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Comment by GreeniFi | Hacker News Reader

It’s interesting that the article does not attribute responsibility. Ultimately, that tanker was under the control of a group of decision-makers and liability should be attributed. I say this, because what pollution is in economic terms is the movement of cost from one person’s balance sheet to another’s - whether by hook or by crook. We do ourselves a disfavour when we don’t identify how liability moves.

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I mean, while I somewhat agree with you, whether you conclude the owners are the Houthis or the Yemeni government, it doesn't really matter that much if a giant spill occurs, the damage will have been done, and trying to get something out of either the Houthis or the govt will be squeezing blood from a stone.

I don't think the goal would be to identify liability for this one scenario, but to establish a pattern of identifying liability for similar scenarios.

stop buying from them then

If you don't, someone else will.

Source: Iran

The wikipedia article [1] provides the history. It was used for storage by the government and then fell into the hands of Houthi forces before deteriorating.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Safer

My impression is that the decision makers have become very good at creating ambiguity for this exact purpose, there is even a wiki article for 'diffusion of responsibility"

For instance McLaren company has a couple thousand kegal entities sprincled around the world, and its is a relatively recent phenomena

I’ll look up that Wikipedia page. Thanks.

According to an article in the current edition of Private Eye (a UK magazine):

The Safer has sat off our [Yemen] coast, abandoned and rapidly decaying, for the last five years. Our government-in-exile ... claims ownership of the vessel."

Private Eye is one of the few publications which identifies this type of detail. I’m a regular buyer. Thanks for sharing.

I'll add some more from the article, then, repeating the initial quote in full and then carrying on.

The Safer has sat off our coast, abandoned and rapidly decaying, for the last five years. Our official government-in-exile, led by the useless President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, claims ownership of the vessel but is squabbling with the Houthis over who gets its load of rapidly degrading crude, estimated to be worth $30m. To make matters worse, Donald Trump is thinking of officially declaring the Houthis as terrorists, just as they were on the verge of allowing UN access to the ship.

(This was from PE No. 1537, cover date 18 December 2020.)

The responsibility is ours. The net downside of such a spill is so extreme that essentially any non-military action necessary to effect a successful extraction of the oil is likely to be worthwhile.

Given the tensions in the region, anything is risky. Perhaps the only ones who could pull it off are the Swiss, but that doesn't solve the question who will pay for the effort, and who will get whatever remains when the salvaged cargo and ship is sold off.

My personal wild guess: nothing will happen, the ship will break apart, no one will dare and try to contain it for fear of getting targeted by someone's warship or drone, and only the nations who can afford it will clean up their coasts.

The Swiss? They don't even have a navy as far as I know.

Realistically the only one who could do this is the US. But the US may not want to fight the Houthi, which would probably be necessary.

The US paid the Russians to help them secure their nuclear material in the greatest masterstroke of nonproliferation of all human history, we can do a similar thing with the Houthi. Everyone wins.

If a major food supply fails in the Middle East, we might see another mass-migration like that driven by the Syrian conflict.

Whether we like it or not, everything today is global.

Why is this a US responsibility? The UK, France, India, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, and China are all closer and have significant naval forces which could reach that tanker.

Because we live on the planet and others haven't yet stepped up.

So on that basis you're willing to sign up US military personnel to risk their lives, and US taxpayers to foot the bill? The Yemeni littorals are an active combat zone.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5497/us-destroyer-atta...

Agreed. And the owners billed.

Who are the owners?

Even military action to affect successful extraction is worthwhile.

Every thing has a cost. Everything. Its very simple calculus really. What will be the short-term, medium-term, and long-term damage in dollars and lives of allowing this ship to break apart?

What will be the equivalent of using military action - if necessary?

Either decision will cost dollars. Either decision will cost lives. We either pay up front, or we pay down the road, but we will pay. We need to determine the cheaper cost and steel ourselves to pay it.

And which countries should conduct that military action?

Presumably it’s not hard to read the second paragraph, read that access is controlled by Houthi fighters and Google the name

It’s a science website not a political one

There’s a difference between “control” and “ownership”. And attributing causation is not a political point, it’s a point of fact.

In the midst of a civil war, there's not much difference between the two.

Fair point.

Who controls property is not a political point?

Isn’t that exactly what the legal system is for?

The damage will be beyond a balance sheet

Agreed, it just comes across as callous and inhumane to abstract the suffering of our fellow humans and other sentient beings out as merely a business cost.

A sadly common motif through, particularly on HN.

It was my comment and I’d like to reply to that specific point, elaborating my initial comment: a true balance sheet is beyond the purely financial. It covers natural capital and social capital too. It’s only the narrow contemporary understanding of balance sheet that means that so many costs (and gains) are hidden to us and therefore ignored. Part of society’s problem is the phoney baloney system of financial accounting that leaves so much unaccounted for. To refine my initial point: there will be many horrific costs to this mess. Some poor sod will end up paying the cost. If owners think they can escape full liability, they will continue to take risks because they can privatize the profit and socialize the costs.

> A true balance sheet is beyond the purely financial. It covers natural capital and social capital too.

> To refine my initial point: there will be many horrific costs to this mess. Some poor sod will end up paying the cost. If owners think they can escape full liability, they will continue to take risks because they can privatize the profit and socialize the costs.

Thank you for elaborating, I entirely concur with the sentiment of the above, even if we differ on terminology.

To refine my original my point too, please consider it a comment on the unfortunate connotations of using the term 'balance sheet' for this concept - without further information, it's unclear if it's being used in a purely business financial context or not.

Every man has a balance sheet associated with his person: a sum of all his assets and liabilities, burdens and obligations. It captures one’s true wealth (or poverty). A large part of its content can only be settled in the political realm. If it’s not a balance sheet, I don’t know what else to call it.

Sounds like poetry for accountants.

Which "owners" are you referring to? It appears that the ship was seized from the legal owners. There is no functioning government or court system there.

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