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By Benjamin Ross

The vast scale of this summer’s spill offers no guarantee that there will be real change. Its oil slicks are far from being the first to afflict our coasts – floating oil first became a national scandal nearly a century ago. The issue has been a political football ever since, with the oil industry exercising its political muscle again and again to fend off outside oversight.

Remarkably, it’s not just environmentalist outsiders who have criticized the petroleum producers’ resistance to regulation. Since oil spills first became an issue, the industry’s own experts have told their employers that to prevent spills, the discretion of company management must be limited.  Controls work only when they are imposed from the outside.

The controversy first arose in the years after World War I, when floating oil became a national scandal. Fouled beaches and dead birds shut down ocean resorts, whose owners organized to seek relief. They were joined – so severe was the problem – by fire insurance companies, burdened by claims for burning docks.

As in the Gulf this summer, the search for causes brought finger-pointing. Oil companies blamed steamships and their practice of filling drained fuel tanks with seawater. The unfiltered ballast was dumped into harbors when it was time to reload. Shipowners pointed back at wastes from refineries.

After a fierce lobbying battle, the Oil Pollution Act of 1924 exempted the refineries. But as the price of this victory, the newly formed American Petroleum Institute promised that the industry would police itself.  An API technical committee quickly came up with a program to control the oil discharges. It designed devices to separate oil from ballast water and wrote a long manual on refinery waste. The committee recommended that the trade association send out inspectors with the power to compel compliance with these practices. But this idea was shot down by objections from member companies, and self-regulation became purely voluntary.

The New Deal put water pollution control back on the national agenda. The oil industry, advised by the API to “play poker rather than throwing down its cards in advance,” adopted a strategy of undeviating opposition to federal oversight. This effort was crowned with success in 1940 when a bill to regulate new sources of pollution, passed by the House, died in conference committee.

Peacetime concerns, the environment among them, returned with the end of World War II, and oil companies received another expert warning. The chair of the API’s committee on refinery wastes admonished the readers of National Petroleum News in 1946 against “the futility of adhering further to the policy of objection and obstruction.”

This message too went unheard. The industry continued to resist outside control, and a Republican congress gave them a sympathetic ear. The toothless Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 limited the federal role to research, training, and grants to local governments.

Laws were at last passed to put polluters under federal supervision in the 1970s, following a well blowout off Santa Barbara and other well-publicized ecological disasters. Statutes governing oil spills were further tightened after the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989.

But laws by themselves provide no guarantee of effective supervision.  The people who write and enfor

Miranda Ritts writes: The name of the book is Biodiversity of Coasts by Grey Pyers. This book is very educational. I think it is great that it talks about things that are going on in the world such as oil spills. This is a great book for research. It would be good for topics such as oil spills, biodiversity, and coasts. I enjoyed the pictures in this book because they gave a great example of what the book was talking about.

Diane writes: An excellent resource to have on hand, not only for biodiversity and biomes, but also to address issues of pollution, oil spills, etc. You need Biodiversity of Coasts immediately, but go ahead and get the entire series. Each title has unique information at a depth I haven’t seen focusing on biodiversity and relationships.

Have you ever held a book in your hand and tried to go online to find more information, but there was nothing on the web? You begin to wonder if you are losing your mind or not. I have been searching the Marshall Cavendish website, including their MC Benchmark imprint, but cannot find this new series BIODIVERSITY listed. The publisher did send me this set to review along with a slip of paper saying the publication date is August 15, 2010. Each title is under $20 and they contain information not found in other biome themed books. I hope Marshall Cavendish Benchmark folks fix this fast!

I’ll go ahead and give you ISBN information so you can order your books now:

• Biodiversity of Coasts 978-1-60870-069-1
• Biodiversity of Coral Reefs 978-1-60870-070-7
• Biodiversity of Deserts 978-1-60870-071-4
• Biodiversity of Polar Regions 978-1-60870-072-1
• Biodiversity of Rain Forests 978-1-60870-073-8
• Biodiversity of  Woodlands 978-1-60870-074-5

After further checking, I saw that the series was first published in Australia in 2010 and FINALLY found information on the www.macmillanlibrary.com.au site with information that this is the International Year of Biodiversity as declared by the United Nations.

The publishers description states: Biodiversity describes the variety of living things in a particular place or ecosystem. It is essential to the survival of plants and animals but human activities have upset biodiversity and it is not under threat. The series examines the biodiversity of habitat types and ecosystems. It looks at threats and efforts to conserve biodiversity, and identifies biodiversity hotspots.

Take a look at the table of contents to see some of the diversity being studied:

Contents

• What is biodiversity?
• Why is biodiversity important?
• Coasts of the world
• Coastal biodiversity
• Coastal ecosystems
• Threats to coasts
• Biodiversity threat: Urbanisation (spelled Urbanization in my U.S. copy)
• Biodiversity threat: Invasive species
• Biodiversity threat: Pollution
• Biodiversity threat: Climate change
• Coastal conservation
• Case study: The Mediterranean Coast
• What is the future for coasts?
• Glossary
• Index

I wish I had my scanner connected so I could show you a double-page spread and you could see just how much information is presented in these 32 pages. The information is spot-on for middle schoolers with small text chunks perfect for the reader who becomes easily terrified of too much

Satire for the Nu.nl news website, about an undersea oil spill of BP that took months to fix.

Sevensheaven images and prints are for sale at sevensheaven.nl

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

Gallup reported last week that President Obama’s job approval among Independent voters dipped to 38 percent, the lowest support he has ever received from this group of voters.

It would be too easy for Democrats to blame these numbers on the Tea Party movement. Some Independents are Tea Partiers – and those the President has forever lost – but not all Independents are Tea Partiers.

To understand why Obama has lost so many other Independents, we need to understand that Independents are a curious bunch. They don’t believe in partisan loyalty, yet they are notoriously fickle. They may be fairer than Fox and more balanced than MSNBC, and yet because they are beholden neither to personalities nor parties, but to issues, their love for a politician can be vanquished as quickly as s/he fails to perform.

Politicians love to chase Independents, but they best remember that when push comes to shove, Independents cut to the chase. Independents have determined that on too many of Obama’s campaign promises – the closing of Guantanamo Bay, the public (health-care) option, comprehensive energy and immigration reform, ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – the President is either foot-dragging or has simply failed to deliver. Part of this, to be sure, is systemic. Most presidents suffer from lower approval ratings in their second year in office because they become victims of the (required) big talk in the year before which had gotten them elected in the first place. But Obama must also take especial responsibility for so unrestrainedly tantalizing his base during the 2008 campaign and then so abruptly disenchanting them when the realities of governance stepped in. When even the Liberal faith in Obama falters, Independents can hardly be expected to hold the fort.

In recent days, the president’s firing of General McChrystal and his handling of the Gulf oil-spill has only confirmed the Independent voter’s growing conviction that Obama is not displaying the perspicacity of a president in charge. There is a sense of chaos, that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” or, as Jimmy Carter fatefully put in the potentially analogous summer of 1979, that the nation is suffering “a crisis of confidence.”

The White House is in full-scale damage-control, dispatching both the President and the Vice President on the campaign road, and sending David Axelrod on the Sunday talk-shows to talk their way out of this one. This is completely counter-productive.

Independents voted for Obama because he was not a Washington insider, believing that because he was not obligated or loyal to Democratic apparatchiks as the Clinton machine presumably was, he would be able get things done. More talk is only going to

These sketch cards will go to Kelly Light's Ripple blog very soon.

Please go and make a donation by buying a card from the many beautiful cards available. All the money goes to save the animals victims of the oil spill. Plus during the whole month of July BIG names in the book world will donate cards and help the cause.

What a beautiful thing and this is your chance to be a part of it.

Hey all y’all!

Just letting you know that the piece you see below (which I did for Ripple (and Illustration Friday) is a 5″ x 7″ print and still available to anyone who wants it by helping the Ripple cause. It was sold once, but it being a print, I have more.  Just follow the instructions given on the Ripple blog’s sidebar and I’ll happily send it your way (card #586). Thus far, Kelly Light & all the illustrators involved have raised over $6K to help the animal victims of the Gulf oil spill.  Check out all the other artists/illustrators’ pieces there as well.  Thanks for your support! : )

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at Obama’s gestures. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

President Barack Obama gave his first speech from the Oval Office last Tuesday. It wasn’t great, as most commentators have noted.

To begin with, the White House appears to believe that body language is presidential language. Our eyes were constantly drawn to the bottom quarter of the screen, where the president’s hands seemed to have taken on a life of their own. If our democracy has degenerated from deeds to words, we’re now becoming accustomed to gestures. Our great deliberative democracy, reduced to a series of hand flicks.

The words weren’t that good either. Even though the President was, understandably, trying to signal strength and decisiveness with words and gestures, he had to lace his speech with tentative caveats in a bid to lower our expectations about what can be achieved and how soon – another presidential goal on Tuesday night. As a result, the speech was wishy-washy, tepid and pointless. It looked and sounded like a damage-control skit, and the president looked like he had George Clooney’s PR job in “Up in the Air” – telling the American people harsh news and artificially sweetening the news with an a dose of saccharine.

Talking about enlisting scientists and experts doesn’t help when they can’t even agree on the size of the oil spill. And everyone can see that the purpose of telling the American people how serious the problem served, selfishly, only to tell us that the president feels our pain. It is gratuitous at best and condescending and worst. Empathy and euphemisms together do not eloquence make.

The administration was hoping for a game-changer in this speech. But not even the weight of his office was able to help this young, politically inexperienced president stave off the inflexion point he did not intend. From now on, it looks like there will be no more free passes from Rachel Maddow and the liberal media.

If Obama is our era’s Greatest Communicator, then perhaps the only good that came out of this speech is that we may begin to realize that no rhetorical wizardry can solve our nation’s crises. There is no messiah, and there is definitely no rhetorical messiah. Indeed, I would go one step further and hope that we all realize that eloquence is not the solution to our problems. Eloquence – our atavistic yearning for a grand orator, a Cicero who can inspire our nation into action – is the problem itself for it is a phantasm that too often has become a substitute for deeds.

The next time the president is in political trouble, and he has nothing to offer but damage-control dribble, then perhaps he shouldn’t say anything at all. Let the pundits and bloggers chatter, but lie low and just get down to work, for goodness sake. Sometimes, a measure of humility, in spite of popular expectations for presidents to speechify and to perform, can help a president ride out of a po

“Ripple” is the word prompt for this week’s Illustration Friday, but it’s also the project (Ripple) that illustrator Kelly Light started to raise funds to help the animal victims of the Gulf oil spill. Please go there to check out the many contributions by artists & illustrators to this project.

I decided to do two more quick sketch cards before I start working on a new book. I'll be sending these cards to Kelly Light's Ripple blog very soon.

You can purchase these or any of the amazing artist's cards on the Ripple site for only 10$ each and you will be helping the victims of the awful oil spill.

Kelly has been able to recollect over 1000$ so far! Woohoo!!!
Help make this number get even bigger. Every little help counts.

With your donation you'll be saving the life of an innocent animal.
Can you think of a better reason to spend your 10 bucks?
I didn't think so. :o)

Louise, a Narwhal; 5×7 watercolor & ink

I’ve just added to le shop a 5×7 print of my original watercolor and ink drawing: Louise, a Narwhal.  You may not know this, but narwhals are very sensitive creatures and have the ability to feel great empathy for other living things.

For every Louise print sold, 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the National Audubon Society, in an effort to help with the BP oil spill clean up in the Gulf of Mexico.

Did you hear? Today Is World Ocean Day!
What a better day to help the victims of the oil spill.

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at Obama’s leadership. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

Presidents struggle to take charge when crises befall the nation. In the immediate aftermath of disaster, whether it be the terrorist attacks of September 11, Katrina, or a massive oil spill, Presidents Bush and Obama alike have been accused of being slow to take charge. Despite the conventional narrative that crises unite the country and cause us to rally round the flag, the truth is that the American presidency is not an institution to which we quickly rally around because we have unrealistic expectations of what presidents can and should do.

While it has become a presidential cliché to declare, Harry Truman believed, that the “buck stops here,” it never does. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the oil spill disaster in the Gulf. The reason why the cliché doesn’t work is that even if the president may have the will to take charge, he cannot be responsible for someone else’s mistake, and even he is, he and the federal government lacks the technological resources to clean up BP’s spill. Incidentally, the first branch, Congress, ought to have some responsibility too.

Like the press and the American people, the White House clearly has not worked out the ethical boundaries of culpability versus responsibility, which it why it has floundered in articulating, exercising, and then defending the proper role of government in handling the present crisis. All this is compounded by the fact that the American media demands and expects a semblance of control even as nature and a complex reality stacks up against one.

While everyone is asking for it, no one knows what leadership means in this situation. If asked, talking heads would each have a different answer. The fact remains that the White House does not have plenary control over corporations and regulatory agencies, nor should it. The President can entreat other oil companies to chip in, but he does not have the authority to command them to do so. The President can pressure BP to be transparent about its operations, but he cannot seize BP’s assets or command a corporation to deploy its assets whichever way the White House directs.

And so the President has made repeated trips to the Gulf to show that whether or not he is in charge, he is at least in the loop and emotionally invested. Empathy, apparently, is a virtue in presidents if not in judges. We desire “activist” presidents, but events do not always permit them.  If we insist on turning leadership into messiahship, we should hardly be surprised at the president’s showmanship.

Given the contested and myriad models of leadership being purveyed on the Left and Right, it behooves the President, at the very least, to decide exactly and then defend what his leadership amounts to. If Obama believes that the buck really stops at the White House, then, as the Left desires, the regulatory power of the federal government must be considerably increased. If he does not want bigger government, then he needs to educate the American people and the Right that the buck really doesn’t stop with government, but at civil society or somewhere else. Right now Obama hasn’t made up his mind, but in this vacillation he is trying to have his cake and eat i