The explosion incidents listed at www.justpeace.org/explosions.htm do not necessarily pertain to oil only. They include many non-oil related incidents such as (examples from the 1999 list).

-explosion at a bolt making plant -a propane fired pollution control device explosion -machine explosion at a wax company -explosion at an explosive manufacturer -transformer fire -explosion at Miami Valley Paper company -a foundry accident -an explosion at a bicycle parts plant -an explosion at a fireworks company

Given these types of incidents as criteria to make the list, it is exceedingly hard to believe that only 5 such incidents occurred between the years of 1990-1992. Moreover, the person who has acquired this information mentioned that it was done compiling information through web archives and some sources of industrial information. It appears that the info was all gleaned through the internet. Not a very good way to get complete information, especially if a lot of reports aren't available on the internet regarding prior years.

People should be very skeptical and ask a lot of questions when receiving information presented in this manner.

-- cjs (cjs@noemailthanks.com), January 24, 2000

Answers

Thank you. Thank you, CJS. Those figures looked suspect to me, also, though I do not doubt the sincerity of the poster. Numbers can be made to say anything, and I totally agree that it would be bad science to glean all one's data from the internet. Well said.

-- futureshock (gray@matter.com), January 24, 2000.

Nice try, cjs. Keep denying the truth and maybe someday you'll be right.

But not this time.

-- (hal@gostek.org), January 24, 2000.

I don't doubt the sincerity of the person providing the information, either. I don't think there is an attempt to create "spin"; it's just my guess that the information is incomplete.

Hal, it would do you some good to review the list again. Do you really think that there were only 5 incidents that occurred in- between 1990 and 1992 that are of the same type as those that occurred in 1999? Are you that naive?

-- CJS (cjs@noemailthanks.com), January 24, 2000.

Anytime you are dealing with historical data, the further back you go, the more uncertain the data becomes. The significant thing, however, is that the number of incidents continues to increase, especially since the beginning of this year. Someone was keeping a similar list last year. Does anyone have the URL?

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), January 24, 2000.