It appears that the options for a free blog with TypePad are very limited. I'm sure TypePad has wonderful themes and features if you're willing to pay $15/month but I can't. For free blogs, Wordpress seems to be my favourite.
I hope people have enjoyed reading the blog! Please follow me on over to http://savagethoughts.wordpress.com/!
Up to now, only tar balls and a light sheen had come ashore. But oil was starting to hit the beach at this island resort community in various forms — light sheens, orange-colored splotches and heavier brown sheets — said Chris Roberts, a local official who surveyed the area Friday morning.
Full article: Oil forces closure of La. beach - MSNBC.com
At left is a satellite image of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. At right is a computerized image (by my talented CBF colleague Mike Dougherty) of what an oil spill of the same size would look like at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, where offshore drilling is now proposed. Notice the threat posed by the blob's oily tentacles to the Assateague National Seashore, Virginia Beach, Ocean City and the blue crab spawning grounds of the southern Chesapeake Bay.
via cbf.typepad.com
I went looking for blogs that are covering the oil spill and the imagery on this post is excellent and really provides a perspective for people in other regions who think that the Gulf oil spill doesn't apply to them. Offshore drilling affects all of us and can cause disaster at a considerable magnitude.
A moment of levity...
Get off your ass, BP, or I'll send these guys after you:
Herglic do not mess around!
CNN reports that BP will begin trying the top kill method to stop the oil spill "probably" early next week, possibly Tuesday.
BP to try pumping fluid into well to stop Gulf oil leak - CNN.com
I really hope this works, but I don't understand why they have to wait 3+ days to begin the attempt. Has anyone seen anything mentioned about why they have to wait until Tuesday to start doing this? 20,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil per day are leaking into the Gulf. Why are they waiting to begin doing this? There's already oil reaching the coastal estuaries in Louisiana and currents running oil toward Florida. It's already foreseen that this will have global ramifications.
Fixing a natural disaster isn't an 8 to 5, Monday through Friday job. BP, get on this.
AL.com periodically posts a wealth of photos from the oil spill. AL.com is a collaborative effort of the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times and the Mobile Press-Register.
Today's great collection of photos.
AL.com's full coverage of the oil spill: http://www.al.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/
"People do not trust the experts any longer," said Markey, D-Massachusetts. "BP has lost all credibility. Now, the decisions will have to be made by others, because it is clear that they have been hiding the actual consequences of this spill."
More here: Gulf oil spill effects to reach Arctic and Europe, expert says - CNN.com
I grew up in Alabama. I spent summers as a child on the beaches of Panama City, FL and Gulf Shores, AL. I went three times down to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab near Mobile to study salination testing and go wading in the marshes. I love the ocean wildlife and wanted as a child to be a marine biologist or oceanographer. I read Jacques Cousteau's books. I studied maritime international law. I care a lot about animals in general and hate to see them hurt by this. I think the Gulf's waters and habitats are beautiful and important to the ecosystem.
We're coming around to a cleaner, renewable source of energy. Hybrid cars are getting more popular. Yet there's still so much money to be made in domestic oil drilling and there's still some dependance on it. On top of that, it's becoming clear that some companies in the industry, in this case BP of America, take shortcuts and the cheaper way out instead of making sure that if they're going to use the environment for their ends, they do so in the safest way possible to the ecosystem. It's greed and carelessness and now a disaster has occurred that affects all of us.
This has roused me from a political dormancy, where nothing really upset me enough to write about it or to take any action. I may only be able to inform people through this blog, but that's something.
Yesterday, I watched the Congressional hearing on the Gulf Oil Spill and wrote this bullet-point summary.
- It could take 3 months just to get the siphoning process to cover
the full depth of the spill.
- Blowout preventers had never before been used at 5,000 ft, the depth
of the oil well.
- A dispersal agent is being used to help break up the oil called
Correxit. Correxit contains arsenic that is now part of the Gulf food
supply.
- BP had other options for what dispersal agents to use and others were
less toxic but BP has a business relationship with the manufacturer of
Correxit.
- Transocean is a Swiss company and may not have paid US tax dollars.
- The Deepwater Horizon was built in Korea, not in the US.
- Most of Transocean’s vessels are flagged under the Marshal Islands.
- There was mention of the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 which BP
could try to use to limit their financial liability at roughly $28
billion, but BP publicly claims to take full economic responsibility.
- Blowout preventers are made out of a rubber agent. An employee
reported detached portions of rubber found in the shale shakers, and it
was considered to be immaterial to the BP company.
- Possible prevention methods for this disaster would have cost about
$12 million.
- BP’s “beyond petroleum” ad campaign cost the company $20 million this
year.
- Most of the response protocols for oil spills have been for surface
spills, not for deepwater spills like this case.
- The entire BP protocol for safe deepwater oil drilling involves a
working blowout preventer, the device that failed in the Gulf Oil Spill.
- BP says the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf is at about 5,000
barrels a day. Other reports suggest it may be at 80,000 barrels a day
or more.
- Ecologically, the entire United States will be affected by the oil
spill.
- EPA may reconsider allowing the usage of dispersants, finding that
they contain carcinogens.
- EPA’s Worst Case Scenario estimate for the Deepwater Horizon was
162,000 barrels a day.
- BP was not required to submit an OSRP (oil spill response protocol).
