'We're braced for a heavy impact and the food-chain collapsing'

[marmar]

from the Independent UK:



....(snip)....

We've been working there for 20-hour days. We're trying to work on this at a strategic level with a long-term conservation plan about how we maintain and protect habitats into the future as, hopefully, the leaking oil gets capped.

But we're bracing for a really heavy impact on the habitat and the birds. The area is incredibly rich. It's both rich in diversity but also in abundance. There are vast marshes and miles and miles of beaches and, at this time of the year, birds are just packed into those areas for breeding. The impact on the migrant birds will be very heavy, the breeding terns and the breeding marsh birds. We're mobilising volunteers to help with individual birds, planning and documenting the effects of the spill.

While there's this large mass of oil that we can see on the surface, there are untold volumes of oil under the surface. We could see the food chain collapsing, which could cause as much damage to the birds as the oil. We could see the young born early being fed with tainted fish or abandoned because the parents die and don't come back. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/melanie--driscoll-were-braced-for-a-heavy-impact-and-the-foodchain-collapsing-1981134.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Blah, blah, blah...this is all natural." - Rush DraftDodger Limbaugh (R)

"So let the frikking food chain collapse. It will thin the population of you noisy American proles. I can guarantee you it will have ZERO impact on the supply of the FINEST MEATS AND CHEESES that I and my fatcat corporate republicon cronies engorge ourselves upon. My $40 million a year in corporate payola for spouting lies and propaganda will still come through right on schedule. So screw all this lib-rul whining about the collapse of the food chain -- that's a concern only for THE LITTLE PEOPLE, you know, you American proles. Bwaaa ha ha ha."

- Rush DraftDodger Limbaugh (R)

[tsuki]

2. Sorry. Too literate to be Rush. Not enough get down, jump around,

jello bowl shaking in that rant for Rush.

[SusanaMontana41]

76. This is a serious thread. But I just can't help myself.

:rofl:

[Swamp Rat]

3. People are in denial

They won't believe jack shit until they are drinking oily water and eating old canned food.

[intheflow]

4. You got that right, Swampy.

:(

[QC]

5. Many seem to think that the greatest potential tragedy of his situation

is that it might have a negative impact on the president's poll numbers.

[Lerkfish]

22. If only I could reccomend your post, I would

it succinctly lays out the problem here at DU

[TorchTheWitch]

88. motion seconded

The lengths people will go to here to excuse the president is nauseating.

[blindpig]

26. Obscene and irresponsible

These fuckers are killing the world for the profits of a few. If anything this event and the government response to it go to show who really runs our society, it really doesn't matter who is president, capital holds the whip hand.

[defendandprotect]

40. ... and in large part the all powerful oil industry/lobby/wealth running and ruining all life . . .

This is a monopoly industry -- which exceeds the power of a "people's" government now

and it should be overturned --

NATIONALIZE the oil industry -- should have been done long, long ago!!

[lark]

70. When both parties are bought and sold by oil

this is what you get. If Obama were the man I thought he was, he'd have already stopped all permits and stopped all drilling until every one of these MFers could be tested - at the very minimum. He'd have issued an executive order that there were ZERO waivers for environmental testing, that until the oil companies could prove their ability to stop the flow and mitigate the damage, until they kept round the clock ships and booms ready 24/7, no more drilling.

Obama's not the man I hoped he was, he's as deep in the crap as the rest, just as bought and sold, just expresses his ideas much better.

[Raster]

33. Ding! Ding! Ding!

Winnah! Winnah! Dead, oily chicken dinnah!

[Individualist]

34. +1 Their priorities are shameful.

[SammyWinstonJack]

35. +1.

Pathetic, isn't it? :puke:

[AlbertCat]

58. Many seem to think that the greatest potential tragedy of his situation

is that it might have a negative impact on the president's poll numbers.




Not to mention ruining my beach vacation!






Hubris...it's not just for the Bush Adminitration any more!

[racaulk]

65. :nodding:

[readmoreoften]

67. +1

[mindwalker_i]

7. Strangely, that's why we need it to happen

Oil is bad. Even without any accidents, it's bad. Over time it will destroy this planet or at least make it uninhabitable to us (which is what most people care about), so it's actually better that the problems with oil don't happen slowly and that people see those problems first-hand, quickly, now!

As bad as this spill is for the gulf and associated habitats, and all the birds and animals, it would be worse to let oil be used until the global climate changes completely, destroying all those habitats anyway. That would be slow. I'm in the unfortunate position of rooting for the oil, not because I want to kill the ecosystems but specifically because we need a hammer big enough to get into people's brains - through all the levels of mental armor like Friends five days a week, new cars, Scott Peterson (or the latest replacement), or of course Fox news.

Rush tried to head this off: he knew that a major leak like this would push people to consider other sources of energy more carefully, and it might even spur on more research and, god forbid, excitement for non-fossil-fuel energy. And he'll spin it as all us liberals just being against oil and big business. Well, I'm against oil because of this! It's BAD FOR US and the world.

So there you have it. I want everyone to see the damage, and I want us all to suffer, a little, enough to get it through our collective heads that oil sucks, and that we need to do something about it. There will be no one solution - solar, nuclear, wind, etc. - but many things that all come together as a solution. There are a lot of possibilities, a lot of things we can work on, a lot of things to try, and that's what I want to see happen.

[kestrel91316]

39. [phone] 000 000 000 000

[defendandprotect]

41. Ever more so, this is the time for Congress to be discussing future energy -- alternative, renewable

sources of energy ONLY --

[defendandprotect]

43. Sad but true point . . . and notice again use of FEAR re oil lobbying . . .

Well, when you wait 60 years to truly address the question of energy --

when you don't tell the public that long ago we knew we had to stop burning fossil fuels --

when you permit "too big to fail oil industry" to propagandize the public re Global Warming --

and still even now sideline alternative energy, then we will hit the brick wall rather than

face reality early on.

[JDPriestly]

57. mindwalker_i, Your post is good. What changes have you made

in your lifestyle so that you use fewer petroleum products? The only question that matters is what each of us is doing on a very personal level. As long as we keep pointing the finger at the government, we are supporting the status quo. We are the people. We are the government. The only way we can send a message that counts is to cut down on oil usage.

We have to use our cars less. That's the bottom line. If you must drive a car, drive one that gets very low gas mileage. If you are not doing that, forget about helping birds. And, if you decide to go help out on the Gulf Coast, car pool. Don't every drive one person in a car unless you have to.

[mindwalker_i]

86. I try to take the train to work, and bike on both ends

I think you mean drive a car with high gas mileage, as in getting high miles per gallon.

People will use what's available to them, whether that's oil, solar, whatever. They/we will drive a gas-based car if that's all we have available, or use electricity from a fossil-fuel based plant if them's our choices. What government can do is give money for research into other ways of generating energy and cut the tax breaks for oil companies. The familiar argument would be that the lack of tax breaks would drive up the price of gas, but that's determined more by supply and demand - raise the price and demand will go down. Even if it didn't, so what? People will (again) say it sucks to be paying more for gas and will want alternatives more.

At the heart of it, in a democracy WE are the government, so it makes sense for us all to work through government to solve society-wide problems. The images from the gulf show the impact of this oil gusher and it's something the whole society needs to see. Then, hopefully, we will react as a society to find better alternatives to oil.

So the next time somebody says government should get out of the way of business, consider that they are really saying you (and all of us) shouldn't have a say in how business operates. They want to take away your voice in what they can do. This oil, banks, other polluting industries and hell, even cable TV show why we SHOULD have a voice in how companies operate: their screw-ups affect us all.

[cliffordu]

10. Yep.

[defendandprotect]

37. True -- sadly . . . the destroyers kill everything, but it won't get them . . .!!

[SusanaMontana41]

77. Sad but true. n/t

Hi, Swamp Rat! I'm a big fan.

[Cetacea]

6. "crickets"

:mad:

[RainDog]

8. unfortunately, Americans are too fucking greedy, lazy and selfish to give a fuck

until they are fighting among themselves for food.

I hope the republicans die first.

[Swamp Rat]

9. you forgot 'petty'

[lunasun]

13. That's right . Most ignore it and change the tv channel if it comes in to

their living room and looks too ugly
Most hope it doesn't mean higher taxes or gas prices going up. Those are their main concerns about this disaster......How many people are outraged?
Some even seem unaware of the disaster- it's not 'them ' or their world after all

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Worst case scenarios are worst case for a reason

will it be bad? Yes... will this lead to the end of life in the Gulf or the planet? No.

And no I am not in denial... but nature is a lot more resilient. Will it affect the fisheries for the next 10-20, even 50 years... absolutely. Will they recover? If the experience of previous spills is any guide... yes.

[Swamp Rat]

12. Probably not in our lifetime.

The air is already toxic at Grand Isle. I was going to go there tomorrow, but I do not have the safety equipment, and I do not want to die from cancer in a few years.

Who knows? The air and water currents may push most of this oil up onto someone else's shores, but it looks very bleak to us here in Louisiana.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. I understand that,

but things will recover. I don't expect it in my lifetime, but that is another story.

that said, we ALREADY have a dead zone, courtesy of all the agricultural affluent. This is a conversation some of us have tried to have for years... but it is not as sexy.

If it serves, I've eaten shrimp in Mexico City, that came from the fisheries affected by the Ixtoc One.

At the time we had dire warnings. It took ten years and a lot of work, but they did recover.

My perspective is that it will recover, but it will not be cheap. And I do hope our USCG is doing what their counterparts in Mexico did after the Ixtoc I... they literally moved endangered turtles to clean beaches.

[defendandprotect]

45. The only good news is that BP isn't running nuclear reactors . . .

Chernobyl will also recover . . . one day!

:crazy:

[texastoast]

75. Meanwhile, we fools suffer and foist it upon the innocents

Over and over and over.

Human Ground Hog Day.

[liberation]

31. I would be interested in knowing what previous spills have you studied to gain that experience?

which seems to be overly positive IMHO.

[defendandprotect]

47. Further, as many have pointed out, human error is always a factor in every project . . .

that's what happened here -- and it looks like just more BP recklessness which

they've been displaying for years. Lousey track record yet they were permitted

to go forward with this project.

Btw, there's another rig in the gulf -- 10X bigger -- and also in trouble!

[defendandprotect]

44. ... and how will the health of wildlife, animal-life, humans be effected in the short and

long term -- or doesn't that matter?

Check your own body and tell us how "resilent" it is --

is it undamageable?

How about if you buried your head in a gallon of oil for a few hours?

Oh . . not good for you? Then why should it be good for anything else -- including the planet?

We have no right to exploit nature in this way -- least of all for a dollar bill which is

meaningless paper and always will be. Nature is ALL --

We have to stop judging everything by the yardstick of a dollar bill!

[Name removed]

51. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kablooie]

15. We may see in the coming year a massive loss of coastline as it all goes toxic.

The town near Chernobyl is dead and has been for years.

We will probably see that in many of our vacation beach colonies.

And if it hits the gulfstream right, next year Europe might enjoy the same treatment.

[csziggy]

28. The difference is the town of Chernobyl is being reclaimed by nature

The plants and wildlife were not killed. Yes, there may be subtle mutations, but so far, there have not been major ones witnessed.

Much seems dead in these pictures, but they were taken in the fall: http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-land-of-the-wolves/chapter27.html Even in the fall, there are plenty of animals around. And according to the narration, there are plenty of fruit on the trees.

The difference between Chernobyl and the Gulf of Mexico is that radioactive materials have a half life while toxins have to react to break down to non-toxic compounds. At low levels that can happen pretty rapidly without a lot of long term damage. At massive levels, it can take lifetimes.

I've said it before, I am 58 and do not expect to see a healthy Gulf of Mexico again in my lifetime. I hope my nieces and nephews live long enough to see one.

[defendandprotect]

46. The difference is Chernobyl created a break in the chain of stupidity . . .

I'm truly doubtful that we will stop offshore oil drilling permanently --

Exploitation of nature is suicidal -- and that's the core of capitalism.



"Americans are really smart about really stupid things" --

That was the comment of a woman from the Bikini Islands after US had nuked

those islands in testing atomic weapons!

[axollot]

90. France was the Bikini Atoll nuker in the 90's

Lived in Australia when they announced more testing on the atoll and major embargo's against France caused riots and an embassy bombing in Perth.

The US has also done testing there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_testing

Cheers
Sandy

[axollot]

78. I know isnt that creepy?

Although I think it's amazing what is going on in Chernobyl - I do not have the same hope when it comes to the more micro level of this catastrophe.

[axollot]

79. Kid of Speed site has been de-bunked -

btw, but there is a great deal of animals migrating through the area.
(it was debunked years ago)

[csziggy]

85. I had not realized that - her newest set of photos is not from Chernobyl

But of areas around it that have been abandoned.

I'll take that site off my list. Thank you for letting me know.

[laughingliberal]

16. knr. nt

[amborin]

17. K&R and, what to make of this? here:

http://www.miller-mccune.com/science-environment/oil-cleanup-cure-may-be-worse-than-disease-15722/


Despite the agony of watching oil-sodden waters lap at pristine shores, our ham-fisted cleanups can do more harm than good, experts say.

By Melinda Burns


Comments (3) | PRINT | E-MAIL

As oil from the massive BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico creeps toward land, experts say cleanup efforts can do more harm than good. (Wikipedia.org) Related Stories

What About Spilled Oil That Doesn't Reach Shore?
Oil Cleanup Cure May Be Worse Than Disease
Strengthening the Link Between Pollution, Cancer
Perhaps We'll See Peak Bunker Oil, Too
Pay, Baby, PayIrving Mendelssohn, a Louisiana wetland ecologist, knows what won’t work if and when the oil slick in the Gulf reaches his marshy coastline.

Unfortunately, he’s not sure what will.

“The most important thing is that you don’t send hundreds of people walking into the wetlands, pushing that oil into the soil,” he said. “You can’t have people stomping around in their boots. And you don’t want machines like tractors pushing the oil into the soil. That would definitely kill the vegetation.”

All other “remediations” are problematic, too, Mendelssohn said. As a professor at Louisiana State University who specializes in the effects of oil on wetlands, he’s been advising the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on cleanup of the massive slick edging toward the mainland. The oil has now reached the sandy beaches of Louisiana’s barrier islands, even as crews struggle to contain more than 200,000 gallons of oil gushing every day from BP’s exploded Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Bioremediation, or breaking down the oil with bacteria, wouldn’t work well in Louisiana because the coastal wetlands are flooded with water, Mendelssohn said. Setting the marshes on fire or flushing them with low-pressure hoses could be effective in plots of 20 or 30 acres, he said, but those methods aren’t feasible in larger areas.

“Would you want to burn hundreds of thousands of acres?” Mendelssohn asked. “That’s a tremendously hard call.”

There are no good cleanup options for the orange-colored slick the size of Delaware, just as there were none for the Exxon Valdez tanker spill off Alaska in 1989, the Amoco Cadiz tanker spill off Brittany, France, in 1978, or the platform blowout in the Santa Barbara Channel in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969.

Robert Bea, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of civil environmental engineering who spent nearly 60 years in the oil business, was sent as a troubleshooter to all of those and several dozen more onshore and offshore spills.

In Santa Barbara, he recalled, people tried to mop up the black tide on the beaches with paper towels and bales of straw. “It’s more sophisticated today, but it’s the same damn thing. Unfortunately, we have not progressed very far since the miserable experiences of Santa Barbara and the Exxon Valdez.”

In the sensitive marshes of the California’s Bay-Delta 35 years later, Bea said, workers used buckets to scoop up the mess from a 60,000-gallon pipeline oil spill.

“We killed the marsh,” he said.

Along the coast of Brittany, some of the salt marshes there are still recovering from being trampled after the Amoco Cadiz accident, in which the supertanker split in two, spilling 68 million gallons of oil. Other marshes were bulldozed and the topsoil was carted away, leaving areas below water unable to regenerate. Effectively, studies show, the excavated marshes will never come back, while untreated areas are doing fine.

The Exxon Valdez spill, totaling 11 million gallons of oil, is still the largest in the U.S. and arguably one of the worst anywhere in terms of the environmental damage it caused. It covered more than 1,300 miles of wild coastline along Alaska’s Prince William Sound with black sticky goo.

John Robinson, a Santa Barbara resident who was NOAA’s scientific adviser on the Exxon Valdez spill, recalled this week how he advised the U.S. Coast Guard to use high-pressure hoses to blast steaming hot water on the rocky shores of Alaska. It enabled the cleanup workers — 11,000 in all — to push the oil back into the ocean where it was corralled and skimmed off behind booms. But it “cooked” everything in sight.

Robinson said he feared that if the oil was not removed, it would swirl around and cause damage elsewhere.

“In the end, it was proven pretty clearly that we did the wrong thing,” he said. “We were approaching sterilization of the coast with that kind of equipment. It turned out to be a mistake. This kind of aggressive cleanup does nothing but delay the eventual recovery that nature is going to do anyway.”




eta: more at the link

[blindpig]

27. Yet they will do it anyway

Out of sight, out of mind...

I don't think there is much that can be done about this, the horror show will just have to unfold.

But we can do something about it happening again and about the continuous destruction of our resources and biosphere. That requires political action and drastic re-ordering of our economic arrangement

Expropriate without compensation.

BP officers to the Hague.

[defendandprotect]

50. Reordering is 60 years overdue . . . core of capitalism is exploitation of nature . . .

Amazing that when there is "no confidence" in government in Britain, leaders can be changed . . .

but when Salazar and Obama have little confidence that BP knows what it is doing, BP remains

in charge!!

More "too big to fail" agony which the public will pay for one way or another.

IMO, no one should say "no" to a total ban on offshore drilling until we find out the true

dimensions and damage caused by this spill. And after we do, that the public puts enough

pressure on government to stop this insane drilling.

All of this should have been dealt with 60 years ago -- including the warnings of toxic

chemicals from Rachel Carson -- human error and "Silent Spring" --

We've know about Global Warming since 1957 -- and that it was harmful to continue to burn

fossil fuels. Our air and water is already polluted -- how much more of this destruction

will we tolerate?



:)



That's a strong image of the oil nozzle -- hope it wakes people up.

There's an artist here in NJ who has been painting that symbol over and again.

[amborin]

61. meanwhile, new permits issued.....

[defendandprotect]

62. Yes, I've heard . . . and when you hear "moratorium" you are hopeful, but . . .

it's only one month! And still "new permits being issued"!!

:)

[amborin]

64. words are cheap & meaningless....for public consumption, hoping the distracted masses don't notice

[defendandprotect]

89. Those who want to deceive find it easy enough . . . a lot of trust still there for

presidents and their words -

Rachel did a nice job tonight on the spill and the ridiculousness of the effort

they are making which is same things they did with ExxonValdez which didn't work --

and absolutely nothing new!

Was listenin to Thom Hartmann today and he was saying an inventor has a COAGULANT ....

which brings the oil together in large blocks -- IT'S NOT TOXIC --and after the oil blocks

are recovered the material is also recoverable -- and reuseable!!

Hartmann was suggesting that would make the OIL too visible for BP to want to use it!!

Sadly, I think those who are pointing to much of this being connected to profit and PR

are right!!

:)

[amborin]

60. +1

[defendandprotect]

48. "We burned the village to save it..."

[dipsydoodle]

18. In the absense of plankton

many species of fish and birds moving up the chain are progressively fucked. :(

[TexasObserver]

19. I am very worried about the gulf food and resort industry.

They have been sent reeling from Katrina, then Rita, then Ike, and now this. Those who thought they had weathered the worst of it and could make a come back this summer are looking at economic disaster.

From Galveston to Key West, this will hurt beach areas.

[hayu_lol]

20. All that surface oil will be absolute hell...

on mosquito larvae.

[Javaman]

24. That's good....

But then the birds, bats and other creatures won't have mosquito's to eat: that's bad.

Like flicking a giant table cloth full of dishes.

the first go flying off but it takes a while to get to the ones at the far end.

We will be feeling this for centuries.

[SOS]

83. In the 1950's Mao decided to kill all the sparrows in China

Mao knew nothing about wildlife or agriculture.
In his ignorance, he decided that sparrows were a pest because they ate a small part of the rice crop.
The sparrows were slaughtered on Mao's orders.

Slight problem...
Sparrows feed on locusts.

With the sparrows gone, the locusts decimated the entire rice crop.
It is estimated that 10 million people starved to death in the ensuing rice famine.

[Javaman]

84. One would think this is a butterfly effect...

It's more like a the wings of a dragon the size of the gulf.

Mao was big on grand plans with little consideration for the long term effects.

Next up on the hit list, the untested dispersants that BP now refuses to stop using. That will be the next massive effect from this dragon.

Like I wrote in another thread some days ago: the Mayans were optimists with their prediction of world ending in 2012. They envisioned one grand ending. We, on the other hand, are dying by a death of a thousand cuts. Which to me is much much worse.

[axollot]

80. finally the bitches...

Mind you they were the only thing left after Katrina and no birds to eat them.

[QC]

25. It's already hurting people all around the Gulf.

Here in Panama City, cancellations are way up and reservations way down, even thought we are, so far, a long way from the oil.

[lefty2000]

21. Time to Stock up on SPAM n/t

[Dr.Phool]

23. I always do for hurricane seaxon anyway.

That stuff has about the same half-life as plutonium.

[pecwae]

29. And even here

only 83 recs.

[paparush]

30. So, how many of us have stopped driving? Stopped buying plastic?

Are we, the unwashed masses, reducing demand, making oil less valuable?

[defendandprotect]

52. Many are turning from plastic and carrying reuseable bags . . .

they respond when liberal organizations and government make the need clear --

What is government saying about the gas-guzzler . . . are they subsidizing electric cars?

Are they pushing towns to use trolleys and empty their RR parking lots?

That's what's required . . .

Unfortunately, our elected officials have pockets full of oil money and they're saying nothing!

[Blue_Tires]

32. it's not even funny when i make soylent green jokes anymore...

[axollot]

81. *shivers*

[peacetalksforall]

36. One of the greatest memories is driving up and down the highway between Key West and

Miami and seeing blue water on the Atlantic side and green water on the Gulf. One of the greatest gifts I had was being able to be on a boat on the gulf coast, anchoring, then taking a dinghy into the quiet waters with millions of migrant birds. One of the grandest memories is to be surrounded by dolphin. To see manatees in nature. The gulf is better than a seaquarium. The beauty is a gift to all involved whether at Lake Itasca or Ireland or any other touch down points along the way. We now have a Dead Gulf with a trail of murder.

Thanks to irresponsible mega size corporations who greedily did not arrange any contingencies and their partners in politics who just put the most recent penny from the oil donors in their pocket.

All through the past decade I ranted against all the transparent intiatives against the people that were based on short term profits. Perhaps we've see the absolute winner.

I salute all the fine gifts of nature whether leaves, stalks, fins, wings, or short legs. I salute all the people who are going to try to clean and prevent a corporate conglomerate disaster that could have been avoided. I cry for the families.

I condemn our Congress and all politicians who allowed this risk and I condemn their bank accounts.

[robinblue]

49. I think the WH should have called in international experts a long

time ago. Weeks ago, instead of relying on BP. They could have put their heads together and perhaps averted some of this disaster.

[JDPriestly]

59. What makes you think that the White House hasn't called in international

experts. There are probably archives of information on this all over D.C.

There just are no good solutions to this problem. That's what this is about.

[lark]

71. The point is they have done NOTHING

Even when they told BP to stop using the current dispersant, BP basically said FU no and nothing has been done??? They say "moratorium on permits" and we find not only permits but actual waivers of the same type that caused this unholy hell are still going on. It would be laughable if it wasn't totally tragic. Our government has the right to step in and stop the clown act, but again nada. It's totally maddening!!!

[defendandprotect]

53. The very core of capitalism is exploitation of nature . . .Americans have to begin to

understand that --

We can't have a democracy without economic democracy -- and that ain't capitalism!

[lonestarnot]

38. Guess we better time those walks.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

42. Food Chain Collapse!

Can we prioritize this event yet? I mean, how about actually shifting a greater quantity of resources into the area to mitigate the damage? More booms, more skimmers, more respirators, national guard,

Why the FUCK is there such a disjointed approach? USCG chief needs to get his head out of his ass as well.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[defendandprotect]

54. IMO, it is emblematic of a total lack of understanding of what something like this

could do -- we're hitting the brick wall and totally unprepared!

The debates/discussions that should have taken place and which should have resulted

in NATIONALIZING the oil industry, especially as we reach peak oil, just didn't happen

because our elected officials and candidates are pocketing oil industry dollars -- the

fruits of their destruction of nature.

[grasswire]

55. I'm beginning to think it's deliberate

Chaos capitalism or something.

[midnight]

82. Chaos Capitalism. I suppose this will be confirmed when we find out that

a financial reward was reaped via this disaster. Something like what AIG did to the mortgage industry.

[juajen]

69. Also, Kevin Kostner's invention should be in the waters now, sucking

up that oil and cleaning it and sending fresh water back into the gulf. It certainly sounds like a wonderful solution; however, my bet is that it isn't being used yet because BP doesn't own it or control it. Obama needs to demand and get action on this immediately. I have heard no real objections to Kevin's solution. All hail Hollywood!

[lark]

72. Yeah, they only thing they have done is try to capture oil

they haven't done an f***ing thing about stopping it because they don't give a crap. It's such a "tiny" spill after all, according to the head of BP R&D.

[RoccoR5955]

56. This is the DEATH of the planet...

...due to the greed of capitalism. First ocean life and bird life. Beaches, then the rest of the land.

[defendandprotect]

63. The very basis of capitalism is suicidal in its war on nature . . ..

Patriarchy/Organized patriarchal religion/capitalism --

the unholy Trinity of destruction --

"Manifest Destiny" and "Man's Dominion Over Nature" are the Christian licenses to

elites to exploit both nature and humans!

[liberation]

68. This destruction is not unique/exclusive to Christians nor males

Letting a serious incident become an excuse to excuse/allow your own prejudices does not help, it simply helps consolidate and gets us stuck in the same destructive feedback cycle.


Time to evolve, for everyone, I say.

[defendandprotect]

87. Are you denying that capitalism is based on exploitation of nature?

Certainly I am "prejudiced" -- against violence and violent systems --

and suicidal concepts!

"Manifest Destiny" and "Man's Dominion Over Nature" are certainly identified with

Christianity.

Organized patriarchal religion is the underpinning for male-supremacist religion --

and the Vatican invented capitaism when Feudalism proved insufficient to run their

Papal States!

Time to think!

[RoccoR5955]

91. Well, in order to not get stuck in this cycle,

Perhaps we should consider a less destructive economic system, than the current one, which is killing more and more each day.

[Individualist]

66. kick

[AllenVanAllen]

73. The Rampant greed of the 1%

and the average American's inability to change their lifestyle, has led us to this. We're about to get another hard lesson in our interconnection to nature and each other.

[skeptical cynic]

74. Just a consequence of believing the mythology of...

unlimited growth.

The United States has about 5% of the world's population, but consumes about a quarter of the petroleum and produces an corresponding percentage of pollutants. When the developing world catches up, we'll need the resources of about five planets. Of course, they aren't going to catch up, we're going to meet them somewhere much closer to where they are than where we are.

The richest few percent will be living well in places they haven't raped. The global peasant class will continue to do what we do now--serve them. By then, the other great myth--The American Dream--will have been exposed as a fraud, as well.

If the food web in the Gulf does collapse, do any of us believe the wealthy will have any trouble muddling through and keeping their tables stocked with seafood?

[Doctor_J]

92. Oysterer on Hartmann: 10 years best case

we may have actually killed the human race with this one