Blog – Page 5

Öl – Das Blutige Geschäft

This is for the readers of my blog who speak German (a population estimated at 1-2). German radio has posted what appears to be (if Google Translate can be relied upon) an interesting discussion about the German ... (Read more)

Oil in Ecuador…

An oil pit and gas flare in the Oriente region of Ecuador. Chevron faces a multi-billion dollar lawsuit for pollution in the region during the 1970s and 1980s. (Time/Ivan Kashinsky)

…and in Louisiana

A dragonfly tries to clean itself as it is stuck to marsh grass covered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in Garden Island Bay on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. (AP/Gerald Herbert)

5,000 Barrels a Day

The amount of oil that is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at BP’s broken well. The video shows one of the two main rupture points.
Update: Scientists who have seen the video say the leak is much more than 5,000 barrels a day.

We Are All Nigerians Now

In an interview on the marvelous “The World” radio program, I describe the ways in which the spill in the Gulf of Mexico has brought home to America, quite literally, the environmental ... (Read more)

Who Is This Photographer?

I’m trying to find the photographer who is on the tank in the pictures below (which are stills from a video). This was one of the first Marine tanks into Baghdad’s Firdos Square on April 9, 2003. If you know who the photographer is, please email me via peter at petermaass dot com. Thanks!
Update: ... (Read more)

Vive la France!

My French publisher, Autrement, has just come out with their version of Crude World. The French title is Pétrole Brut. The cover is fantastic, I think. For Autrement’s webpage about Pétrole Brut, ... (Read more)

Second Time a Charm at Harvard?

After being postponed due to a snowstorm in February, my talk with photographer Ed Kashi takes place on Thursday at 5:30 pm at Harvard Law School (to be precise, in Griswold Hall, Room 110). We’ll discuss the problems of oil and the ways we’ve chosen, with pens and cameras, to document them. Should ... (Read more)

What’s Behind Obama’s Drilling Plan?

My short contribution to an online debate in the New York Times about Obama’s decision to expand offshore drilling:

I consider myself an environmentalist and have written at length about the problems of oil extraction, but I have a hard time getting upset about the decision to expand offshore ... (Read more)

The Story of Bottled Water

A genius video about the problems (there are lots) with bottled water.