
Leroy Stick – the man behind @BPGlobalPR  - jasonlbaptiste
http://streetgiant.com/2010/06/02/leroy-stick-the-man-behind-bpglobalpr/
======
ErrantX
He makes some points, except:

 _because the oil spill had been going on for almost a month and all BP had to
offer were bullshit PR statements. No solutions, no urgency, no sincerity, no
nothing._

I don't believe that can be true. a) because clearly it is in BP's interests
(whichever way you look at it) to plug the leak and b) there are lots of
engineers working on this and I seriously doubt they are dragging their feet
in trying to come up with solutions! (that seems disingenuous at best)

I worry about this actually because, clearly, it's a complex problem (look at
the difficulty HN had coming up with working solutions!). But the public don't
seem to understand this; on the radio yesterday one of the talk shows was
discussing this and the overriding opinions (this was a UK show btw) were
along the lines of "why are the US government not fixing this", "where are all
the military scientists", "when are BP going to let the government try to fix
this".

One delightful man explained how BP "clearly had no experience at this" and
"what about NASA - they are nearby and are able to send drones to Mars"...

~~~
CaptainZapp
From
[http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/06/01/enginee...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/06/01/engineer_gulf_spill_open2010/index.html)

Choice Quote : 1. Stop releasing dispersants. So-called dispersants are toxic,
and it's crazy to add more poison to the Gulf. Dispersants do nothing to
assist the environment in naturally cleaning the oil; their main use is PR.
They reduce the number of ugly pictures of birds covered in pure black crude.
Dispersants break the thick layer of crude into smaller globs, but that
doesn’t help the Gulf and its wildlife. Most of the crude just mixes with the
water to produce a goop that looks like chocolate ice cream but is highly
poisonous.

If this is true, and frankly, I don't mdoubt the statement then I think Leroy
Stick is really on to something. Including the statement you single out.

~~~
hugh3
_and frankly, I don't mdoubt the statement_

You don't doubt the statement of an unnamed "petroleum engineer" which got
quoted on some guy's blog?

Honestly I have no idea what the upsides and downsides of oil dispersants are,
but these things are rarely as clear-cut as this guy wants to imply.

~~~
CaptainZapp
I certainly trust the unnammed petroleum engineer more then BPs PR machinery.
Especially since this is not the first time I learn how bad those dispersants
are.

In addition; you can think about Salon what you want. But it's certainly not
"some guys blog".

Your mileage may vary, of course.

