundred metric tons of
methane released every day from this one leak. And the
worst part is that there are experts actively working to
try and stop this thing. There are people out there
right now as we're recording this, trying to drill down
(57:02):
and make it stop. But it's gonna it's gonna take time.
It's gonna take a long time till about March. Right, yes,
so on Monday, January eighteen, so cal Gas is required
to put forward a detailed schedule of how this will
be handled, the running bets right now, or that this
(57:25):
will occur in this this leak will be closed plausibly
in March. Everybody's hoping for earlier. I have a question though, guys, um,
why do you think this story is getting comparatively less
attention than the deep water Horizon. I mean, what you're
describing to me is essentially a natural gas version of
(57:46):
what happened with the water horizon. It sounds like it's
a continued leak that is causing problems, health problems, you know,
with the people that live in that area, and it's
not stopped, hasn't been plugged yet, it's ongoing. Why do
you think this is something that's not as visible? Maybe
that's the answer. Yeah, exactly. Okay, So I was gonna
say what My first argumente it goes back to the
(58:08):
out of sight, out of sight, out of mind kind
of thing. Because methane is an invisible gas, you cannot
see it with your naked eye. The only way you
can see it is through infrared. Getting a fleer camera
and a couple a couple of groups did do that,
Earthworks and nonprofit organization got a flee your camera out
there so you could really see. This is huge. It
looks like black smoke just kind of billowing through and
(58:30):
following the wind. Um. That's pretty scary methane, isn't. I mean,
it's gonna cause some ill effects on your health if
you're exposed to it for long periods or enough of
it at high enough concentrations. But it's not the It's
not quite as dangerous, right, And I don't know, maybe
(58:51):
that's why it's also I don't know. There are a
lot of didn't What do you think, Ben, what would
probably would be remiss if we didn't mention in no
lie zone instituted one of the uh one of the
questions being was this instituted to prevent exposure to methane
from people flying in the air space or is this
(59:11):
instead to UH protect the image of the company. I
could I could clearly see it being to protect the airspace,
especially given that, um, if it's a very busy part
of you know, if it's if it's a part where
there are a lot of commercial airlines flying, then you
don't want to complicate that by having them fly through
(59:32):
some sort of methane volcano or you know, God forbid
somehow ignite. You know, it is flammable at certain concentrations.
So what do you think the future of this is.
Do you think there's a cover up of foot I
think the cover up is just completely not completely a
highly deregulated industry, the energy industry, and I think it's
(59:57):
more about politics and anything else, just you profits over
you know, consequences. But at the same time, there's so
many different ways to look at it. I think that
for me is the biggest issue. Like with the deep
water horizon thing, another similarity are the blast caps that
(01:00:18):
many countries at the time had in place. When you're
when a leak begins to happen in a deep water
drilling site, there are her in a lot of places
caps that explode and seal the entire thing when something
starts leaking really badly like that, and it contains it
through deregulation. We didn't have to do that. At least
(01:00:40):
people who are operating in the Gulf of Mexico through
the United States didn't have to do that. Okay, so
in that case, then with both of those cases, one
of the arguments, it sounds like one of the arguments
would be that if there's any conspiratorial or cover up stuff,
it can be found in the pre disaster face. Yeah,
(01:01:01):
and unfortunately, unfortunately it's a lot of There are a
lot of things that I probably am not a smart
enough human to go through and find the minutia and
the small legal ease that makes the difference between something
being safe and not safe. Um, and I'm not an
expert in a lot of these fields, but you know,
I think that's where you find it, and it's going
(01:01:21):
to require more looking on my part. Well, we are
definitely as far as I know, none of us are
oil exploration engineers right or oil rig workers, but you
listeners may well be. And I know that the oil
industry is suffering some tremendous shifts that are affecting affecting
(01:01:42):
people across the world in terms of their employment, their
quality of life. If you are affiliated with this industry,
I would love to hear the inside scoop. What do
you think the future of this stuff is? How do
companies handle these masters? And if your game, do you
have knowledge of a cover up? You guys. If we're
(01:02:05):
wrapped up on the topic today, I did just want
to end the show with one thing, um. As I'm
sure all of you or many of you know, UM,
David Bowie passed away this week on Sunday, and I
just wanted to say, in terms of what we talked
about on the show, I think, besides the fact that
(01:02:28):
you know, for me personally, was a real hero musically,
and I'm a musician and I've been a fan of
his work for a long time, but he did something
very very interesting, um when he passed away. This is
something that I don't think you could say many people,
celebrities or otherwise are able to do, and that he
(01:02:49):
really controlled the way that people experienced his death. He
released a record on his birthday, which was Friday of
last week before he passed away, and then he released
two music videos, both of which are visually's done fanti fantastic,
but one in particular, for the song Lazarus Um shows
(01:03:12):
him in a hospital bed with a blindfold on with
little button eyes and kind of like writhing around doing
this sort of st Vitus dance kind of thing, and
there are several versions of him. One is the one
in the hospital bed. One is sort of like wearing
this harlequin kind of like tight fitting, like almost a
mime costume. And there's another one who's puzzling over papers
(01:03:34):
at a desk, like a writing desk, And there are
lyrics in the song where he's talking about he says, look, man,
I'm in heaven. You know, I got scars that you
can't see. And as was you know, made known when
he did pass away, he had been suffering from cancer
for eighteen months, meaning that he knew his faith the
whole time he was making this record, and especially when
(01:03:56):
he was making these companion videos, and um, you know,
it's in a pretty emotion a couple of days for me.
I don't really get affected by people, you know, celebrities
quote unquote passing away, but this one hit pretty hard.
And I just think it was pretty a really incredible
sign of his artistry and his mind that he was
totally able to set the tone for the way people
(01:04:18):
experienced his passing. And I think that's very unique and
I just wanted to, you know, express that well, thank you.
No I know yeah, I know. My wife I was
pretty upset about it. You know, I guess I'm a
cold hearted person. I really like him, but I Robin
Williams affected me in the way that you're experiencing this.
(01:04:43):
I also think that we're gonna see conspiracy theories pop
up around this album and around the way he you know,
kind of did this, controlled this, kept it quiet. You know,
nobody knew except for a very few confidence that he
was was dying, and um, I just think it's interesting
when people are able to control their legacy in that way,
(01:05:05):
because so many musicians, especially they just let it go,
you know, like that they just keep doing it for money,
and they just you know, end up doing things that
are not um in their best interests, doing things that
are not artistically sound, that are not in line with
the good work they've done in the past. And he
never really did that, and uh to the last he
kind of like really owned his image. And I just
(01:05:26):
thought that was pretty fascinating. And I think we'll continue
to hear about things, you know, revolving around this process. Alright, guys,
So if you have experienced anything like an oil spill,
like if you were out there cleaning up after Deep
Art Horizon, if you know anyone who has, if you
(01:05:47):
want to talk to us about that, If you lived
in so Cal where you're being affected by any of
this stuff, let us know. I want to I'd like
to hear your experiences there. Or if you're an Ecuador
and you have a little more information about all what
exactly is going on there? Yeah, what's it like? Now?
Then write to us. You can write to us online.
We're on Facebook and Twitter as conspiracy Stuff. You can
(01:06:08):
also visit us at stuff they Don't Want You to
Know dot com, where you can find all of the
videos we've ever produced, along with an archive of the
audio podcasts and little bits and blurbs and blog posts
and the like. Or if you're not into all that,
you can just send a good old fashioned email. We
are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. From on
(01:06:36):
this topic and other unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy Stuff. You can also get in touch on
Twitter at the handle at conspiracy Stuff.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:21):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, and I am Ben. Most importantly, as
we like to say at the top, you are you,
we hope, which makes this stuff they don't want you
to know? And we've got a little bit of administrative
business before we we really dive into today's topic. Right, Yes,
we anticipated a bit of let's say, helpful feedback. I
(00:46):
was gonna say the backlash. Well, I mean people are
trying to clarify, right for for us the way they
feel about things or what the way they think something
went down. Um. So that's the great thing about this
conversation that we have. We get to talk for a
while about what we've discovered, and then you listen and
you tell us, yes, so previously, oh wait, let's do
(01:09):
it like can you do like a previously unlost kind
of thing? Previously on stuff they don't want you to know,
we spoke about the modern militias, right, the militia movement
in the US, specifically the UH occupiers in Oregon at
a wildlife Refuge, which represents multiple militia groups and non
(01:30):
militia groups and is now united under the organization the
Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, led by a fellow named Ammond Bundy.
When whenever we touched most topics, we know that they're
going to be um. They're going to be responses from
people who agree with us and think we didn't go
(01:51):
far enough, or people who completely fundamentally disagree with us.
And one thing that I really appreciate about that is
that it gives us a good sense of what we're
doing right and what we can improve upon, because if
no one ever disagreed with us, that would mean we're
doing something massively wrong. But even more importantly, listeners, as
(02:14):
I've said before, the three of us might be on
the air, but for everyone who is listening to this,
this is this is your show, and our best ideas
come from you, and some of our best feedback or
some of the best leads for stuff we should look into,
uh come from you as well. So in the time
between since we last recorded and since this episode is
(02:38):
being recorded, I read a lot of email, read a
lot of YouTube comments, and some tweets as well, and
there were there were a couple of really good points
that were raised that I feel like we must address
so that other listeners who checked out our previous episode
will get some of the full picture. So I want
(03:00):
to just take a second to add briefly some information
that didn't make it into our last episode. And I
also want to thank all of you who wrote in
to help us out with this. So we didn't talk
very much about the Bureau of Land Management, which controls
a lot of rancher rights and federally owned land in
(03:25):
the US. So one of the background stories about the Hammonds,
Dwight and Steve Hammond, who were ranchers, that um, they're
incarceration and re sentencing, which is a really rare thing
that kind of smaxed double jeopardy. They they were the
(03:46):
catalyst for this occupation by Bundy and the Citizens for
Constitutional Freedom. Uh, they were charged with two crimes, or
they were charged, you know, with arson essentially. However, we
read some other sources and uh we we found that, uh,
(04:07):
there's this belief that the Bureau of Land Management was
actually um stitching these guys up, framing them essentially because
they refused to sell their land. To Uncle Sam and
that the Bureau of Land Management was grabbing all of
the other private land in the area and then started
(04:28):
like depriving them of water sources with their cattle, um
and also edging them out the way that a city
would um, a city would use you know, imminent domain
or something, or private developers shore buying up all the
land around a certain area so that you can have
a big, mixed used community. Yeah, and we wanted to
(04:48):
make sure we we at least brought that into the conversation.
So again a huge thank you to all of all
of you out there who helped us out to look
at that. Uh. Also side note, we heard that the
Hermans did notify the Bureau of Land Management before initiating
their first burn, which was in the early two thousands. Yeah,
(05:11):
it seems like a responsible thing to do for a
group of people who are just going to go out
and set a fire, you know, on purpose to hurt people,
if that's you know, when you're trying to When they
were trying to um prosecute these guys, there are all
these questions about is it going to cause harm to
another human being? Could it cause harm to other livestock?
(05:31):
Could it cause harm to all these other things. And
you know, when you're going to go and tell the
Bureau of Land Management that you're going to do this
and for this purpose, I don't know it. For me,
it calls it calls into question a little bit of
the argument about the severity of why these mandatory minimums
should be enforced, or it could also call into argument,
(05:51):
reasonably the motivations of this agency, the Bureau of Land Management.
So we want to put that out there. If you
want to have some more information about this, uh, you
can search the internet pretty easily. I've found some stuff,
you know. I know a lot of our listeners don't
care for info wars, and it's true that info wars,
(06:14):
like many other outlets, has its own bias, right, so
you have to be aware of bias anytime you check
it out. Info Wars has information on this daily wire
as well. Yeah, there, I would say, if you were
going to use I have to just fight back really fast.
I think info wars is a fine source only because
you can use a lot of times what's being blogged
(06:34):
about there and there will be links to other sources
or something that they are sourcing. And that's what I
use info wars for UM. I just I really think
that you can use that as a jumping off point
almost and sometimes when you know, maybe some of the
biases that go into a certain kind of reporting, that's
a helpful place to jump off from as well. In
(06:55):
a lot of ways. Yeah, that's not a bat that's
not a bad idea. Often when we're like watching Fox News,
you know, to get a certain perspective, and then watching
MSNBC and figuring out what's in the middle. Yeah, that's
exactly what I was going to say, because when we're
delving into a topic, what I often try to do
is find the if there are two sides to it,
(07:17):
find those sides, find the clear advocates of each of
those sides, and read what they're saying and what and
what they're not saying, and from that attempt to triangulate
a position. And then of course trying to find the
holy grail of research, which would be pure data, pure
statistics that are not muddied by agenda. And that is
(07:38):
a very difficult thing to find. So anyhow, we wanted
to thank you for that. You can check out this
You can check out this side of that argument by
searching Hammond Land grab and uh. With that, without further ado,
let's go into today's topic, which is something that you
brought to the table, right, Matt. This is something that
(08:01):
piqued my interest. A current event that's coming out of
California in Los Angeles County. Uh. It's a gas leak
that is occurring that I think we're going to get
into a little bit later, at least the specifics about it,
but it's something that made I think us all think
about what what happens when there is an environmental disaster
(08:24):
from a company that is meant to or they're just
trying to make energy out of a fossil fuel or
another type of gas and natural gas, when there's an
accident or when something is leaking or you know, these
are volatile chemicals a lot of the times, and they're
in huge amounts being stored somewhere or you know, in
(08:46):
either stored in the earth in a giant pocket or
in a big facility, and you know it's dangerous. So
just to be clear, this is not an episode about
nuclear catastrophe. This is not about uh, that's a whole
other This is not about Chernobyl or Fukushima. Well yeah,
and it just really quick speaking of that Chernobyl that disaster.
(09:08):
RT I noticed put a story out talking about this,
uh this leak that we're going to talk about, and
they said, it's a Chernobyl in l A essentially, and
uh no, it is not a Chernobyl in l A.
It is dangerous and it is not good, but it
is not Chernoble. Let's say. I mean, I'm always a
little suspect of hyperbolieve that magnitude. Uh yeah, that's a
(09:29):
very that's a that's a good point. It does get
people to click on the website though, right as truely,
I guess that's the age we're living in, which kind
of brings us to the bigger question that we're posing today,
which is how do corporations or do corporations cover up
fossil fuel leaks or in general, other disasters like this.
(09:50):
I'll be honest, I'm excited about this one because sometimes
we look at things where we'll say, well, this is
a theory, you know, this is likely just degree or
there is some sort of seed of truth. But ladies
and gentlemen, today that is not the case. We're going
to we're talking specifically about these disasters concerning fossil fuels
(10:10):
in the aftermath or the lead up to. But I
do want to leave space at the end for us
to talk about other oil related or fossil fuel related conspiracies,
because I think there's so much here that we're not
going to get to in the space of this episode. Anyhow,
you guys know that we are part of an outfit
(10:31):
called how Stuff Works. So we like to start at
the basic simplistic stuff and then build our build our
school of thoughts, right or our analysis from there. So
let's start with first things first. What what is a
fossil fuel? So a fossil fuel is basically a hydrocarbon
(10:52):
deposit like petroleum, our coal, or natural gas, which comes
from accumulated remains of ancient plants or animals. People often
joke that, you know, we're driving around with dinosaur remains,
you know, in our in our cars, right, cars are
powered by exploding dinosaurs. It's carbon, right, It's any carbon
(11:14):
based life form that is embedded pretty deep within the
earth or in tars hands. And do you not remember
a time when you found this out where you were
like that's crazy, Like I thought fossils were reprecious, you know,
I thought like we needed to preserve these things and
put the museums were just we're just gonna burn them
up in our stupid cars. Oh yeah, it's very different. Yeah,
it's very different. It's not Brontosaurus bones. Hold on there
(11:39):
and old I'm gonna put my skeptic shirt on. Hold
on one second. Okay, now that I've got this on,
that is a fine shirt. But isn't it. It's very nice.
It's got a Jurassic Park logo on it. Appropriate, right,
I feel like you're getting at something. No, I'm not
getting anything. It's just something that I remember hearing about
a little while ago. This gas company that I was
(12:01):
not around. I was not I was about fifty years
before I was born. They decided to put a dinosaur
as their logo, the sin Clear Oil Corporation I think
it was called. And it led to this huge myth
that dinosaur fossils in fossil fuels are that's what's in
fossil fuels, obviously dinosaurs. Well, I mean it seems like
(12:22):
it's probably not true. The hydrocarbons that were formed way
back when we're talking about hundreds of millions of years
before dinosaurs, at least according to what we believe scientifically,
the timeline doesn't work out, not not quite. Thank you
for putting that particular myth to bed. I didn't. I
didn't put it to bed. It's still awake and it's
(12:44):
running around. I don't know, as far as I'm concerned,
it's in bed. Well, good night. Well let's talk about
specifically the kind of fossil fuels you mentioned, Nolan. So
we have some pretty good introductions to what fossil fuels
are from something called the environ Mental and Energy Study Institute. Uh.
These these folks have pretty good descriptions about the three
(13:07):
primary sources of fossil fuel. So one, let's start with
the big guy. The frontman of the band is oil.
The oil is the world's primary fuel source, and it
looks like it's still gonna be for a little while,
given how much cheaper it is today. Most oil that
you or I or you know you Matt would use
(13:29):
is extracted by being pumped out of underground reservoirs, and
it can also be found in shale and tar sands.
Shout out to fracking. Once this stuff is extracted, however,
you can't use it right away. You can't drive up
to an oil derrick and pop a nozzle in your
in your car and drive off, or if you try,
(13:51):
you will not get very far at all. Crude oil
has to be processed in oil refineries to create different
end products like oil, gasoline you're using your car, liquefied
petroleum gas, and other stuff too that you know sometimes
we don't think about as quickly, like pesticides, fertilized yeah. Oh,
(14:11):
especially plastics. Yeah. And right now, the US leads the
world in consumption of petroleum rounds nineteen a little bit
over nineteen million barrels a day uh in and imports
four point five million barrels a day. The main countries
(14:33):
that are exporting this product to the US are Canada, Mexico,
Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria. And again, for a long time,
most of the US is for and oil didn't come
from the Middle East. It came from Canada. Common misconception.
(14:53):
But while oil is the prime mover huh in terms
of its use in transit, it is by no means
able to replace the other two sorts of fossil fuel.
Right alright, So another biggie is coal, which is yeah,
it's primarily used for electricity generation, and responsible for about
(15:18):
of the electric power supply in the United States as
of which is down by half from two thousand and seven.
And the I think the US produces something like eleven
and a half percent of the world's coal power, or
at least uses eleven and a half percent. It's one
of those things too, where because the ep A regulations,
it's becoming less and less cost effective for the companies
(15:39):
that are making the money to build new coal plants.
In fact, you very rarely see new coal plants being
built because they have to install these scrubbers, you know,
and like it's all these new regulations, no such thing.
But they are able to you know, minimize or let's say,
mitigate some of the environmental concerns, which as we know,
are a big deal when it comes to coal, and
(15:59):
in several in several states, some of which you may
find yourself in today listeners, such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, etcetera.
Coal production is a huge part of the economy and
you can imagine the economic effects that occur when some
when of the countries electric system relies on coal and
(16:23):
then it plummets the thirty Yeah, I mean, it's like
some of the areas, even around here in Georgia, where
like the the local economies were tied very closely to
the housing market, for example, so that kind of manufacturing
of materials for housing went away certain counties, their unemployment
rate went through the roof. Similarly, in some of these
(16:44):
areas where coal mining is king, um, that's visually nothing
else to do. There's really no other jobs. So if that,
you know, drops, then you're having some problems by and
can I take a Well, I'm going to ask for
forgiveness rather than permission, because there is something that often
bugs me that a lot of people don't understand. When
(17:06):
you hear people touting hybrid or alternative energy cars and saying, oh, well,
I'm not hooked on the fossil fuels. I'm doing my part.
That's fine if that's what you want to believe, as
long as you're not smug about it. Don't don't ever
be smug about what you're doing. It's gross. Just don't
(17:27):
just don't be smug. And here's why. Here's why. Especially
if you have an acquaintance or a friend or a
relative who does that kind of holier than thou act,
check which state you're in because if you are driving
an electric car in a state using cold powered electric plants,
then what they are doing is driving a coal powered
(17:48):
car full stop, and they're just putting the source of
the fossil fuel a little bit further away philosophically, So
feel free to bust them and if they have a
problem with it, send them to me. I mean, I
think it's a it's a personal philosophical bonus. Let's say, Um,
you know, for me, having a hybrid is largely about
just being more efficient, you know, in terms of gas
(18:11):
mileage and things like that. You know, it's a nice
it's nice to be able to feel like you or
maybe making a little bit of a difference. But let's
not let's not fool ourselves. But let's also not be cynical,
ben because every little bit helps. It's it is true
that every little bit helps, right, and if a lot
of people do a little bit, then it adds up. Sure,
But when we talk about coal, as huge of a
(18:32):
deal as coal is here in the US, this is
a very small slice of the pie and the larger
context right which brings us to China is the global
leader in coal production, responsible for forty five of the
world's supply, and as we know, there are places in
(18:54):
China where you just can't breathe. You got were a masking.
It just can't you just gonna you know, just not possible.
And the government is is working to uh to somehow
mitigate that. But yeah, to the point where it is dangerous,
medically dangerous to be exposed for too long and it's
spend too much time. I'm not trying to be on
a soapbox here, but this is uh somewhat of a
(19:16):
window into unchecked you know, capitalism. It's it's funny that
you say that because remember, within our lifetimes, within your
lifetime as well, listener, quite possibly, uh, the country of China,
the People's Republic of China, was painted as this ultimate
uh communists collective. But what we see is that there's
(19:40):
it's not quite as clear cuts. It's a hybrid. I
guess I use the word capitalism loosely. I just mean
in terms of unchecked industry, unchecked you know well, and
and also industrial revolution of ways, the the evolution of
industries over time, and use of energy. You it's this
(20:00):
weird ladder that you climb up as technology increases and
as you get more capital, and you can you can
put more money into that. And there's One of my
old professors used a phrase that I thought was interesting.
He said that when the manufacturing basis of the world
moved towards China, which may not be the case for
(20:23):
too much longer, when manufacturing bases moved towards China, what
was really occurring was that the countries who were manufacturing
stuff in China were really just outsourcing their pollution. So
just like driving a hybrid car in a coal poward state,
it's still the same thing. It's just further away. Push
(20:44):
it over there, further away philosophically, farther away geographically. But
let's be honest, guys, the world as it stands today
cannot function without coal. It just cannot. At this point. Now,
in our lifetimes, it is quite possible that coal will
not be as important as it is. But for now,
(21:07):
if all the coal just vanished, it would the lights
would go out. It would be a lot of places.
Terrible situation. Yeah, and that's not even the all of
the fossil fuel. We've got one more right now. We
have this thing, this thing called natural gas, which I
always loved, called natural gas, It feels so, I don't
know gluten free. What is unnatural gas? Is it? Well,
(21:31):
he's being trapped in the elevator with a flatulent person
as the new father of a young child, I know
what unnatural gases? Oh man, okay, but anyway, great marketing day. Yes,
um so. Natural gas comprised roughly of the United States
total energy use in it's almost a third, almost a third.
(21:55):
You may have seen this stuff everywhere. You may have
seen busses riding around your town that are known natural gas,
or maybe some big trucks, maybe a couple I don't
know if it's fed X or ups were which one
of those that's using natural gas. It's also used to
produce non transportation things too, similar to oil, right, yeah, sure,
if you've got a gas powered let's say, water heater
(22:16):
in your house, or a stove like I do, a
gas powered stove, even lights. Sometimes natural gases in your paint,
your plastics, your fertilizer. So the US actually produces about
ninetent of the world's natural gas and consumes about and
natural gas is most commonly transported by pipeline, which makes
(22:38):
Canada really really important player and exporter to the United States.
While Russia continues to be the main supplier for most
of Europe through the state owned company gas problem and
the pipeline. The pipeline stuff is fascinating because you can
look at maps of proposed pipelines, and you can also
(22:59):
look at maps of wars in our conflicts in Central
Asia and the Middle East and perhaps to be surprised
by potential correlation between the two. And even you know,
there's a new there's a new trend. I don't want
to call it new, but there's a growing trend to
ship this stuff, liquefied natural gas via ship rather than
(23:24):
via pipeline because there's a growing demand for this sort
of fuel. One of the benefits or potential benefits of
natural gases that it burns a lot cleaner than coal
and oil, so you're not going to get as many
of the pollutants, especially when you're burning the stuff. Um,
I think there's something like zero sulfur dioxide emissions, and
(23:46):
then there's all there's also a lot less nitrogen oxide,
and then these little particulate emissions they get released when
you burn the stuff, So that I mean, I would
say that's a big plus for natural gas and for
anyone who wants to be in that business, and for
anyone who want it was going to have natural gas
near their home. Let's say, alright, so as we're getting
to as we're getting to the crazier part, the stranger
(24:10):
part of the show, let's just do some statistics real quick,
you guys, Okay, if I do a few more statistics
started up? Man, alright, So global oil consumption over it grew,
but it only grew a little bit. It grew less
than one percent. It grew point eight percent, and it
was even smaller. For coal and natural gas, they increased
(24:34):
by about less than half a percent. So even though
this demand is still increasing, which is what the the
opposite of what a lot of world leaders want. Uh,
the several countries got together, the G seven, which would
be Japan, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, US, the
(24:55):
whole crew. They have agreed to phase out the use
of fossil fuels. But get this, the end of the century,
which sounds like a long time right here we are
in ten, but it's not very long at all if
you consider again the statistics we just said about energy use.
(25:16):
So there is increased energy consumption in most of the world,
but it's not quite in line with it's not quite
in line with some of the expectations. So there there's
more energy consumption, more people are using fossil fuels in
(25:39):
North America and on the continent of Africa. However, in
the European Union it's actually declining, which is which is
going to UH, which is gonna come back in In
several different shows we do later global oil production growth
over again, these are most recent numbers. We have popped
(25:59):
up by two million barrels a day. UH. Non OPEC
production increased by two point one barrels a day, and
that's the largest increase in the history of humanity measuring
this stuff. So if we look at just the US,
specifically our friends at British Petroleum, UH, according to their estimation,
(26:22):
the US is the world leader in both oil and
natural gas production, and we're regaining that title in oil
with the last time we had it was I love
how I'm saying we as though I get a check
at the end of the day for it. It's the Royal.
It's the Royal we right, UH, and we're in the
US using the Royal. We look at it, look at us.
(26:43):
Ladi DA. The US produced eleven point six billion barrels
of oil in ten billion with a b H, and
that overtakes both UH Russia and Saudi Arabia, who were
producing UH. Saudi Arabia is producing eleven point five billion
(27:03):
barrels and a lot of people don't think about the
US outproducing Saudi Arabian oil. And it's by a slim margin,
but it's still uh, it's still there. The current state
of legislation, as we said, G seven and other countries
have these big plans, big plans, right, we're gonna have
We're gonna have solar energy that's super efficient, will be
(27:23):
powered by the sun and the wind and the water
like some kind of Captain planet. Well, it's possible. I
think it's still possible, but it is absolutely it is
absolutely possible. They just need, you know, a couple of
trillion dollars to set all the infrastructure up, and they
were good. Yeah. I like the idea of combining these
different sources too. You know, you've got like when the
(27:45):
sun doesn't shine, you got the wind, when you got
with his water. I was reading a thing the other
week about how I think it's Portland. Of course, UM
has installed turbines in the plumbing, like the city of
sewage pipes, so when people flush the toilet, it turns
these turbines. They usually to generate some amount of electricity
that gets into the grid. So, I mean, we know
these solutions exist. It's just a matter of a little
(28:06):
innovation and a little bit of you know, investment. But
there's a given take to this because the push for
alternative energy often waxes and wanes based on the price
of a barrel of oil. So when oil was a
hundred dollars hundred u s dollars a barrel, than any
alternative source that could match that cost, that price point
(28:31):
makes sense. Now that the price of oil is plummeting,
there is less of an incentive, So what what's going
to happen. That doesn't mean it's impossible. Such a narrow
view of it, though, you know, I mean, it just
feels like you're not looking at the real issue. I
don't know, it's general you, the general you, and the
royal way. We're starting an army of pronoun hypothetical army,
(28:55):
hypothetical army. But that you know, that's a great point.
That's something that we're going to see how being over
and over again over the next few years. Right. However,
in the long term, that's the goal. That's everybody's goal.
It doesn't matter what ideology there is, it is the
goal is to create some sort of uh energy source
(29:19):
that is that frees us from the strange uh, the
strange cycle of fossil fuel, and right now, fossil fuel
is it's the huge business. You know, oil companies have
fundamentally affected the direction of human civilization, from the way
(29:43):
nations are formed, to the way they fall, from the
which currency people around the world use. And many times
people will say that oil companies are not playing even
in the modern day. They're not playing according to the rules.
And we're gonna get into that right after we take
(30:03):
a short break and you're a message from our sponsors.
There's where it gets crazy. So these ideas of corporations
(30:25):
covering up oil spills fossil fuel leaks are not conspiracy theories,
you know, are conspiracy facts. We're gonna talk about a
couple of examples here, and we'd like to hear your
opinion of this, especially if you have personal experience with
with these events, and I have, uh somewhat, I have
a little bit actually vicariously from a previous let's call
(30:49):
it previous life or something. But the first one I
want to talk about is the deep Water Horizon spill.
As some of our listeners may not remember this, or
maybe it wasn't big news in your part of the world,
but it sure wasn't ours. So travel with us a
two thousand and ten in the Gulf of Mexico one
(31:13):
mile underwater something called the Mircondo Oil Well, and this
is extracting. This is built to extract, uh, some of
those reservoirs we're talking about, and this is a massive reservoir. Right.
It's good business until that is the well blows apart,
which is bad medicine for the semi submersible oil rig
(31:34):
atop the water a mile up extracting this oil. It's
known as the deep Water Horizon, and it explodes, killing
eleven workers injuring seventeen and letting a massive deluge of
oil through the Gulf of Mexico for a long time,
for a very long time. This is a for about
(31:56):
eighty seven days. This is a place where, this place
where a third of the US seafood arrives from. This
is a place where all along the shore, they're they're beaches.
There are small towns that rely on you know, tourism.
The entire space is built on seafood and tourism. I
mean really that almost all of it. And BP, which
(32:19):
was the operator of Deep Water Rising U immediately goes
into panic mode and they say, Okay, we're gonna hire
so many people are gonna mitigate this disaster as best
we can, because we're talking about by the time it's
all said and done, we're talking about two hundred and
ten million gallons of oil, which is something that's hard
(32:41):
to visualize. Yeah, and so BP finds something they call
it disperse into and they say, we're going to put
out one point for million gallons of this dispersing. And
here's what the dispersing will do. It will, uh, it
will attach itself to the oil in the water, will
(33:01):
break that oil into droplets and disperse those droplets into
the vast reaches of the gulf so that it doesn't
reach the shoreline. Yeah. So so we'll make it less concentrated.
And now it's not going to be such a big
deal because well, you know, not all the shrimp are
gonna get you know, infected with oil. Didn't also supposedly
(33:24):
make it easier to like soak up using some other
materials that they had they would put right. They would
not NAT's exactly, but there was some sort of material
they would cast out that supposedly would like actually soak
up the oil. But the disperse it wasn't the only
thing that we're doing, because again, this is just so
much oil. This is one of the largest spills accidental
(33:45):
spills in history, and so they were throwing everything they
could add it. And the best thing about this dispersing,
which its brand name or street name is Core Exit,
was that it was if you follow the right precautions visually,
it was safe to you. So all these all these
employees who are hired to help combat this disaster or
(34:08):
volunteers in many cases, uh, we're also going to be
taken care of. And and you know, the residents in
affected areas. Everybody better core eggs at than oil, right
at least that is until hundreds to thousands of workers
on the clean up started having strange ailments, you know,
muscle spasms, short term memory loss hot and I'm not
(34:31):
talking about hopping in the car and forgetting where you're
driving or walking into a room and forgetting why you
walked in. I'm talking about hopping into a car realizing
you're not wearing pants, which is funny until it really
happens to you. Yeah, it wasn't. These are symptoms that
are similar to things too, symptoms that were being experienced
(34:52):
by veterans. Yeah, with like the Gulf Force syndrome stuff. Yes, yeah, yeah,
that's according to Michael Robo show, Louisiana physician, and he
was a former state senator. He found a hundred and
fourteen patients with these similar complaints and he said he's
never seen this grouping of symptoms together skin problems in
the logical impairments plus pulmonary problems, at least until other
(35:16):
people recognize this as so similar to those who suffer
from Gulf War syndrome, which maybe we should cover to
in an upcoming episode. So j The well is finally plugged.
This is the biggest oil leak in world's history, two
hundred and ten million gallons of oil into the Gulf
(35:39):
of Mexico. Yep. Two hundred and ten The thing is now.
Despite the enormity of this disaster, it's not often remembered,
even though it is one of here's the thing. It
is one of it leads to one of the largest,
most expensive of corporate trials in US history. While this
(36:05):
stuff is happening, bp IS is trying to mitigate the
environmental damage, but they're also doing damage control for their
their public persona. Right, I'm pretty sure I just have
to jump in and say, in my opinion, not the
opinion and house of how Stuff Works or any of
our parent companies. Matt Frederick, citing his opinion here, I
believe that the damage control began to save or at
(36:28):
least mitigate the effects on the company itself well before
anybody made calls about, you know, saving lives. And that's
just my opinion because it felt that way and the
steps that we're taking the corrects it itself. The disperse
itt that was supposed to help people, you know, we
found out that it caused terrible things to humans who
are working with it. We also found out that it
(36:48):
didn't actually disperse anything. What it did is it it
clumped up with the oil and it sank it to
the bottom so that cameras couldn't see. Not to mention
the no fly zone that was instituted over top of
most of the Gulf of Mexico when it was happening.
I just get sorry, I get I get a little
I get upset because I remember when we were covering this,
we made a video about it, and I was really
(37:10):
deep into it, and I just, uh, there's so many
people who are affected by it, and then BP ended
up getting out of a lot of the money that
they were going to have to pay. But it does,
it does go on from there at least. Well, I
you know, I'm glad you you anticipated that we're talking
about the flat no fly zone because that's gonna come up.
But I do have to respectfully disagree because companies of
(37:34):
this size have the ability to do both of those things.
Can currently you know I I I am completely sure
that a plan exists for this sort of stuff on
the PR side as well as on the emergency response side,
because that has to be in place. Well, it should
be in place just for insurance purposes. Okay, So I'm
(37:57):
not saying it's altruism. I'm saying that it's a necessary
step in doing business, and also like having a high
profile response um to aid people that the public would
see as being victims of this right off the bat,
not to mention the long term victims in terms of
the people that lost their businesses, lost their livelihood. I
(38:18):
think that's an important part of any PR campaign, you know,
to be seen as being quick to respond and to
take care of our own people, you know, who we're
putting their lives in danger to, you know, make us
a whole lot of money. Just don't worry about the
residents of the Gulf of Mexico. There's a lot of
goes into this man there and it continues. I I
I'm right there with you. I remember when this was happening,
(38:39):
and the thought that occurred to me was there and
it's never gonna be the same ever again. Like you
know this it's sort of like with Pukushima, and you
know that proved not necessarily be the case with both
of those things. But I remember my brain at the
time seeing that oil gushing out on TV and it's like,
how how how is it still how is it still gushing?
How is this possible? That was definitely there was definitely
(39:00):
image management there, because this is something that um Matt
and I talked about when we were making a video,
which was the snow fly zone supposedly for safety or
some other nominally reasonable cause it seemed like it was
just as plausible that this would be to prevent mass
(39:23):
media images of gigantic oil slicks right nautical miles wide.
But the the other part of it is I used
to have a job before I worked here. It's true,
ladies and gentlemen, I didn't always work here, And in
that job, people would call me when disasters occurred. This
(39:43):
could be something as small as hitting a deer in
the backwoods of Ohio. This could be something as personally
catastrophic as your house part of your house burning down.
This could be something disastrous like the old lady who
(40:03):
called me during Hurricane Katrina because she was in the
third floor of her house the water was rising and
no one else would answer the phone. And having encountering
situations like this, one of the first things that happened
is that whomever is supposed to be the first line
of response for a you know, for like, call this
(40:24):
number in case of a disaster in oil leak have
very very stringent rules about what they can and cannot
say and how to essentially refer people to someone else
who will refer them to someone else. And it's a
it's dangerous it's a dangerous thing. I have a difficult
time ascribing motives with certitude, but we can measure actions.
(40:47):
And if you would like to learn more about the
deep water horizon, you know, I would ask I would
ask you to check out our video on that. Now,
it's early in our career. It's early in our strange
experiment of stuff. They don't want you to so be kind. Well, yeah,
and a lot of there were a lot of pending
things with litigation going on at that time, and fines
that we're trying to be levied against BP, and then
(41:10):
it would get out of some of them, and then
there would be more fines laid on them, and then
these felonies came along a little bit later. Um. I
was reading the scene in the New York time has
been that BP agreed to pay eighteen point seven billion
dollars in total like paying out claims. And the fact
(41:31):
that they can do that and still exists. What does
that tell you about the magnetitude of a company like that,
and just the oil industry, the fossil fuel industry at large.
I mean, it's just of a leviathan. And again I'm
gonna say it like it is. It is true. It's
similar to a large international banking system, whereas fees for
(41:55):
breaking the law become a part of the business. But
it is not the same because these are not anticipated
events and at worst what they committed beforehand would maybe
be negligence. I mean, it's so convenient to it's so
convenient to UM have black and white villains. It is
(42:15):
so convenient, but it is not realistic. And I I
don't agree with the actions personally, but as far as
the facts, the facts speak for themselves. So regardless of
how you feel on a personal level, listeners about what
occurred with the deep Water Horizon spill that tragedy. UH
(42:36):
Congress or the Department of Justice actually gives UH gives
British Petroleum fourteen felonies they plead guilty, and one of
these included lying to Congress. Another included a four point
five billion dollar fine, the largest fine of its time
ever levied against the corporation in the US. So I
(42:58):
wouldn't call this a happy ending, but it is an
ending um of sorts. And this is not to say
that people some of you listening now may be feeling
the effects of core exit or be still living in
an area that remains affected by this spill. This is,
you know, by far, not the only example of these
(43:20):
sorts of things. There is another story. It takes place
a little bit further south in Ecuador. The Lago Agria
oil field was is an oil rich area near the
city of Nueva Loja in the province of Sgumbios, Ecuador. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a oil was discovered there in the sixties, right,
(43:42):
and it's known internationally now for the ecological problems that
oil development created there. So this is the waters polluted,
the soils contaminated, UH and you know, the trees are
being mowed down. Since nineteen, lawyers have tried to force
UH Mexico and its parent company Chevron to clean up
(44:04):
the area and to take care of or provide you know,
medical care compensation for the people who are affected. UH.
In February two thousand eleven, Ecuadorian court said, hey, Chevron,
you owe the people of this area eight billion dollars
in compensation. And Chevron said, nah, nah be that's a
(44:25):
legitimate that doesn't that doesn't make sense. That was a
really good Chevron impersonation. Thank you, Thank you. UM. Some
people do Christopher walking and specialize in Chevron. Uh. The
In two thousand and fourteen, however, the U S Court
said that this verdict was obtained illegally essentially, and said
(44:45):
there was bribing, was corruption, there was racketeering. Uh but
I'm sorry, can I stop me for a wee second?
That term racketeering? I just love, But what does it
really mean? Racketeering is a because you always think of
the Mafia, right and that movie The Rocketeer. Yes, what
(45:05):
happened in the Oh he wore a howlmet and had
a rocket suit and you know, fought the Nazis Um,
totally different word entirely, but if you would, I'm sure
some other people rockets. Okay, So racketeering is uh, it's
kind of a slang term and it comes from racket.
So the reason a lot of people, including myself, associated
(45:28):
with the mafia is because it's like an organized crime thing.
It's when an organized group or institution or association runs
an illegal business. Right, So we're fixing horse races, We're
what's a what's a good illegal thing? Loan sharking? We're
loan sharking. Yeah, mattnite, and you're getting the loan shark list.
(45:52):
That's more or less the image that I had of it,
but I just wanted to make sure or we're lobbying
in a country where that's illegal. Anyhow So, the US
court in says, okay, we'll grant you this injunction. Because
these this ruling had crime involved, you know, in reaching it,
and you know, involved coercion and stuff like that, no
(46:13):
court system in the world will be able to enforce
this um and this ruling. However, and you know this
is not to say that uh Chevron didn't didn't go
back and forth on saying, well, we did attempt to
clean or remediate the area, we've we've done what we're
(46:35):
supposed to do, or there's no proof that this is
associated with us, or that most of these crude spills
occurred after Texico withdrew. So the impact here is, according
to the plaintiffs, that there's a spike in cancer rates
and that it's due to contamination of the water. But
(46:57):
the oil company maintains that there's no causual link. You know,
there's no causation. So after after all of this happens,
people have people have gone back and forth with various
The fight got very very dirty, and it continues today
because I there were some tapes or video that was
(47:22):
a video acquired by people fighting on the Ecuadorian side
that apparently showed uh, engineers are contractors for the oil company,
just disregarding the proof, saying like, oh, uh, let's let's
check here and see if there's still oil in the area. Yeah,
(47:43):
you can find someone was on live leak. I've seen
several of those. Right, it's just blatant. Yeah. And then
the almost called it the Chevronian side, but the oil
company side says we also found videos where where in
an Ecuadorian judge during the time that the trial is
going on, just said out and now all right, yeah,
(48:04):
you know whatever, they're guilty. I'll just I'll like, I'll
basically sit through it and then just say they're guilty, like,
don't don't worry, don't you don't you worry, you're pretty head. Uh.
And you know it's illegal for a judge to do
that or and uh, I'm sure that some judges have,
but you know, it's also you got caught a video
doing that. However, it turned out in a publication that
(48:25):
one of the people associated with recording that video was
actually someone who's contracted with Chevron and blackmailed them, and
that person was moved to the US at Chevron's time
and paid an undisclosed settlement amount. I never would have
expected that, So uh as we are, you know, I
(48:46):
think that it's still in the system now that there's
still a legal battle going on, and we're not sure
how it's how it's gonna work out. There's a lot
of money at stake, and also the time horizon for
this is very long. You know, if you can afford
legal representation, then you have a case, and you're a company,
you have a case that could potentially become immortal in court.
(49:08):
And it helps if you, you know, produce oil, because
then you're basically just pulling money out of the ground,
billions and billions of dollars. That's an interesting way to
look at it. It's also more and more expensive though,
to to create oil, to to refine it, to find it.
Like Norway is going to be quite possibly a lot
(49:28):
of trouble because the um the system of Norway right
wherein the oil is pulled into a state owned corporation.
A lot of the budgeting for that is based on
a price point for a barrel of oil, which is
far higher than there is now. You know, so this
being um involved with oil as a state or as
(49:50):
a company does not make one immune. I'm not saying immune,
and I'm saying filthy rich. This is something that occurred
to me at the top of the show. Um, you know,
with the deep water horizon for example, that's just the
kind of unmitigated disaster that's just so in the public consciousness,
you know, and it's just on TV and it's just
on everybody's mind. You can't really cover it up. There's
(50:13):
things you could probably do, as you were saying, Matt,
to kind of mitigate what the damages will be to
your company in terms of how much you have to
pay out, etcetera. But this, uh, this Ecuador story to
me seems like one that would be easier to cover up.
Not easier, but it's just you know, this is not
what is the top of mind for many people, and
they think about these kinds of things. And I think
(50:34):
that this proof positive that there are um public relations
efforts that do stick. That people, the companies, they rewrite
history so that it benefits them and so you know,
you don't remember these things, and it happens all the time.
For breakfast, you know, that's a good question too. Well, yeah,
(50:55):
it's the it's the out of sight, out of mind thing, right,
that's it's happening in Ecuador and in the American in
the American public's mind. That just it stinks. But that's
the way it is. And I mean, you know, even
talking about the deep Water Horizon thing, I mean, I
was in a rage, and I you know, thinking back
on it now, I am still obviously, but it's certainly
(51:16):
not something I've been dwelling on daily. And a lot
of that has to do with the fact that these
efforts succeed. It was almost six years ago, it's true, Matt.
But can you think of anything that's happened in those
six years that was just drastically, you know, damaging to
our environments, you know, closer to home, affecting the lives
(51:37):
of people you may know, I don't know, it's just
it's a biggie, see your point. Maybe that's why I'm
still feels like an open wound, even though I wasn't
even affected that hard, which is crazy. I'm just one
of those people who goes on the Internet and winds
(51:58):
about it. I guess. No, it's easy to in turn
a lot of these things too. I mean, you're an
empathetic person, as I think are we all in this room.
For the most part, I have three feelings a year.
I'm excited the first one is going to kick in
around August. I look forward to that. But uh, well,
one one point I want to also make the so
(52:18):
towards us is are we not in some way responsible
for these sorts of things if we live in an
oil powered civilization? Right? Uh? And is there is there?
This is such a dangerous question. Is there some way
to look at the cost benefit on a large scale?
And is there some part in the deep dark recesses
(52:41):
of your American consumer mind that's like, well, that's just
the cost of doing business. I don't think it's I
don't think it's entirely fair to call it an American
consumer mind, because there are consumers around the world, of course,
But I just mean in terms of our consumption of
oil as a country and are dependent on it, and
you know, we won't be able to drive our cars
(53:01):
around and now we want all that stuff. I don't know.
Every time I get into my little conversion SUV thing,
I have this tremendous guilt And now that I'm thinking
about it. I'm such a hypocrite. Oh wow, wow, I'm
gonna go. I'm gonna go lay down the corner, guys.
So in and I understand. These are two separate cases
(53:22):
we've talked about so far, deep Water Horizon and the
case in Ecuador. In one case, uh, there was in
one case, one of the contentions was that it was
happened uh pretty far in the past now six years.
And then for deep Water the other one, in the
case of Ecuador, Uh, it was the idea that maybe
(53:45):
this is something happening in foreign countries, so it's a
bit easier to remove it from the public mind. So
what then, what would happen then? In the case where
there was something that was happening immediately like now now today,
and it was a little bit closer to home, that
would be like the situation that's happening in California at
(54:09):
the Lysso Canyon storage facility that holds natural gas and
or methane. Uh. Yeah, there's a big leak happening right there.
It's pretty insane. Yeah. So, uh, a runaway natural gas
leak right above l a Um has emitted more than
a hundred and fifty million pounds of methane since last October.
(54:31):
And you guys, I wasn't even aware of this story
until we started doing this. So just case in point
for real, it's in a place called Porter Ranch north
of Los Angeles. As you said there, Uh, it's a
it's a fairly affluent community or it's fairly well off.
Thousands of people in the area had to evacuate. Um,
(54:54):
we we know about this. It's it's not widespare reporting,
but it's not being exactly kept or raps. The story
starts around October twenty three. According to Amy Goodman, the
community was overtaken by noxious gases. Neighbors were reporting, you know,
the smell. They weren't feeling well, getting dizzy, and thinking
(55:16):
perhaps one house had a major gas leak. Yeah, I
think there's one. There's a bit of a time frame
there around when the gas company itself reported, or the ELSA,
the Elyssa Canyan storage facility actually reported that there is
a leak and active leak going on. And there are
(55:38):
a couple of stories from families who were experiencing the
things you're talking about, Ben, like the weird smells, Like
what is going on? Why is this happening right now, um,
a little bit a little bit before that, just because
it was maybe caught a little not late, but a
little later by the company itself. And the company to
which we're referring in this story is Southern California so
(56:00):
called Gas Southern California Gas Company. On the twenty eight
of October, a few days later, they went public with
a leak, and so Amy Goodman from Democracy Now reports
that the leak is so severe that it will actually
account for a quarter of the entire state of California's
(56:20):
methane emissions in just one month. One of the other
really bad things is that methane is uh not good
for overall global climate change. It's eighty six times worse
than carbon dioxide over a twenty year period um. And
then this one, you know, this one leak is just
(56:40):
putting so much of it out into the out in
the atmosphere. I think it's twelve hundred metric tons of
methane released every day from this one leak. And the
worst part is that there are experts actively working to
try and stop this thing. There are people out there
right now as we're recording this, trying to drill down
(57:02):
and make it stop. But it's gonna it's gonna take time.
It's gonna take a long time till about March. Right, yes,
so on Monday, January eighteen, so cal Gas is required
to put forward a detailed schedule of how this will
be handled, the running bets right now, or that this
(57:25):
will occur in this this leak will be closed plausibly
in March. Everybody's hoping for earlier. I have a question though, guys, um,
why do you think this story is getting comparatively less
attention than the deep water Horizon. I mean, what you're
describing to me is essentially a natural gas version of
(57:46):
what happened with the water horizon. It sounds like it's
a continued leak that is causing problems, health problems, you know,
with the people that live in that area, and it's
not stopped, hasn't been plugged yet, it's ongoing. Why do
you think this is something that's not as visible? Maybe
that's the answer. Yeah, exactly. Okay, So I was gonna
say what My first argumente it goes back to the
(58:08):
out of sight, out of sight, out of mind kind
of thing. Because methane is an invisible gas, you cannot
see it with your naked eye. The only way you
can see it is through infrared. Getting a fleer camera
and a couple a couple of groups did do that,
Earthworks and nonprofit organization got a flee your camera out
there so you could really see. This is huge. It
looks like black smoke just kind of billowing through and
(58:30):
following the wind. Um. That's pretty scary methane, isn't. I mean,
it's gonna cause some ill effects on your health if
you're exposed to it for long periods or enough of
it at high enough concentrations. But it's not the It's
not quite as dangerous, right, And I don't know, maybe
(58:51):
that's why it's also I don't know. There are a
lot of didn't What do you think, Ben, what would
probably would be remiss if we didn't mention in no
lie zone instituted one of the uh one of the
questions being was this instituted to prevent exposure to methane
from people flying in the air space or is this
(59:11):
instead to UH protect the image of the company. I
could I could clearly see it being to protect the airspace,
especially given that, um, if it's a very busy part
of you know, if it's if it's a part where
there are a lot of commercial airlines flying, then you
don't want to complicate that by having them fly through
(59:32):
some sort of methane volcano or you know, God forbid
somehow ignite. You know, it is flammable at certain concentrations.
So what do you think the future of this is.
Do you think there's a cover up of foot I
think the cover up is just completely not completely a
highly deregulated industry, the energy industry, and I think it's
(59:57):
more about politics and anything else, just you profits over
you know, consequences. But at the same time, there's so
many different ways to look at it. I think that
for me is the biggest issue. Like with the deep
water horizon thing, another similarity are the blast caps that
(01:00:18):
many countries at the time had in place. When you're
when a leak begins to happen in a deep water
drilling site, there are her in a lot of places
caps that explode and seal the entire thing when something
starts leaking really badly like that, and it contains it
through deregulation. We didn't have to do that. At least
(01:00:40):
people who are operating in the Gulf of Mexico through
the United States didn't have to do that. Okay, so
in that case, then with both of those cases, one
of the arguments, it sounds like one of the arguments
would be that if there's any conspiratorial or cover up stuff,
it can be found in the pre disaster face. Yeah,
(01:01:01):
and unfortunately, unfortunately it's a lot of There are a
lot of things that I probably am not a smart
enough human to go through and find the minutia and
the small legal ease that makes the difference between something
being safe and not safe. Um, and I'm not an
expert in a lot of these fields, but you know,
I think that's where you find it, and it's going
(01:01:21):
to require more looking on my part. Well, we are
definitely as far as I know, none of us are
oil exploration engineers right or oil rig workers, but you
listeners may well be. And I know that the oil
industry is suffering some tremendous shifts that are affecting affecting
(01:01:42):
people across the world in terms of their employment, their
quality of life. If you are affiliated with this industry,
I would love to hear the inside scoop. What do
you think the future of this stuff is? How do
companies handle these masters? And if your game, do you
have knowledge of a cover up? You guys. If we're
(01:02:05):
wrapped up on the topic today, I did just want
to end the show with one thing, um. As I'm
sure all of you or many of you know, UM,
David Bowie passed away this week on Sunday, and I
just wanted to say, in terms of what we talked
about on the show, I think, besides the fact that
(01:02:28):
you know, for me personally, was a real hero musically,
and I'm a musician and I've been a fan of
his work for a long time, but he did something
very very interesting, um when he passed away. This is
something that I don't think you could say many people,
celebrities or otherwise are able to do, and that he
(01:02:49):
really controlled the way that people experienced his death. He
released a record on his birthday, which was Friday of
last week before he passed away, and then he released
two music videos, both of which are visually's done fanti fantastic,
but one in particular, for the song Lazarus Um shows
(01:03:12):
him in a hospital bed with a blindfold on with
little button eyes and kind of like writhing around doing
this sort of st Vitus dance kind of thing, and
there are several versions of him. One is the one
in the hospital bed. One is sort of like wearing
this harlequin kind of like tight fitting, like almost a
mime costume. And there's another one who's puzzling over papers
(01:03:34):
at a desk, like a writing desk, And there are
lyrics in the song where he's talking about he says, look, man,
I'm in heaven. You know, I got scars that you
can't see. And as was you know, made known when
he did pass away, he had been suffering from cancer
for eighteen months, meaning that he knew his faith the
whole time he was making this record, and especially when
(01:03:56):
he was making these companion videos, and um, you know,
it's in a pretty emotion a couple of days for me.
I don't really get affected by people, you know, celebrities
quote unquote passing away, but this one hit pretty hard.
And I just think it was pretty a really incredible
sign of his artistry and his mind that he was
totally able to set the tone for the way people
(01:04:18):
experienced his passing. And I think that's very unique and
I just wanted to, you know, express that well, thank you.
No I know yeah, I know. My wife I was
pretty upset about it. You know, I guess I'm a
cold hearted person. I really like him, but I Robin
Williams affected me in the way that you're experiencing this.
(01:04:43):
I also think that we're gonna see conspiracy theories pop
up around this album and around the way he you know,
kind of did this, controlled this, kept it quiet. You know,
nobody knew except for a very few confidence that he
was was dying, and um, I just think it's interesting
when people are able to control their legacy in that way,
(01:05:05):
because so many musicians, especially they just let it go,
you know, like that they just keep doing it for money,
and they just you know, end up doing things that
are not um in their best interests, doing things that
are not artistically sound, that are not in line with
the good work they've done in the past. And he
never really did that, and uh to the last he
kind of like really owned his image. And I just
(01:05:26):
thought that was pretty fascinating. And I think we'll continue
to hear about things, you know, revolving around this process. Alright, guys,
So if you have experienced anything like an oil spill,
like if you were out there cleaning up after Deep
Art Horizon, if you know anyone who has, if you
(01:05:47):
want to talk to us about that, If you lived
in so Cal where you're being affected by any of
this stuff, let us know. I want to I'd like
to hear your experiences there. Or if you're an Ecuador
and you have a little more information about all what
exactly is going on there? Yeah, what's it like? Now?
Then write to us. You can write to us online.
We're on Facebook and Twitter as conspiracy Stuff. You can
(01:06:08):
also visit us at stuff they Don't Want You to
Know dot com, where you can find all of the
videos we've ever produced, along with an archive of the
audio podcasts and little bits and blurbs and blog posts
and the like. Or if you're not into all that,
you can just send a good old fashioned email. We
are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. From on
(01:06:36):
this topic and other unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy Stuff. You can also get in touch on
Twitter at the handle at conspiracy Stuff.
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