White House Approves Sonic Cannons For Atlantic Energy Exploration

An anonymous reader writes: The White House on Friday gave final approval to allow the use of sonic cannons in finding energy deposits underneath the ocean floor on the U.S. Atlantic seaboard. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says that finding energy resources off the Atlantic seaboard "could generate thousands of jobs, but has also acknowledged that the process will harm sea creatures." Sonic cannons "fire sound waves 100 times louder than a jet engine." Mammals such as whales and dolphins that communicate through sound will most likely be affected, but scientists aren't sure to what extent. They also aren't sure how the cannons will affect fish and other sea creatures or how any physiological effects on them may impact the fishing industries of the U.S. and the other countries who rely on seafood that migrate into and out of the Atlantic Ocean.

Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck the earth, we do what we want!

Thanks Obama!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just disgusting news

Other loud noises

[ishmaelflood]

I wonder how loud they are compared with underwater explosions, volcanoes and seaquakes?

The White House isn't stupid..

[Rigel47]

They know that above all the oil must flow. Without the oil that came from the fracking boom oil would probably be at $150/barrel or higher. Without flowing oil the economy suffers (many past recessions were precipitated by high oil prices), the common man starts to get irritated at higher food prices, less disposable income.. for those that had disposable income to start with. The house of cards starts to sway even more.

Cheap oil is the real bread and circus that keeps the masses subdued. Some dead whales and dolphins isn't even a consideration.

Re:Lol

[davester666]

in small print "for foreign workers"

Re:Hoping this is not as bad as it sounds

[Antique Geekmeister]

The _turf_ of bottom dwelling creatures can be quite small, especially of mollusks. Injuring them, or driving away their predators, is likely to have quite large ecological consequences. Even driving away vegetarian creatures from their feeding grounds is likely to interfere with stable ecologies.

Re: Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is safe always, you mean. In a world with the GOP, the EPA could find that this causes a 10000% increase in sudden infant death syndrome and no ban will pass the House because of "rabble rabble job creators class warfare energy independence"

Re:BAD,Bad, Bad!

[jbolden]

You are the reason environmentalism gets discredited. Of course our needs are a consideration. The oceans must exist for future generations to do what for them? Fulfill their needs. The first imperative of every species is survival, that is nature. We can talk about balance or relative cost, but there is no way that humans are going to agree to extinct themselves.

Bullshit

[l0ungeb0y]

Just because they don't have exact figures, doesn't mean they don't know the outcome. They've already seen the effects our underwater noise making with naval craft and underwater military technology has had. But hey, as long as they can say "we don't know exactly100% for sure" it's A-OK, because the US needs jobs. And so the self-proclaimed "most transparent", "pro middle-class", "pro environment", "anti-lobbyist" President in History® gives BP, Shell and Exxon the OK to drive aquatic mammals into killing themselves and to suffer social separation because that's EXACTLY what they already know happens when we bombard the ocean with sonic disturbances. They just don' t know HOW MUCH WORSE it will be. just that it will be worse.

Re:Lol

[Noah Haders]

goodness I'm tired of this white house. the sooner the better.

Re:The White House isn't stupid..

[__aanbvm4272]

So You're saying oil is cheap now??? You are blind to investor trading. Who is buying oil at $120 a barrel? We don't know because it's a 'privacy thing'. Or trade secret they say How convenient.... So what if BIG oil is buying their own commodity to keep the #s up. Saudi Arabia said they would be happy with $50 to 60 a barrel and yet it is double where it realistically should be, according to commodity analysts. I have studied it. So saying it would be $150 is a lie and scare tactic. Because THAt is exactly what caused the BIG recession. $147.00 price. Remember the saying "what can we do about it???" Or weren't you alive back when we got robbed of our hi-way freedom. We are paying TWICE as much as we should be for gasoline to line some traders pocket. PERIOD. wake up. The war in Iraq was supposedly going to free up oil and we have never paid more ever since.

Re:The White House isn't stupid..

[saleenS281]

Or, if they went back to banning speculation on commodities, oil would be $25/barrel. But not allowing wall street to fuck us would be anti-American and borderline COMMUNIST!

Why should people change their energy use...

[thetoadwarrior]

When you can kill off the coasts to get a few more scraps to move everyone along until the US finds more oil owning brown people it can 'liberate'.

Re:Lol

[Nyder]

Hey man, didn't you read "could generate thousands of jobs?" Let me say that again. COULD. MAKE. THOUSANDS. JOBS.

End of discussion. We all know the only things worse than aborting potential jobs are terrorism and taxes.

Ya, but those jobs are going to be cleaning the dead fish & sea mammals off beaches.