Nature Fighting Back Against Gulf Oil Spill

[n2doc]

Oil washes ashore on New Harbor Island, Louisiana, on Thursday.

Photograph by Alex Brandon, AP
Christine Dell'Amore in Port Sulphur, Louisiana
National Geographic News
Published May 7, 2010

Driving down Highway 23 last week in the southern Louisiana fishing town of Port Sulphur (map), David Ojeda could smell that something wasn't right. Turbulent winds over the approaching Gulf of Mexico oil spill were blowing strong odors inland, the 68-year-old shrimper suspects.

"Everybody's worried," he said Wednesday at the Port Sulphur harbor, which was filled to capacity with fishers rendered idle by the spill. "Nobody knows what will happen."

Unpleasant though it may be for those on the shore, that smell could be a sign of Mother Nature doing her own dirty work: It's the pungent scent of evaporating surface oil, which rises into the atmosphere and gets broken down by sunlight.

The joint federal-industry response team, led by U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry, has been attacking the growing slick with an arsenal of chemical dispersants, protective booms, and containment domes on the seafloor, among other techniques.

At the same time, the environment has been doing its own cleanup, which should not be ignored, experts say.

more

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100507-science-environment-gulf-mexico-oil-spill-cleanup-bacteria/

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Ah, nothing to worry about, then

Let's drill ten more holes next month!

(No need for legislation)

P.S. The sarcasm is directed at the article, not you.

[SPedigrees]

2. Nature does its best, but in this case

nature's defenses are going to be overwhelmed. At some point she may give up on the current ecosystem and replace the life forms we're used to with slimey slugs that thrive on oil and plastic waste. Already poisonous algaes and jelly fish are usurping marine life because they thrive on the flurocarbons we dump into the water supply.

It is hard to fathom how fossil fuels whose origins were natural plant materials can be so deadly to the environment.

[AnneD]

Dormant Volcanoes errupting......

Earthquakes with waves we have never seem, Tsunamis on a scale we have never seen, Droughts, Floods, Wildfires, record Winters and Summers ......Yes, I would say nature is fighting back very successfully.

[AnneD]

3. Double Post

Sorry guys

[SPedigrees]

4. It's a good post, double or single. nt

[AnneD]

5. Thanks...

I tend to take a geologic view of time. I tend to think that the age of homo sapiens is drawing to a close. Compared to Geologic Calender, we are barely a period-nothing more than a spec in the grand scheme.