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.'"
"Huge Amounts of Oil Found On Gulf of Mexico Floor (Score:4, Funny)
"Huge Amounts of Oil Found On Gulf of Mexico Floor"
Yeah... drill baby drill. Oh, hang on...
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Re:"Huge Amounts of Oil Found On Gulf of Mexico Fl (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah... drill baby drill. Oh, hang on...
Drill baby drill! We need a sane energy policy or our already struggling economy will take another dive soon. Things aren't looking at all good given the unrest in the Middle East right now.
More drilling sounds like a plan to me as long as basic safety procedures are followed. It took multiple violations for this well to fail. Thousands of rigs have operated there for many years with no problems. After Deepwater Horizon I'm sure all of the companies involved realize there's no net cost savings in skimping on safety.
On a more scientific note, I notice there's absolutely no quantitative information in the linked article. Exactly how much of the 615,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico seafloor was affected? I'm guessing it was far less than 1%, but of course that wouldn't sound nearly so alarming...
According to Wikipedia, about 5 million barrels of oil were released into the Gulf, at 42 gallons per barrel for 210,000,000 gallons. Also according to Wikipedia, the total amount of water in the Gulf is 660 quadrillion gallons (6.6e15 gallons). So the oil released represented about 0.0000003% of the total volume of the seawater. If you released the same percentage of oil into a full standard bathtub (36 gallons) you'd be releasing about 0.0004 grams of oil...not even close to a single drop. Also reflect on the fact that around half the oil evaporated quite soon after the spill.
This is not to say such spills are negligible, but I hope the numbers put things into a bit more of a perspective. Newspapers sell (and websites get hit) based on how alarming the story sounds...
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And your source for "around half the oil evaporated quite soon after the spill"? I've never seen oil evaporate in any timeframe I'd call soon. Of course we're talking crude oil here. So without having the assay [wikipedia.org], it's impossible to say how much of the oil evaporated. It'd be nice, if your number was right, but I suspect it's a bunch of prospective future oil in the form of the male bovine variety. I have a suspicion where you got that figure. Granted the methane evaporated, but that figure is separate from t
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Drill baby drill! We need a sane energy policy or our already struggling economy will take another dive soon.
Hurm... I'm not sure I buy this. Do you have some data?
Things aren't looking at all good given the unrest in the Middle East right now.
You're joking, right? When in the past 100 years has there not been unrest in the Middle East? I've lived through decades with many simultaneous wars going on there, depending on what you call "The Middle East" which can include or not include states such as Iran, Egypt, etc. depending on which definition you use. One fundamental constant: oil has a dollar value and someone's going to want to do that conversion.
More drilling sounds like a plan to me as long as basic safety procedures are followed.
Of course, and guaranteeing that takes tim
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Invalid assumptions. Oil doesn't equally disperse and life isn't equally dispersed either. If the *heavy* oil drifts to the bottom, as the article suggests you're looking at layering the *life rich* ocean floor with 341 gallons per square mile. Too much for my taste.
And realistically its more like a 10,000 square mile affected, 21,000 gallons per square mile. = more than enough to kill off all life.
Invalid assumptions indeed. First off, most oil is lighter than water and floats. Secondly, the majority of the oil left the Gulf waters through various mechanisms. From "Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: The Fate of the Oil" [fas.org] report produced by the Congressional Research Service:
That leaves a grand total of 22% of the oil unaccounted for, with an unknown amount being biodegraded by oil-eatin
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Re:"Huge Amounts of Oil Found On Gulf of Mexico Fl (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that's not entirely true. They're actually quite competent...they just work for the oil companies and thus their opinions are drowned out by the "cha-ching" sound the executives eyes make. GW made absolutely sure there was no one who would slow down an oil operation anywhere in the gubment. And, yes, the spineless coward Dems aren't any better. Time to stop throwing our votes away on the two major parties!
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The Lib Dems probably had no option but to go along with the raise in tuition fees, or the Tories would break up the coalition. Breaking up the coalition meant no AV referendum, and no chance of electoral reform - a once in a generation opportunity. They had the Lib Dems over a barrel. Once electoral reform is in place, more left wing parties can get into parliament and reverse tuition fee increases. Maybe.
Re:"Huge Amounts of Oil Found On Gulf of Mexico Fl (Score:5, Interesting)
Offtopic, but that is a very interesting link you have posted, and to my eye, looks correct.
I'm a dual Australian and American citizen, so am familiar with the politics of both countries and the recent debates re health care in the US. In Australia we have universal, single-payer health care and like 99% of people here I believe that is a good thing. However, your link led me to take a look at the constitutional situation with regards to healthcare matters here. The Australian Constitution is not dissimilar to the US one - both set up a system of Federal Govt. with certain powers, with other powers remaining with the States.
Lo and behold, implementing Australia's universal healthcare system DID require a change to the Constitution:
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution/par5cha1.htm [aph.gov.au]
That is the Australian equivalent of section 8 of the US Constitution, setting out the powers of the Federal Government. Cast your eye down it and you will see one that breaks the normal numbering scheme - between paragraph 23 and 24 you have a random paragraph 'xxiiiA' that allows them to legislate regarding healthcare. It was indeed inserted to allow UHC to be implemented in Australia in the mid-70s.
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.
It's ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is the problem with allowing big business to violate the environment. No matter how much they can assure us nothing will go wrong, something generally does go wrong and then we're screwed. Sure we "fined them" and "made them pay for the cleanup" but still the ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico got badly damaged and will take a long time to recover (2012 my ass - shit, there is still oil on beaches in Alaska from the Valdez spill, that happened decades ago).
When will we learn that there are some risks we just shouldn't take.
Re:It's ridiculous. (Score:4, Insightful)
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To a point, you're correct, but if we'd started getting serious about alternatives in the 70s when it became really obvious what we were screwing with, we wouldn't be drilling in such risky areas.
Re:It's ridiculous. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Mod parent up. If the cost is the occasional environmental disaster, and the benefit is modern civilization that can support the food and energy needs of a growing population, thank you very much, but I'll choose modern civilization.
More people have died in the past 30 years because of a lack of cheap energy than from any environmental disaster caused by the petroleum industry.
Re:It's ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
False dichotomy. No reason we could not drill on land, use nuclear power, or any number of things that would have prevented this. Hell, we could just require the proper safety measures be used and hang the CEO if they fail to do that. I bet a couple Execs with broken necks would sort this shit right out.
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Re:It's ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, give us a break, if we didn't harvest fossil fuels civilisation would be far less advanced than we are now
Or, perhaps if we didn't drill for oil in high risk places, we'd be much farther along with alternatives to oil (including nuclear) and we wouldn't feel that we *have* to drill in water a mile deep.
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Re:It's ridiculous. (Score:4, Insightful)
we'd be much farther along with alternatives to oil (including nuclear)
We'd be much further with nuclear if the environmentalists had gotten their heads out of their asses decades ago and stopped getting in the way of nuclear research and nuclear power development. Only now that the situation is starting to get desperate are they saying "oops, my bad". They still won't admit they were needlessly fear-mongering for years.
Re:It's ridiculous. (Score:4, Insightful)
which, we are trying to make a transition to, at this time and age, a whole 100 years late ?
as long as there are people who are buying bullshit, like you, these kind of thing does not end.
Re:It's ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think "good enough" is not quite the right word. It is more likely fossil fuels will become bad enough before other options become good enough. It is a bit similar how there are no options that are "good enough" compared to fast food for Americans. Even if you are choking yourself on your way down.
I have a feelling I will be taking a beating for this post...
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Solar and wind energy cannot yet replace our energy needs, not even close.
Untrue. Renewable could provide all the energy we need, optionally supplemented by nuclear. We put a man on the moon, how long do you think it would take to develop space-based solar arrays that work 24/7 if we put the same amount of effort into that? Nuclear only got where it is now because most of the early and very expensive R&D was done for military applications.
Between solar, wind, wave, geothermal, hydro, biofuels, modern nuclear, hydrogen and the rest we could cut our dependence on oil in 20 year
Re:It's ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, because you don't need to use energy to make solar cells - they just fall out of the sky. And because industrial grade smelters can run off a couple calculators daisy-chained together. And lithium is an inexhaustible resource.
Solar isn't even a solution TODAY. If you honestly think we could have transitioned to it 100 years ago, you are completely ignorant of what's involved. The only reason we can even CONSIDER it now is because of the relatively cheap energy which we've been ripping out of the ground for the last century.
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Then start my shutting off your internets.
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Depends on your definition of better. Some of us would prefer a simpler lifestyle.
Nothing is stopping you. Now- how about you stop trying to make me live a simpler lifestyle?
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so become Amish and live the life you think you want.
oh wait you were being a hypocrite.
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"so become Amish and live the life you think you want."
Because, of course, there's no middle ground.
As per wikipedia, average energy consumption per capita in the USA is 1,460W while EU average is 700W, less than half.
It must be that EU average living standard is Amish-like.
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The problem is that a 50% reduction is not much. We need to think in terms of orders of magnitude to make real change.
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The modern farming and plastics industries wouldn't work without petrochemicals. There's a good chance modern medicine wouldn't work either, whether due to direct dependencies such as medicines derived from petrochemicals or indirect dependencies such as plastics used to manufacture medical implements, fuels used to transport the injured, etc. Worse medicine directly equals reduced economic output (more people sicker longer) and greater hardship (more people dead earlier), as well as increased opportunity
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And this is the problem with allowing big business to violate the environment.
This is the sort of mindset that needs to change. It isn't big business doing this. It's greedy human beings. We need to start calling businesses what they are: legal constructs that only exist on paper.
The laws should bar people from using them as shields and instead hold the individuals directly responsible.
win win! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Who says it's not a renewable resource (Score:5, Funny)
All those dead animals will be oil in a few million years. We should be *thanking* BP for making more oil, not reprimanding them for the spill.
Re:Who says it's not a renewable resource (Score:5, Funny)
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Ah an investment strategy? I guess they could just think of it as a "20 billion dollar CD". Brilliant!
Right next to the wellhead, what do you expect (Score:3, Insightful)
"I didn't see a living (sea cucumber) around on any of the wellhead dives"
I'd like to see a larger survey, please. Of course right next to where the well broke there will be a significant problem with marine life. Please examine what exactly is the area impacted.
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Please examine what exactly is the area impacted.
Real and concrete statistical information that attempts to give a plausible and reasonably clear big picture is boring.
Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the way our environmental law works in America right now, EPA included, is horribly flawed.
Its original mission was to stop the kinds of stuff that *everyone*, right- and left-wing both, can agree is bad: dumping waste into public water systems, belching smoke next to a school, and so forth.
The modern environmentalist movement has moved on from there to basically banning any and all projects, everywhere, if it impacts the environment in the slightest. Some ripe examples of environmentalist hypocrisy:
1) Building a wind farm in upstate Virginia? Some lawyers who owned a vacation farm there (and had *fought* NIMBYs before for companies) sued and got construction blocked.
2) Building an offshore wind farm? Teddy Kennedy,Mr. 90% voting rating by environmental groups, sues to have it blocked.
3) Building a massive solar project in the Mojave desert? Sierra Club sues to have it blocked.
4) Building a new interstate in North Carolina? 10 river snails found in a new branch of a river mean the project has to be rerouted at a cost of billions of dollars and with X tons of extra pollution going into the atmosphere every day from all the extra car-miles being driven, let alone the extra time on the commute.
5) The California High Speed Rail system, which has the support of environmentalists, is currently slogging through its three year and multibillion dollar environmental impact report. They've already been threatened to be sued by environmentalists for going through Pacheco Pass. (And if they went through Altamont? They'd be sued, too.)
Etc., etc.
The arguments always made by these duplicitous bastards is that, "Well, we aren't against X (Wind power, solar, etc.), we're just against it here." And if the place isn't 100% perfect, the judge will agree, and it'll get moved elsewhere, at which point the project gets sued again, and it gets delayed and moved again, and so forth.
One editor put it exceptionally well: You look at all of these developments that environmentalists love - canal walks by DC, highways leading to trail heads in the Sierras, and so forth. And then you realize that all of these things would be impossible to build today. We're so screwed up in our modern society that we could never do another Erie Canal, or a Hoover Dam, or the Interstate System. It's impossible.
So something needs to change. I wouldn't say that banning the EPA is the right way of going about it, but limiting and restricting the EPA to deal simply with actual sources of pollution, would be a very good thing. So they would no longer be an unelected and unaccountable limiter on construction in the US. Revising the Endangered Species Act to eliminate its abuses would be an excellent accompaniment.
More importantly though, we need reform for environmental lawsuits. Perhaps for every major project, a tribunal of judges could be set up to hold all hearings in a unified and systemic fashion. So lawsuits can no longer bounce projects around the countryside, and so that projects no longer require themselves to be perfect to be allowed to go forward, but merely the best option among several choices. And their default behavior should be to allow the project to proceed.
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Please don't lump NIMBYs and anti-technology enviro-nut groups in with environmentalists.
I think the word "environmentalist" might be beyond salvaging these days, it's more far-gone than "hacker"...some have suggested "enviro-technologist" or "enviro-capitalist," and while they have the right words in them to make they'll never be confused with the nutjob/NIMBY crowd, they just aren't right for the job...
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And the only reason the EPA is making policy is because the Republicans flat out refuse to do so, and filibuster any attempts.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds just like the DEA, they ban drugs all by themselves. Seems the republicans like that one just fine though.
Link from original submission was changed.. (Score:2)
Here are the scary looking picture:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358861/BP-Gulf-oil-spill-Shocking-images-prove-seabed-STILL-coated.html [dailymail.co.uk]
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Here are the scary looking picture:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358861/BP-Gulf-oil-spill-Shocking-images-prove-seabed-STILL-coated.html [dailymail.co.uk]
Yeah, I saw Janet Jackson on the right, scary indeed.
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Here are the scary looking picture:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358861/BP-Gulf-oil-spill-Shocking-images-prove-seabed-STILL-coated.html [dailymail.co.uk]
I didn't read the article but that crab looks alive to me. It's standing with it's head elevated and appears to be supporting itself with it's legs. I would not expect a dead crab to look like this. Hell, it even looks like the retina in its left eye is still reflective. As for the brittle stars, there are numerous species in the Gulf ranging from bright orange to pink, black and the tan color that those appear to be.
Don't get me wrong, there is no way in hell that the gulf will totally recover by 2012, but
No data or links to scientific articles (Score:5, Insightful)
How is anyone supposed to make an assessment of this story? There is no data presented, no links to scientific articles, and the quotation referenced 'around the wellhead' where of course you would expect severe effects.
I realize this is Slashdot, but surely there has to be a minimal standard for reporting on a technical site.
Re:No data or links to scientific articles (Score:4, Insightful)
This article doesn't pass the smell test for a few reasons.
a) Everything i've heard so far about the dissolved methane has been pretty positive. e.g. http://www.upstreamonline.com/incoming/article240856.ece [upstreamonline.com]
The current article doesn't make anything but a FUD statement that the methane is "a big deal".
b) Having watched live video feeds (for hundreds of hours (Go CRAW! )) from the well area during the capping process two things don't jive: First of all the area immediately around the well, say within 200m or so didn't have anything living on it. It was just mud. Occasionally (maybe once a day at most ) a fish , squid or shark would swim by, but that's it. No crabs, sea cucumbers, corals or anything else were on the bottom. This is probably because it was all at 5000 ft depth where there's no light and not a whole heck of a lot going on. Second, even around the well there was no actual oil visible.
c) I'm glad they took samples over "2600 square miles". What percentage of the area was impacted ? where ? over such a huge area even if all the oil had sunk straight to the bottom it would be a vanishingly small amount. certainly not enough to "choke off" anything. Also, as noted in point "b" the corals and sea stars etc would have to be some distance away from the well anyway because coral needs sunlight... which doesn't exist 1 mile down.
d) there's no mention of just how many natural oil and gas seeps there are in the GOM. (answer: thousands). Let's wait and see if those samples really show that the oil is from the mc 252 well.
i fully believe that some of the oil ended up on the bottom and that it's caused damage, but on the balance whatever truth there may be in this article is being spun in a misleading and scare-mongering way. The GOM is open for shrimping and the shrimp is testing out fine.
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Had also meant to include this link, but couldn't find it at the time: http://www.louisianaseafoodnews.com/2011/02/11/gulf-shrimp-safe-enough-for-1575-per-day-diet/ [louisianaseafoodnews.com]
(and no, i'm not in the seafood industry or even within 1000 miles of the Gulf. Just tired of the un-scientific and anti-scientific scare mongering about the impact of the spill. Yes, it did some damage, and it sucks for the birds, dolphins and turtles that got killed by the oil, but there's just no evidence of wide spread, ecosystem changi
deep water is cold (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not enough information (Score:3)
Got your priorities in order... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries."
Gotta love that.
"Hey, turns out we've devastated the local environment!"
"Why should I care?"
"But whole species could die, or be pushed to the brink of extinction!"
"Meh."
"Well... fishermen could lose their jobs!"
"Oh, that is a big deal! They'd better get right on that."
"Hm, how can I put this... You'll have to pay more for fish, and Your Tax Dollars* will have to be used to solve the problem!"
"TO ACTION!"
(* Your Tax Dollars are not actually yours.)
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It's enough to make a Republican's head spin: HOW ABOUT THOSE JOB-KILLING OIL PLATFORMS?
Msg from BP (Score:3)
"That's not OUR oil, you can't prove anything. THAT oil must have come from somewhere else, our well is sealed."
I can't say I'm surprised. (Score:3)
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill released over 6 times as much oil as the Valdez did. Very little of it was actually cleaned up. Of the oil which even made it to the surface, mostly BP just dumped enough dispersants down to cause the oil to sink back down to the ocean floor. Where exactly did people think it was going to go anyways?
Re:Not a big shocker there (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not a big shocker there (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, my friend. This is America. In America, scientists are tolerated only so long as they tow the party line. When science diverges from short term commercial interests, you can be sure that scientists cannot be trusted, that scientists are Communists, anti-God and anti-American Way. Your child like faith does you great credit, and will server you well when Sarah Palin is chosen to be the next President and all those pinko environmental laws are thrown out the window and any scientist who believes that the Earth is over six thousand years old or that large amounts of oil vomiting on to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico will be re-educated in their proper patriotic requirements.
God bless America, where freedom is slavery, ignorance is knowledge and war is peace.
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God bless America, where freedom is slavery, ignorance is knowledge and war is peace.
Wow. That just about sums up everything I feel about the USA right now. I think I just found my new sig.
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God bless America, where freedom is slavery, ignorance is knowledge and war is peace.
Wow. That just about sums up everything I feel about the USA right now. I think I just found my new sig.
That's close, but the actual quote from 1984 [wikimedia.org] is:
"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."
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The phrase is "toe the line" [wikipedia.org].
Ah, Irony, MightyMartian is thy name.
Re:Not a big shocker there (Score:5, Funny)
Well, Mars is pretty irony. That's why it's red, y'know.
a big shocker there (Score:2)
Ok I just cant take it any longer. It is "toe" the line not "tow"
Fuck me, it not that difficult, simple common sense and comprehension. Where would you tow the line to?
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Well the whole idea of toe the line means literally what it says, to place ones toes just before a line as ordered.
So obey an order is to toe the line.
I am amazed something so simple needs explaining.
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But I don't suppose, for that matter, that he would have liked your wild hyperbole in the first place.
Re:Not a big shocker there (Score:4, Insightful)
615,000 square miles of ocean floor in the Gulf.
How big of an area did they examine? Did they really expect to find anything different around the well head?
So she goes and examines in detail maybe half a square mile right around "ground zero" and extrapolates that to 615,000 square miles?
OK... I see.
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.
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My, aren't we building ourselves quite an assortment of straw men.
So you tell me, can you make any kind of worth while statement about he nature of165,000 square miles of ocean floor based on a survey that looked at 1 square mile if they were lucky?
Remember, you already got to make your worthless, snarky comment so only real responses count.
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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 th
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It doesn't scale as you imply. It's not about the amount of water, because oil doesn't really dissolve all that well in water, and it doesn't stay dispersed in water for very long. It's all about surface area at the interfaces: the interface with air, the interface with seabed, and perhaps a thermal or density boundary or two in between.
So, let's redo the math and see what difference it makes (if any).
Supposedly [wikipedia.org], we had Vs=780E3 m^3 spilled.
Per EPA [epa.gov], there's Vg=2.4E15 m^3 of water in the GOM; the area of the
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All of those things likely make it better, not worse.
Reef tank has too much bio-load for the volume of water. Reef tanks typically (or shouldn't) use mechanical filtration. Reef tanks typically get too many nutrients added, thereby polluting the water far more than the ocean.
I'm not making a case for BP being innocent, or that what happened was acceptable. Clearly there were effects, for which they should be held accountable.
I still think though that given the volumes That still makes me feel this isn't the
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Actually, it might just be. The radioactive debris is going to be pretty diluted by all that water. And we did detonate dozens of nuclear weapons in the pacific ocean with relatively small negative effects. (there was the japanese fishing boat crew that got directly into the path of the fallout, and we ruined the islands we set them off on, but other than that, it's all good)
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My take on this is everyone is putting words in everyone else's mouths without actually reading either article. I know it's slashdot but both Google and BBC can take a little extra traffic.
From the BBC report:
Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil . . .She disputed an assessment by BP's compensation fund that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012. . .it may be a decade before the full effects on the Gulf are apparent. . . Professor Joye noted that after the Exxon Valdez spill, it took several years before it became clear that the herring industry had been destroyed. . . "I do believe that it will recover from this insult, but I don't think it's going to recover fully by 2012."
From the AP report:
Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico . . .Her research and those of her colleagues contrasts with other studies that show a more optimistic outlook . . .Joye and colleagues took 250 cores of the sea floor and travelled across 2,600 square miles. . . "I've been to the bottom. I've seen what it looks like with my own eyes. It's not going to be fine by 2012,"
From what I've read she has not said the entire Gulf floor is covered in oil. She has sampled different parts of the Gulf. She has warned that not all the ramifications of the spill are known based on prior experience with the Valdez spill. She has not said that BP is lying. Sh
No one's surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just waiting to see what kind of fines BP will have to pay to help clean up that mess.
And if you're going to say that they'll just pass the fines on to their customers ... who cares? If their prices are higher than their competition then I'll shop at their competition.
Re:No one's surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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One could also look to the ongoing "hydrofracking" saga, or the vast number of leaking mine sites in the American west whose owners disappeared once the extractable minerals were gone, leaving the heavy metal leachates for somebody else to drink. Because extraction industries are always rather ugly(or, at best, are much more expensive to run cleanly), an ability to evade liability for environmental destruction and human casualties is a
Let themm try (Score:2)
Re:No one's surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
That''s not how the oil market works.
BP will raise their rates, everyone else will quickly realize they can get more out of the consumers, and raise to match but keep the profits.
when dealing with cartels always think the worst.
Re:No one's surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
Extortion?
Way to troll. The damage to the environment and the economy of the coastal cities that depend on the ocean will be severely impacted for decades. Not 2 years, *decades*. I am not surprised at all by this. Do you think the oil is just going to disappear? What about all that chemical crap they were pumping out too?
No way I am eating seafood from the Gulf.
BP deserves to be DESTROYED over this. Total Destruction. The US needs to seize any and all assets of BP that they can, ban them from doing business with the US, keep them out of the Gulf and away from the Atlantic due to the clear threat they pose to the US, and put all seized assets into a relief fund that the coastal cities and states can draw on for the next few decades.
Extortion? That's comical. They are getting off easy so far.
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No, that would be an over-reaction. We don't yet know for certain what the damage will turn out to be. So why not just suspend the rights of BS stockholders and put the company under the temporary control of the US government until all of the damage from the spill is repaired. Absolutely all of the corporation's profit should be used to combat the damage, and all executive bonuses should go into the same fund as well.
Another good step would be to order the executives to keep working in the corporation of fa
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I doubt they will pay. It will more than likely be a repeat of the Exxon Valdez where there are in courts for years, and they will use their corrupt influences (which caused the whole thing) to mitigate their damages.
This was not a simple oil spill from a ship. This was far worse in every respect. We know that BP has been hugely negligent and arrogant in conducting their affairs.
Yes. They deserve to be destroyed. Those in charge of BP should never again be in charge of a company that can do so much dam
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Yes! I totally thought there would be wildlife trying to tell us over the past weeks!
It is like they are just not showing their faces as if they just don't care! I mean if the oil spill was such a big deal, why didn't we see oil covered animals clambering to the shore for help?
They didn't have to be such wimps and die on the bottom.
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Re:Obama must be the 2nd Teflon President (Score:5, Insightful)
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No [usatoday.com] political [boiseweekly.com] fallout [cnn.com] at [businessinsider.com] all [washingtonexaminer.com]. None [wsj.com].
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That's like asking why it's called the 100 meter dash instead of the 1 hectometer dash. Despite it being a valid measurement, when was the last time you saw the measurement used in the real world? Most people know what a centimeter is. We all had rulers in grade school that had inches and centimeters. Most people only know millimeters, centimeters, meters, and kilometers. All the other units are pretty much left to scientists.
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That's like asking why it's called the 100 meter dash instead of the 1 hectometer dash. >
Um, excuse me, but can you tell me how many Libraries of Congress is that?