After watching the oilcam for an hour

[Warren Stupidity]

I now know why BP was trying not to make this public. What a fucking disaster. Good luck trying to plug that hole, we're going to need all the luck there is.

[Bluebear]

1. +

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Relief well, works

just takes a LOT of time.

And they already are on that... but no matter if they started two weeks ago or not, it will take MONTHS.

I hope this works, as in tomorrow, but I will not be shocked if it does not.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Yeah the relief well will work. Months.

The gulf is fucked. That fucking robot is trying to twist a nut on a tin can while a tornado of oil gushes out of the hole in the ground. It is pathetic.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. NO it is not fucked

will take a decade or two to recover, but life is far more resilient than you give it credit for.

The Ixtoc I had the same dire warnings. Well I've eaten shrimp from those fisheries in Mexico, Yep the ones that were supposed to be gone for generations to come. It just took ten years... which is damn too long for fishermen, but nature is still far more resilient.

That said, you are aware we do have a yearly dead zone in the Gulf? No I am not shitting you. It comes from all the agricultural crap that flows down the Miss every summer. Last year it was the size of New Hampshire.

[Luminous Animal]

5. There was practically nil baseline to measure the effects of Ixtoc.

You continue to spout this propaganda without evidence to back it up. Yes, you may eat shrimp from the fisheries currently operating in Mexico but, are they operated by the families of fisherman prior to Ixtoc? And who measures the toxin level? I can't eat shrimp from Mexico or Viet Nam. More times than not, I have an allergic reaction ranging from swelling and shortness of breath to hospitalization. And what about sea life from the "invisible" to the visible? No way to tell because there was no baseline; and, thus, we have no clear measure of what has disappeared, what is struggling, what is out of balance and what is unhealthy because of a lack of baseline and lax regulations.


For the life of me, I do not know what the dead zone has to do with further environmental degradation. Does one catastrophe minimize or negate the other?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. No it does not

and what you call propaganda I happen to call facts on the ground. The worst case scenario will not occur. Will be bad enough, but worst case...

If you mean sixth grand extinction... this is a drop in the proverbial bucket in that 200+ process, at least.

And yes, life is far more resilient... it's recovered after five grand extinctions in the grand scheme of things. Oh and we, yes we, will go extinct too... like 99% of life on earth.

I am sure that is propaganda too

[Luminous Animal]

7. There is nothing to compare the facts on the ground to...

Any assessment of the effects of Ixtoc clearly state that assessment is incomplete because of a lack of a baseline. Sure, corporations have been successful in farming shrimp in and artificial environment but no evidence that the farms and/or the shrimp are healthy. And no evidence that the communities that relied on the health of the water have been able to survive independently after Ixtoc.


And really, I do not give a flying fuck of millennial survival. BP and similar scenarios effect the here and now. Given that I live only briefly in the grand scheme of things and though I hope that my great great great grandchildren might enjoy a more environmentally secure life, I still have a responsibility to the here and now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Well if you want to believe the gulf will be dead

your prerogative...

Forgive me for not jumping down there with you... and committing hara kiri.

As to your grand children... well we are at peak oil. I expect to see the collapse of the Oil Civilization in my life time... I also expect to see the US come apart as this happens. Knowing history... of collapses... they are fast, and most "sudden". They are also deadly. I expect humans to be forced down to live within means on the planet, and not beyond her carrying capacity. Given the green revolution depends on black gold, you can start doing the math. Or perhaps not.

That is what I expect in the here and now... That does not mean I will be committing hara kiri or screaming in panic any time soon. Forgive me but I will not allow emotion to enter this discussion.

I guess that is propaganda too.

[Luminous Animal]

13. I never said the gulf will be dead. Really, no reason to jump to an hysterical accusation...

based on nothing that I have said. It makes you look stupid. Argue the facts... I.e., there is no baseline to arrive at any conclusion the health of the fisheries and communities after Ixtoc. In other words, put up or shut up.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Put up or shut up

well you could use the google, but here you go

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6N-488Y80M-1KK&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F1982&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1348387908&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b999ab32f32e40fa3d308aab2fb81888

One of MANY examples. Yes life was heavily disrupted... yes some coastal towns went away... but TODAY they are fishing.

[Luminous Animal]

19. Led us to believe...

that the area studied was not affected by the Ixtoc I blowout.

Given that I can view nothing of the study, what is "the area studied?"

In other news, here is evidence that, for comparison purposes, there is no data available.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=vj0rAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=ixtoc&f=false

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. You win, life is over

how silly of me...

:sarcasm:

[G_j]

17. I was going to stay out of this, but, IMO

this 'life is resilient' idea, is not a legitimate point, or argument concerning the situation. It means close to nothing, From the amount of oil, to the long and short term effects of the dispersants etc. very little is known,

Starting with the simple plankton, there exists an interdependent pyramid that is complex far beyond our knowledge. Contamination passes up the food chain. We have no idea the long term effects on the all the life in the Gulf and further. The oceans are all already in grave trouble, and any harm is serious.

We do know that the health of the Gulf has been seriously compromised. To me, "life is resiliant" is a flippant line that feels to minimize the situation. I find it quite disturbing.

If it's not a "grand extinction" does it qualify to be a unfathomable tragedy and nightmare?

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Well the wrost case sceanrio is that our annual

dead zone becomes a constant... that does not mean the whole gulf dies.

And the grand sixth extinction is RIGHT NOW happening... you do know that top life forms do go extinct with them right?

[G_j]

20. Of course

& the dead zones are part of it. Perhaps your outlook is not as emotional as some others, maybe you're a Zen master, but I'm just not getting your drift. It seems that you are essentially telling people to calm down, and stop fretting so much. Well OK, but we all have our ways of dealing with disaster. Personally, I feel this tragedy greatly, and I've seen people break down in tears. The scope of this thing mindboggling.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. You got it,

My outlook on this is far from emotional. I used to do this disaster shtick, mind you, for fun ... for real. (As a volunteer I faced pretty awful tragedies and in the midst of disasters, as the person in charge, I had to make pretty stark choices... life and death choices).

So I tend to look at disasters, no matter who or what... from an assessment POV.

I know that this will heavily disrupt the livelihood of people for at least ten years, perhaps a generation. That is not a small thing to think about... alas this is not where FEMA gets involved, but SUPERFUND funding does. And where BP will be in court for at least a generation to come.

And I am not saying to people calm down... just don't exaggerate the possible consequences. And if you need to cry, by all means, but just don't say this will end life as we know it. Unless you mean HUMAN life on the gulf coast... that goes without saying. Alas every disaster, no matter what the size of it, and how many people it affects, does that. A family I know are going through a personal tragedy right now and their family life is being disrupted just as much as the life of the collective in the Gulf Coast will be \ is being disrupted. I just don't go for the hysterics, and rather consider... what to do for these populations, but that is just me.

Call it training.

[Chulanowa]

10. Yes, nature is far more resiliant

By some quirk of nature, lots of marine animals are able to stash amounts of lead, cadmium, and mercury in their body that would kill a healthy adult human in a very short time, with few ill effects.

Prince William Sound recovered rather well. The ecosystem is still shaky, but it's not a bubbling toxic hellhole.

But the fishing is still in decline. People are still dying from the cancers and toxins they got into them from the cleanup.

Yeah, nature will look ugly for a few years, and will recover; the human cost, however, is going to be immense. I love dolphins as much as anyonem but they can swim and migrate and, again, have a startlingly high tolerance level. Gulf coast communities, though, are going to be set back fifty years, and I imagine only a few of the larger ones will ever really recover from this.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Well we are talking of two different things

Here people scream that the gulf will be dead for generations to come... well that will not happen... it will recover.

Now human economies... Prince William Sound is still in some ahem trouble and so are many other regions affected by oil spills. I know that we separated the study of nature from the economy oh around 1860 (rough date, some might argue later, some might argue a tad earlier). To the point that not even the weather goes into economic modeling. We made a mistake, as nature and the economy are tied together.

Yes readying on that process right now, by the way.

By the way in the end in a globalized economy what happens in the Gulf affects me, and China, but that is another discussion.

[Swamp Rat]

9. is it on a loop?

i think they fucked it up worse :cry:

[1776Forever]

11. Hi Swamp Rat - Here is a live video and it looks like they are doing something down there.

Take a look:

http://www.livestream.com/wkrg_oil_spill

[Swamp Rat]

16. Thanks. I'm watching a live feed here:

http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam

I had to boot up XP and use IE, though. It didn't work using Apple Safari or Firefox.

[csziggy]

21. The CNN feed was on a loop for a while this evening

It was strange - about a fifteen to thirty second repeat of basically nothing.

[Forkboy]

14. Someone will be along with some blue links any moment now to tell you why you're insane.

[G_j]

22. we don't need no stinkin' blue links

to know we're insane. But that's besides the point.