Career environmentalists anguish over gulf oil disaster

[highplainsdem]

Source: Washington Post

Career environmentalists anguish over gulf oil disaster
By Lonnae O'Neal Parker
Saturday, May 29, 2010

-snip-

The oil leak is a slow-motion tragedy, and the sorrow and fears that have been building with it now seem to be spilling over. Washington is full of activists, environmentalists and thinkers dedicated to the planet, and with oil still spewing and every effort to stop it a failure, there's a gallon-by-gallon awareness: Heartbreak, disbelief and powerlessness are giving way to fury. But there's also a clear resolve to fight.

Regan Nelson, a senior oceans advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council, lobbies Congress. She had been working on clean energy and climate, but since the explosion, she said, "I put away all the work I was doing on fisheries issues, ocean acidification issues, to focus exclusively on the gulf oil disaster." She spent 10 days driving the Gulf Coast, trying to assess damage to both wildlife and ways of life.

She wrote about it on her blog:

Today as I sat in a boat in the Gulf, surrounded on all sides by oil-tainted seas, it's hard to say what hit me the hardest. Was it the graceful and enigmatic dolphins surfacing through the slick? Or Captain O'Neill pointing out the spots where he fishes for speckled trout, redfish, flounder, crab and shrimp, and hearing the desperation in his voice. Was it seeing first-hand the soup of oil droplets, dispersed but thick as Louisiana bean soup, as far down in the water column as one could see? Or was it the overwhelming odor of petroleum that left me feeling slightly nauseous? It's hard to say. But the cumulative impact was heartbreak. Heartbreak because standing there on the boat, all I could feel was helplessness.

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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052804679.html

[annm4peace]

1. It is these career environmentalist that should be on CNN and MSNBC

Not James Carvill or others like him.

[villager]

2. corporate media will never assent to spreading the "environmental message"

...by giving too much time to its reps. Environmentalism is, at its essence, anti-corporate.

And that is impermissible for our "publicly owned" airwaves...

[intheflow]

3. Regular programming like that might even entice me to pay for cable. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

4. "Career environmentalists"? WTF?

This reminds me of the corpo-fascist 'news' characterization of TRANSPARENTLY ELECTED, OBVIOUSLY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE **MAJORITY** presidents such as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or Evo Morales of Bolivia, as, and I quote, "The leftist president of...". When did they ever characterize Jr as the "rightwing president of the U.S."? Hm?

When did they ever characterize Jr or Barack Obama or ___ (name your congress critter) as "career politicians"? Where do we see them describing BP's multi-zillion dollar lobbyist army in Washington as "career lobbyists"? Did they ever characterize Donald Rumsfeld properly as a career torturer or career mass murderer?

Never, ever take the Washington Psst or any of its corpo-fascist 'news' brethren, but especially the Psst, at face value. ALWAYS look for their disinformation. ALWAYS ask: How does this headline, lede, choice of stories, choice of quoted "experts," spin, distortion and lies serve corporate/war profiteer interests, because, believe me, they always do.

In this case, it starts right up there in the headline. "Career environmentalists." I'd have to pay more attention to this sodden tripe about the sad, helpless "career environmentalists" than I care to, to suss out more of the spin, distortion and lies in this article. Play the game yourself. Find the hidden (or not so hidden) agenda. For instance, just imagine all the tears in the WaPsst 'news' room that "career environmentalists" have been unable to achieve even bottom line regulation of the oil industry so that it doesn't kill people and the planet. Boo-hoo!