Former President Bill Clinton recently made news when he talked about what to do about the BP oil spill:

http://theweek.com/article/index/204558/bill-clintons-bp-bombshell

Basically, the Clinton idea is blow the site up. Literally. But before you laugh this off, listen to him explain it. It’s not as crazy as you might think:

“Bill Clinton suggested the military may have to blow up the BP oil well. Speaking at a media forum in Cape Town, South Africa this weekend, the former president called the still-leaking well a ‘geological nightmare,’ and raised the specter of sending ‘the Navy down deep to blow up the well and cover the leak with piles and piles and piles of rock and debris.’ Clinton added that we ‘don’t have to use nuclear weapons,’ as some have suggested.”

This might be a solution worth considering. If we blew up the well and then covered it up, wouldn’t that be better than what we have now?

In the past few days we’ve looked at the tragedy in the Gulf and the failed leadership that has yet to find a way to clean up the mess.

This week, we’re going to take a positive focus and look at possible solutions. Is there anything that can be done to stop the flow of oil? Is there something that can help clean up the oil that’s already in the Gulf? The answer may surprise you.

Check out the blog this week for our series on what can be done to stop the spill and clean up the Gulf.

Here is another mistake the administration is making in handling the BP oil spill: stopping good ideas:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-gov-bobby-jindals-wishes-crude/story?id=10946379

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had begun using barges to suck up the oil. As the article notes:

“Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.”

Amazingly, the administration shut this down:

“But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.”

What? Fire extinguishers and life vests? Come on. Let’s get serious about cleaning this mess up and let’s not stop good ideas that are working.

When you are putting out a fire, don’t you focus all your effort on ending the flames? Don’t you ask questions later about how the fire started? Unfortunately, that’s not what our government is doing:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37444105/

As the article notes:

“Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that federal authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.”

Why are we launching criminal investigations when we haven’t even stopped the leak yet? Let’s get our priorities in order. Stop the leak first. Ask questions later.

Today we shift gears to focus on how another president is responding to the oil spill in the Gulf: the president of BP:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/20/bp-chief-yachts-gulf-oil-spill-burns/

Incredibly, Tony Hayward raced his yacht in a boat competition while the cleanup efforts continue in the Gulf of Mexico:

“…the decision by Hayward to return to England to attend JP Morgan’s annual race around the Isle of Wight is the latest ‘PR gaffe’ by the head of the oil giant blamed for the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.”

Obviously, this is not what the chairman of BP should be doing. Fortunately, Senator Richard Shelby has some helpful advice for Mr. Hayward and his boat:

“I can tell you that yacht ought to be here skimming and cleaning up a lot of the oil.”

Perhaps the most famous mistake made by the president in his handling of the BP oil spill was to lower himself–and his office–by using a locker room expression:

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/09/is-obama-really-kicking-ass/

As most of the country knows, the president told Matt Lauer:

“I don’t just sit around talking to [oil spill] experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose a– to kick.”

Set aside for a moment that this is not the way we expect presidents to talk in public. But more important, there is a lesson about leadership here. As Margaret Thatcher famously observed, being a leader is like being a lady…if you have to tell people you are one, you’re not one. In other words, talking tough does not mean the same thing as being tough.

In leadership studies, the sports metaphor is often used to describe a leader who “took his eyes off the ball.” In other words, sometimes a leader gets so caught up in the moment that he loses track of what really matters. It could be President Obama is experiencing a bit of this in his response to the BP oil spill:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/15/obamas-pitch-energy-speech-gulf-crisis-infuriates-republicans/

As the article notes:

“Obama, trying to take control of a crisis that has slowly eroded support for his administration, addressed the nation from the Oval Office Tuesday night to rally support for his efforts to tackle the spill. He pointed to the relief efforts already underway and said the government would hold BP responsible. But later in his 18-minute speech, he turned to focus on the need to ’seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels’ and tout Democrats’ climate legislation.”

Why would we focus on cap-and-trade legislation when we have an emergency that needs to be fixed? Time to put our eyes back on the ball.

Last night the president gave his speech on the oil spill and the media reaction has been largely negative:

http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/06/16/4516457-media-on-obamas-speech-did-we-mention-it-was-short-on-specifics

No less a source than Keith Olbermann, an Obama fan, criticized the speech:

“It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the past 57 days.”

Readers of this blog will recall that yesterday I said that crises like this are never solved with presidential speeches. In fact, when a president resorts to an Oval Office speech, it’s usually a sign of weakness, not strength. Better to get on the scene and lead with action, not words. And that’s what the president needs to do now.

The fundamental problem with the president’s response to the BP oil spill has been that he hasn’t understood that disasters like this require hands-on leadership:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1316527220100614

Money quote from the article:

“Facing intense criticism that he has not shown enough personal leadership in the spill, Obama will seek to use his meeting with BP executives on Wednesday and his Oval office speech to show that he is on top of the crisis.”

Come again? The president will use a speech to try and solve the crisis? Unfortunately, this crisis won’t be resolved with words; it will be resolved with action.

This week our blog will be focusing on one of the biggest victims of the BP oil spill: President Obama.

Last week, the president reached his all-time low of 44 percent approval in the Gallup Survey. And much of the country disapproves of his handling of this disaster. What is it about natural disasters that makes them become political disasters? Katrina helped bring down President Bush. Could the BP spill do the same to the president? And what could he do differently?

We’ll be talking about it all this week on the blog.

Yesterday our blog mentioned the money BP is spending on Google Adwords. Today, let’s talk about the details of that expense:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/100609-140554

As we noted yesterday, these are words you can buy from Google so that your company shows up first on a Google search. And just what words has BP purchased? “Oil spill,” “oil leak” and “Fox News” to name a few.

And how much money is BP spending on this? According to the article:

“we asked ClickZ Expert, Kevin Lee from Didit to estimate what BP is spending on paid search. We weren’t way off with our estimates. ‘They could be spending a million a month depending on how broadly they are defining their keywords,’ he told us. By our calculations BP was bidding on over 1,000 keywords ranging from niche topics like ‘oil spill’ to broader topics such as ‘environment’ and ‘oil companies.’ The average cost per click was $1.33, they had received over 750K clicks and already spent almost $1 million in less than a month.”

So BP is spending $1 million a month to make sure its website shows up anytime anyone searches for Fox News. Shouldn’t that money be spent cleaning up the mess or paying off the fishermen who are out of business?

Here is something else you probably didn’t know about the BP oil spill–that BP is spending millions of dollars on a PR campaign:

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/06/bp-spends-50-million-on-advertising/

Fifty million dollars. That’s how much money BP is spending on advertising. That includes $10,000 a day in Google adwords. Essentially, BP has purchased from Google words like “oil spill.” As a result, when you search on Google for those words guess where the search results take you? To BP so that they can give you some more of their spin.

I’m not against advertising or crisis communication. But shouldn’t BP spend its money cleaning up the spill first?

Today we focus on the impact the BP oil spill is having on wildlife. In a word, the impact is huge:

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-facts

Here are some shocking facts:

“400: Number of wildlife species threatened by the spill. Threatened species include sea life such as whales, tuna and shrimp; dozens of species of birds; land animals such as the gray fox and white-tailed deer; and amphibians such as the alligator and the snapping turtle. (Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune)

At least 30: Species of birds the Audubon Society says are potentially threatened by the oil spill. These include marsh birds, ocean-dwelling birds and migratory songbirds. All reside in “Important Bird Areas,” according to Audubon, designated because of their “essential habitat value.” Among the most vulnerable species is the brown pelican — the state bird of Louisiana — which was only recently removed from the endangered species list. The spill is especially devastating for bird populations because it coincides with the beginning of breeding season. (Source: Audubon Society)”

Sadly, I fear this is just the beginning of the damage to wildlife. With no end in sight to the oil spill, there is no end in sight to the disaster animals will experience.

Today we continue our series on surprising facts about the BP oil spill:

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-facts

And today, rather than focus on the result of the oil spill, we’re going to focus on the cause. And the cause is our reliance on oil. Here are some interesting facts:

“30 percent: Percent of the nation’s oil production derived from the Gulf of Mexico. (Source: E2 Wire)

1 billion: Number of gallons of oil spilled into the oceans each year, Gulf of Mexico spill notwithstanding. (Source: Union of Concerned Scientists)

137.8 billion gallons: Amount of gasoline Americans consumed in 2008, down 3% from 2007. (Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration)

19.5 million barrels: Amount of oil consumed in the United States per day.”

Isn’t it time we started getting serious about alternative energy?

Today, we continue to look at the surprising facts about the BP oil spill. And we do so by focusing on the cost that is involved:

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-facts

According to this article:

“12,000: Number of Louisiana residents who have filed for unemployment since the spill, most of which have come from the southern part of the state most closely impacted by the spill. (Source: Daily Finance)

$300 million: Estimated cost to BP to plug up the leaking oil spill, not including environmental cleanup costs. (Source: New York Times)

$5 to $42 million: Range of BP’s estimated fines, per day. On the low end, is the cost based on BP’s conservative estimate of 1,000 barrels a day being lost. On the high end, an estimate of 14,000 barrels a day, which is generally considered a more accurate estimate of the leak. As of May 26, this means that BP could be fined anywhere between $37 million to $1.5 billion. (Source: House of Representatives)

$75 million: The government-mandated cap on oil company liability. Some representatives are calling for the cap to be lifted and a new $10 billion dollar cap be put in place. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

$1.5 billion: Amount in insurance claims experts believe the BP spill will cost insurers. (Source: Business Week)”

This is more than just an environmental disaster. It’s a human disaster. It’s costing jobs and impacting lives. And we still have no idea when it will end.

Today, we continue our series on surprising facts about the BP oil spill by looking at the sheer size of the spill:

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-facts

According to this article, the size of the spill is much larger than you probably realize:

“19 million to 39 million gallons: Amount of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico in the month since the Deepwater Horizon spill. (Source: Huffington Post)

11,300 miles: The distance around the world the current amount of leaked oil would stretch if it was placed in milk jugs lined up side by side. To quantify, that’s farther than New York to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and back. (Source: New York Times)

102: The number of school gymnasiums that could theoretically be filled floor-to-ceiling with oil from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. (Source: New York Times)

130 miles long and 70 miles wide: Size of the oil slick as of May 17. The slick continues to grow and move.”

Before this is over, the BP spill will replace the Valdez as the worst oil spill in American history. The sad part is, we still don’t know when or how it will end.

Here is another surprising fact about the BP oil spill–it may never be cleaned up:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/gulf-oil-spill-clean-up-100429.html

As the article notes:

“However, for an oil spill at sea, typically only 10 to 15 percent of the oil is recovered, Gerald Graham, president of Worldocean Consulting, a marine oil spill prevention and response planning firm based in British Columbia, told LiveScience.”

So what happens to the rest of the oil?

“The rest of the oil that doesn’t get cleaned up evaporates, breaks up and floats on the surface, or sinks to the bottom, Graham said.”

With possibly as many as 20,000 barrels a day flooding into the ocean, let’s hope Graham is right.

This week we’ll continue to discuss the BP oil spill, but with a twist. We’ll be focusing on items that most people don’t know about the spill:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/19/gulf-oil-spill-still-no-o_n_581424.html

One of the things that most people don’t realize is that BP doesn’t really know how to fix this. In fact, BP has set up a hotline to receive tips from the public on what might be done to stop the oil flow.

One idea that BP is considering is a giant vacuum created by actor Kevin Costner. I’m not making this up:

“Costner, the ‘Waterworld’ and ‘Field of Dreams’ actor, has invested more than$24 million in developing the centrifuge invention, along with business partner John Houghtaling II of New Orleans. On Tuesday, Houghtaling said BP has agreed to test the devices, which can be dropped into the oil spill and separate water from oil, storing the petroleum in tanks. The smallest weighs 150 pounds; the largest 4,500 pounds.”

Let’s hope that Costner’s vacuum works better than his movies.