Huge Amounts of Oil Found On Gulf of Mexico Floor 426
intellitech tips news of a study examining the Gulf of Mexico sea floor in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Marine scientists have found a thick layer of oil, and say it has devastated life there.
"Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia. Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries. She disputed an assessment by BP's compensation fund that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012. ... 'The impact on the benthos was devastating,' she told BBC News. 'Filter-feeding organisms, invertebrate worms, corals, sea fans — all of those were substantially impacted — and by impacted, I mean essentially killed. Another critical point is that detrital feeders like sea cucumbers, brittle stars that wander around the bottom, I didn't see a living (sea cucumber) around on any of the wellhead dives. They're typically everywhere, and we saw none.'"
Re:Not a big shocker there (Score:3, Informative)
The phrase is "toe the line" [wikipedia.org].
Ah, Irony, MightyMartian is thy name.
Re:No one's surprised. (Score:5, Informative)
If anyone thinks that is just cynical speculation...... look at the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska for a history lesson. This was far, far, far, far worse and you can expect the same sort of BS from BP.
Re:Not a big shocker there (Score:5, Informative)
According to the AP article linked to in the summary, over a period of 5 dives, the team looked at 2,600 square miles.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsv8vJ45hWNxvco5tgcPE_iHt6dQ?docId=b0876e788169473cb4fbe2d7ff275ffb [google.com]
So, not half a square mile, but not the entire Gulf basin either. About half a percent of the total area.
Re:Not a big shocker there (Score:3, Informative)
Quite right, and heres another thing.
I keep a reef tank. Out of interest I did my own extrapolating back when the world was on the brink of environmental melt down at the hands of Mordor... er, I mean BP.
You take the amount of oil spilt, and divide by the amount of water in the GOM.
Then you scale that down to your reef tank, and see if you would be comfortable adding that much oil.
Turns out I couldn't even accurately measure the amount (0.00007ml).
I'd be more than happy to test out having a 'disaster' of that magnitude in my little biotope.
Kind of ruins the 'news' angle though.
Re:"Huge Amounts of Oil Found On Gulf of Mexico Fl (Score:1, Informative)
Given this, and given the large scale similarities with the US Consititution, it does indeed seem as if any such system implemented in America would require section 8 of the US Constitution to be amended. Interesting how this is an issue that has seemingly been overlooked in the debate.
Lots of Republicans, conservatives, libertarians and tea partiers have been saying it is Unconstitutional (and have been going as far back as HillaryCare in the mid-90s, if not sooner if you want to get into the Medicare/Medicaid debate too). Two judges have ruled it to be Unconstitutional so far and it is making its way up to the Supreme Court for review. When confronted, then Speaker Pelosi and numerous other Democrats refused to acknowledge even the notion that it might be Unconstitutional and often resorted to condescension of constituents and reporters that dared to ask.
In an effort to try to get around the Constitutional argument, the Obama administration has tried to claim that it is a tax and not a penalty, while during "debate" Congressional Democrats argued that it was a penalty and not a tax. They've argued that it is interstate commerce because the effect of choosing NOT to participate in commerce is an act of commerce in itself. And if I hear one more person try to justify it under the "general welfare" clause when they clearly have no clue what the "general welfare" means (read both the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers, it meant the overall ability for government to maintain itself and function, not welfare in the modern notion), I think my head is going to explode.
People have their biases and they like to seek out information and sources that confirm rather than challenge their assertions and assumptions... those on the left whom limit themselves to only "friendly" sources, plus those that do seek out "enemy" sources but dismiss everything the opposition has to say anyway, might have had a hard time finding coherent arguments to why ObamaCare wasn't a good thing, well, other than the far left that cried that ObamaCare just didn't go far enough. Do a search on google for "obamacare unconstitutional" between Feb 1, 2009 and Sep 30, 2009 and you'll get 167k hits and that was still months before final passage. Remember the Democrats canceling their town halls so they wouldn't have to face angry constituents?