Cat Euthanasia

There are times when we all have to make difficult decisions, but for me the most difficult is and always will be, making the decision to have euthanasia on an animal. This was the decision I had to make this weekend regarding my cat Trouble.

As my long suffering reader will know, I have had her for over fifteen years and she was about two years old when I got her, and she has had very good health. But over the last couple of years she has developed Alzheimer's and has to be shown where the water and food is. Fortunately she never seemed to forget where her litter try was. Therefore when she would occasionally suffer from vomiting, I never knew if it was just that she had tried to over eat having allowed herself to get hungry or if she was really unwell.

Well it became clear that she really was becoming very unwell and was starting to suffer. It was this aspect that made me decide to have her put to sleep. I had tried to make her last days as comfortable as I could, but it was clear that this could not be put off any longer, as trying to keep her alive was adding to her suffering.

So on Monday I took her to the vets and she was put to sleep. I was able to stay with her while it was done too. Not something I enjoyed, but I could keep stroking and fussing her and I got to see for myself that it was genuinely painless and quick.

I got her from an animal rescue charity and it was in fact another cat that I was being shown but she started rubbing herself against my proffered hand. It surprised the staff as she had clearly been abused and normally would cower away from people. Well I took her on and while she had her moments when she would show the effect of that earlier abuse, she thrived with me.

I took her on knowing that she would be with me for many years, and fifteen years plus two or three, is a good age for a cat. We parted with me rubbing her face just as she had done when we first met.

I will miss the little pest too.

Follow up to previous posting

As this issue is far to important to remain hidden, I am responding to the comment Ms Tree made to my previous posting with a follow up posting.

I am aware that the oil could reach British shores. The simple fact is that this has already become the largest oil spill in US history, and the larger the volume of oil from any spill, the greater the chance that it will impact other shores. That could include Britain. Such is the nature of environmental pollution. Pollution does not respect the political boundaries, it just follows the wind or sea currents.

Also I am aware that people cleaning up the oil need to be trained. After all if they don't know what they are doing they may cause more harm and may damage themselves if they are not trained. The point I was trying to make was that BP were trying to keep independent eyes from seeing what was really happening. When Exxon dealt with the spill in Alaska, they steam cleaned the beach and the rocks. This created the illusion that the beach was free of oil but in fact the steam drove the tars under the surface. Therefore creating the illusion of a good clean beach, rocks, shore while sterilising the shore of all life and hiding the problem. This is exactly what BP was trying to do.

If no independent eyes were there to see oiled and dead birds, BP could try and claim that the impact was far less than had been feared. Just the same as BP tried to do regarding the out flowing of the oil. BP claimed that it was five thousand barrels per day. Yet the US Geological survey says its forty thousand barrels per day. To put that into context that's two million litres per day, every day for three months.

I fully agree with Ms Tree that this is a travesty and I have equally avoided posting about this as too feel extremely angry about this. It has taken me a while before I felt that I had enough accurate information so I could post something meaningful.

One aspect that should not go without being commented on, the area of the spill is the breading ground for the Blue Fin Tuna. This is a species that is already seriously endangered, and over fishing of immature fish (By Europe and Japan) is already preventing breeding of the fish. The spill has occurred just as the Tuna had been laying their eggs. The oil will kill at least seventy percent of the eggs and fry. What is most upsetting about this is the efforts of the US within the Gulf of Mexico was really the last and only hope that the Blue Fin Tuna and the Yellow Fin Tuna would not become extinct. It appears that we can say good bye to sushi as a direct result of this spill.

As I write I am now hearing on the radio that the oil leaking from the well head is in fact sixty thousand barrels per day. And while I do understand that the costs of sorting out this mess will impact the pensions of normal people, especially if the costs drain BP of cash. But had more people been much more concerned about ethics then they would never have invested in companies that abuse people and human rights, as BP does in Nigeria. And regularly pollutes, again as happens regularly in places like Nigeria. Therefore BP has to pay for the cost of cleaning this mess up.

This accident was predictable, and had it been a terrorist action I doubt that people would be any less angry. BP actions across the globe shows that they have a very poor attitude to safety and the environment and had it not been that America is a developed country would have happened much sooner.

While BP is supposed to be a British company, half the shareholders are in fact American. But in reality it is a global company that has no loyalty to any state or nation and only cares about making money. It was this attitude to making money at all costs that caused this, so if BP falls I will not be shedding any tears for it.

Oil, Lies and Videotape

When the explosion occurred on the Deep water Horizon rig in the gulf of Mexico, I was shocked and saddened by the loss of life. Even at that time I nearly posted regarding this event as I could foresee the environmental disaster that has subsequently unfolded.

However, as I always try and check the facts, I quickly realised that accurate information was very thin on the ground. Unlike the oil on the water.

As well as the three companies involved playing the blame game and acting like five year olds in the school yard, the main question was just how much oil was escaping this well head. That actually should have been an easy question to answer as BP, the company has not been called British Petroleum for years, pays royalties for the oil that flows out. Therefore both BP and the US government knew what the flow rate was, and this would tell the Coast guard et al what volume of oil was escaping. But I could not get that information as I was told it was commercially confidential.

It was clear that the PR (the P stands for Propaganda) machine was in full swing. With neither BP or the federal authorities in charge of oversight telling it the way it is but trying to spin the facts to make the situation appear less serious than it is. Because of this lack of openness, the Coast guard was forced to try and calculate the volume of the oil escape by measuring the volume of surface oil.

This was in part why BP used the dispersant's at the well head as this visibly reduced the amount of oil that would appear at the surface. Just like PR its about making things look better than it really is, and not about being truly honest.

Then while following the situation, the political fall out meant that the president and the US government were getting blamed for not doing more. What can the do? They do not have the technology nor the expertises to shut off this well head. I personally had visions of the president donning a wet suit and swimming down to turn some shut off valve. Well had it been that simple BP would have done this already. This is actually a major part of the problem, BP had never even considered a blow out of this type could ever happen thus they had no plans to deal with the eventuality. That is not just my opinion but a quote from someone who used to work for BP.

Further, even before the oil started coming ashore, BP were telling volunteers that wanted to help stop the environmental damage to stay away. They said that people had to be trained and they had enough people. Now you can call me cynical but to me it sounded like BP saying “stay away so we can keep the real environmental damage quiet”.

The point is, that BP have spent as much effort on trying to spin the news as they have on trying to stop the leak. Take for example the futile effort to use shredded golf balls etc to plug the well. Now only a company that creates pollution could have dreamed that on up. How to stop pollution use more pollution. Anyone that had a basic understanding of physics could have told them that would not work, but it looked good for the media!

With the internet age it is possible to see and read the different ways that the media on both sides of the Atlantic are reporting this. While I don't much like the rants that seemed to have filled the American media, here the reporting has been down playing the level of the disaster. Over here you can clearly see the hand of PR guiding the media to downplay the situation.

Then this weekend, as the share price of BP tumbles, the emphasis has been spun saying; “that the US president is damaging a British company” and this was effecting ordinary people as most pension funds have invested in BP.

This puzzles me as it is not the US President or the US government that caused this disaster it was BP. The cost of the clean up will have to be born by BP, so it is the actions of BP that have caused the share price to fall. As the share holders are the owners of BP, they have a responsibility to make sure that BP operates in a way that the company is not cutting the corners that could lead to the company having to pay out billions to clean up their own mess.

While I understand that the individual folks that have invested in pensions have no real control, the pension fund managers do. Cutting corners to increase profits may look good on paper, but the effects of this are happening in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the owners of BP who have to pay the cost, not the US tax payer. If the situation were reversed and it was a US company that had caused a major spill in the North Sea, would US investors be calling for the UK tax payer to meet the costs to protect their investment?

The oil industry along with the coal industry, especially the ones that are involved in mountain topping, always argue that its the jobs and wealth creation that matters. Yet it is often the other industries and people that suffer as a result. The oil from this major spill will effect the tourist industry for years costing billions. The fishing industry in the US will suffer for decades. The impact upon wildlife will also have a serious economic impact. For example, each of the wolves in Yellowstone generates over one million dollars in direct tourist income. So if the wildlife is lost from the Gulf coast how many billions of dollars will not be spent by visitors that will have no reason to come?

If BP put more effort into sorting out the problem instead of spreading propaganda, then I could understand the investors complaining. But BP has caused this problem and it is up to BP and its investors to pay the bill.

In Praise of the Slow Life

Having today been to Hexham with my better half, I found myself having to walk for a half an hour along the road from Ebchester to Blackhall Mill. Not extraordinary in its self, but as the traffic was far lighter than normal, I was able to think and muse on the environment that I was walking through.

The mat blossom was out, the blueberries were there in full fruit in the hedgerow and in the early evening the birds nesting were going about their business of feeding and raising their various broods. It made the inconvenience of the bus connections far more bearable. We all are pushed to lead such hectic lives that had I been driving I would have missed the beauty of seeing a Blackbird
carry a worm back to the nest, or the coal tit that was wooing a mate and being rather successful about it as he appeared to mate with her.

Even during the journey in to Hexham I had the joy of seeing Lapwings nesting on fields that are still traditionally grazed by sheep. Even as we walked together down to the bus stop this morning we saw a Red Kite seeking, searching for food.

None of these delights would have been observed from a car, or trying to live at a hectic pace.