Category Archives: Environmental Risk

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Turtles Killed by the BP Oil Spill

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We have covered the BP oil spill extensively over the past two years.

For companies it was one of the most dramatic lessons in the dangers of excessive risk taking and showed just how much damage can be done — to a reputation, the environment and the families of those who died in the explosion — when a company displays a “pattern of neglect and corner cutting.” We’ve looked at the risk management lessons of the spill, the events leading up to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, how the rig’s blowout preventer failed, and how conflicts of interest hinder offshore drilling regulation.

Now — after a Greenpeace Freedom of Information Act request has finally uncovered some previously unreleased images — we look at the heart-breaking ecological damage of the spill.

Here is what is presumably a government worker cleaning up some of the dead animals that were killed by the oil that filled the Gulf of Mexico. Mother Jones has a gallery of many more explicit photos showing just how badly some endangered sea turtles were covered in crude.

Cavalcade of Risk #144

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It’s almost turkey time. With that in mind, Nancy Germond culled the best risk management and insurance related posts on the web and related them to all things Thanksgiving on her blog, Insurance Writer.

Topics cover:

  • How one human turkey in the workplace can actually cost your organization
  • The case of an insurance investigator shot by the claimant he was investigating, allegedly after being mistaken for a turkey
  • The big turkey making people sit up and take notice (also known as climate change), which is addressed right here on the Monitor in the post, “GRC Preparedness in a Changing Climate”
  • The “biggest turkeys of them all: mortgage makers”

There are more themed post to be seen at Insurance Writer — check it out.

 

Could Hydrofracking Cause Cancer?

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Hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking), or the fracturing of rocks far below the earth’s surface for the recovery of oil and natural gas, has become a hot topic of conversation among conservatives, liberals and environmentalists, to name just a few interested parties. And most would agree — fracking is a controversial issue.

Environmentalists denounce the idea because of the risks posed to not only the environment, but also to humans.

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In fact, a recent Democratic report states that millions of gallons of hazardous chemicals and known carcinogens were injected into wells by leading oil and gas service companies.

Between 2005 and 2009, drillers injected 32 million gallons of fluids containing diesel into wells in 19 states, an investigation by Representative Henry A.

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Waxman (D-Calif.) concludes. Just as it recovers its footing from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Administration faces a new threat, again involving a risky drilling technology and charges of lax regulation. Obama is “evaluating the need for new safeguards for drilling,” says White House spokesman Clark W. Stevens. “It’s likely that the science is going to say we need to regulate fracking,” says Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for Public Citizen, a liberal advocacy group.

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“But Obama’s political team is going to say don’t regulate, and I think the political team will win.”

Though the Democratic report may ignite a firestorm, there are some who truly believe in the benefits of fracking. Scientists claim that switching to natural gas, the cleanest of the fossil fuels, could help slow the approach of climate change by cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 17%.

So with growing criticism towards fracking, but staunch supporters of the gas extraction method, we are left to make our own conclusions. Do the risks outweigh the benefits?

Check out the June issue of Risk Management for an in-depth article on the risks fracking presents to the insurance and reinsurance industry.

Water Risk in the Middle East

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Water scarcity has become a hot topic within the last few years (we ran a feature on the the risk of water scarcity and its effect on businesses in our June 2009 issue). That risk, however, is far greater in certain areas of the world than others. On March 22nd, Maplecroft warned that Middle East and North African (MENA) countries top the list for extreme water security risks, which could lead to further increases in global oil prices and heightened political tensions in the future.

Maplecroft rated 18 countries at “extreme risk” with 15 of those located in the MENA region. Of the 12 organizations of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), six are rated as “high risk.”

“Water security has the potential to compound the already fragile state of societal affairs in some countries,” says Professor Alyson Warhurst, CEO of Maplecroft. “For example, in Egypt water security may intensify the on-going civil tensions. In turn it is not unrelated to food security, which leads to cost of living protests and in turn violent oppression in less democratic societies.”

The report states that technological innovations, such as the desalination of salt water, may alleviate some of these risks. Businesses that require intensive water use (food and beverage, semiconductor manufacturing, etc.) will also need to consider their impacts and analyze options for lessening their reliance on water, especially in regions already experiencing shortages.