BP tries to cut costs by keeping rarely used equipment for handling oil spills far away from the places it may need to be used.

That's very efficient as long as nothing goes wrong. But if a well near Australia blows, it would take weeks to bring that equipment to the spill. This would guarantee a regional disaster before they can even try to act.

Even if the equipment were stored nearby, a spill could still cause a regional disaster, as shown five years ago in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP and its contractors will surely cut costs in other ways, while lobbying for weak regulations to "reduce costs" — their costs. What this really means is that they get the profits and the whole world pays the eventual costs.

We need to leave 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Let's start with undersea oil in places where a spill would pollute a clean area.