Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history at Rice University and the author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. To protect a threat to birds from the plumage trade, President Roosevelt created the Breton National Wildlife Refuge along the Gulf Coast. That's him sitting in the BNWR in the photo below. Brinkley writes:
At the heart of the region now threatened by the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a chain of islands containing tens of thousands of seabirds. Thin ribbons of sand rising no higher than 19 feet out of the gulf, these islands — part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge — currently hold at least 2,000 nesting pairs of brown pelicans, 5,000 pairs of royal terns, 5,000 pairs of Caspian terns, and 5,000 pairs of various seagulls and shorebirds. Earlier this week, strong winds and barrier-like booms kept the oil slick from washing ashore on Breton Island, the Chandeleur Islands, and other links in the refuge. But the National Audubon Society reported May 5 that oil had reached the beaches of the Chandeleurs, putting the abundant birdlife there in peril.
More than a century ago, these islands held an even richer assemblage of bird species. Breton Island alone was home to 33 species of wintering waterfowl, wading birds, secretive marsh birds, and various shorebirds. When the birds were in full plumage, Breton Island was quite a sight. ...
Because nobody lived on the barrier islands at the turn of the last century — they were isolated miles from Venice, Louisiana, with treacherous gulf waters in between — most Americans had never heard of the sandy breeding ground where pelicans and herons in the thousands populated the beach. But plume hunters in Mississippi and Louisiana had. Regularly gangs made “hits” on the islands’ nesting wading birds and seabirds. The birds’ feathers were worth a fortune for milliners because the delicate plumage was needed to adorn ladies hats — the fashion rage of the Gilded Age and beyond.
To Roosevelt, the despoilers and plume-hunters of the Gulf South were pirates, and he wanted the feather mafias arrested. “Wreckers are no longer respectable and plume-hunters and eggers are sinking to the same level,” Roosevelt wrote about Breton Island. “The illegal business of killing breeding birds, of leaving nestlings to starve wholesale, and of general ruthless extermination, more and more tends to attract men of the same moral category as those who sell whiskey to Indians and combine the running of ‘blind pigs’ with highway robbery and murder for hire.”
To stop the carnage, Roosevelt issued an executive order on October 4, 1904 creating the Breton Island Federal Bird Reservation off the southeast coast of Louisiana. ...
As U.S. President, Roosevelt didn’t just save Breton Island. Determined to protect the Mississippi Gulf South as an intact ecosystem, Roosevelt also used executive orders to permanently protect Shell Keys, Tern Island, and East Timbalier Island.
The rescue begins below and continues in the jump.
jamess showed us what we could soon be missing in Life on the Edge -- Videos of Gulf of Mexico Coral Reefs: "..Gulf Eco-Expert predicts that the 'filter feeders' -- the sponges and corals -- are in for a world of hurt."
= = =
[Green diary rescue appears on Sundays and Thursday. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it.]
Eddie C posted another gorgeous Friday Evening Photo Blogging diary focused on flowers.
Food, Agriculture & Gardening
terryhallinan had some words on Agriculture W/O Poisons, Pesticides, Herbicides, Pollution, Fertilizer, even Irrigation: "Farmers, from the time the first livestock were herded and the first crop was planted, have been selecting the most productive and healthiest for reproduction. The result is plants and animals that are further divorced from their parents than Glenn Beck is from sanity. Livestock is fatter, fruits are sweeter, vegetables perhaps less nutritious. Undesirable side effects are a concomittant fact of life in any development. The option of returning to a hunting and gathering society does not seem to me to be viable."
He also wrote Weird Science For The Environment: "In a saner world there would be no palm oil plantations growing energy crops but surely more bountiful crops more capable of resisting environmental challenges as well as predators and disease should be of benefit to the planet."
BorderJumpers shared A Conversation with Norman Uphoff, Advisor to Nourishing the Planet.
Despite cursing Colorado's fickle spring weather, Frankenoid weighed in with another Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 6.12.
Free Food: Why Foraging Beats 'Taking Nothing But Photographs' was wide eyed lib's contrarian view: "We've all heard it before: "Take nothing but photographs; leave nothing but footprints." Some people consider it the golden rule of the wilderness. And it sounds sensible, but I've grown to believe it may do more harm than good."
leema had an encounter with The Swarm & the bee whisperer: "Through serendipity, Tom, my partner, had recently met an amateur bee keeper who lived nearby. So Tom phoned and offered Dave the beekeeper a nice new swarm. A half hour later I was a surprised to see this grey haired man in shorts and sandals, and NO protection whatsoever, at our door. He came with just a white portable hive, a few utensils that looked like scrappers, and 2 small grandchildren. He neatly scrapped most of the bee "football" into the box... in one fell swoop, then gently transferred a few of those left behind in his bare hands and held them in front of the box: the bees didn’t sting him, but went marching right in, like good little bees."
Pollution, Garbage & Hazardous Materials
Purple Priestess pointed out how sick she was of too much packaging in WYFP: I Can't Get This %*#&-ing Thing Open!.
carolita introduced a series on Top Comments 5-15-10 – The 3Rs: Reuse Edition: "For the next few Saturdays, we are going to look at the 3Rs -- reduce, reuse, recycle -- focusing on simple things we can do in our daily lives to save the planet. Of course, we still have to call and write and march and try to move our congresscritters and business leaders toward a more sane energy policy. But seeing progress through simple acts of conservation can it can be highly motivating and help us keep up the fight."
Climate Change
lipowg presented the American PRIDE Alternative to Lieberman-Kerry Climate bill: "This is the executive summary of the American PRIDE (Promote Renewable Infrastructure & Develop Efficiency) proposal. The PRIDE proposal is a two decade ~400 billion a year jobs bill that makes a profit, while creating two to five million new jobs per year, reducing U.S. oil use by a third within ten years, and reducing U.S. greenhouse gases around 60% by 2020. It phases out close to 90% of U.S. emissions by 2030 and reduces greenhouse gas pollution to around zero by 2040."
palantir gave Three Cheers for Nature!: "The publishers of Nature have written an editorial decrying the actions of Virginia State's Attorney Ken Cuccinelli with respect to the scientific research of Dr. Michael Mann who, while at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville proposed the famous 'hockey stick' graph representing the effects of global warming."
Sarah Laskow, writing for The Media ConsortiumWeekly Mulch: Why the Senate Climate Bill is Doomed: "But should green-minded politicos root for the bill’s passage at all? Sen. Kerry and Sen. Lieberman worked closely with energy companies while drafting the bill, and the resulting legislation balances the need to reduce carbon emissions with the interests of prime polluters. The bill includes incentives for old energy industries like coal and natural gas, for instance, and exempts farmers from carbon caps."
5 Senators Who Need to Get in the Climate Legislation Game caught Nhavey's attention: "The game today is comprehensive climate change legislation, and there are five Senators that talk some game in the locker room, but when the clock is running, you can't find them on the field."
Eco-Philosophy, Eco-Policy & Eco-Action
carldavidson provided some details on Why Creating Green Jobs Is So Tough: 2010 Conference Report: "Washington DC's DuPont Circle area is best known for foreign embassies and sidewalk cafes and a lively night life. But for three mild and sunny spring days this May 4-6, nearly 3500 people stayed inside the Hilton Hotel for the 2010 'Good Jobs, Green Jobs' conference, trying to solve the country's economic problems and the world's climate change crisis. This was the third and largest gathering to date on the green jobs theme organized by the Blue-Green Alliance, a coalition of several hundred environmental, community and trade union groups pulled together primarily by the United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club. Last year's gathering of 3000, fresh from Obama's victory and several new recession-fighting initiatives, was highly spirited and visionary." Now a tough year had passed and the mood had shifted.
Our grandchildren is what were on DWG's mind in What will you say in 25 years about the Gulf disaster?: "Will you explain our dependence on oil? How will that discussion go? Will you fib and say we really did not have the means to use something other than oil to power our cars, buses, trains, and planes? Or will you have the courage to explain we had the technology but lacked the will or desire to change course? In other words, we failed in our ethical responsibilities to future generations. Instead of a tea party, we had an oil party to celebrate our greed and show our contempt for generations to come."
A Siegel dug into the NIMBYite threat to our future ...: "The Not-In-My-Back-Yard! syndrome is best known as NIMBY and, let us be clear, that NIMBYites are battling to protect, often in misguided terms, their own little neck of the woods to the detriment of others and of overall society."
According to Fish extrapolated from oilmageddon in the Gulf with Let this be a lesson to those who advocate for Nuclear Power: "How much longer are we going to put up with this? How can anyone trust any industry anymore? Would you feel safe with a nuclear plant being built in your neighborhood?"
The perennial IOKIYAR theme was the topic of jreal's diary, Why Do Republicans Want Taxpayer Bailouts For Oil Companies?: "So if Republicans are talking out of one side of their mouth that they are against welfare and bailouts, then why are they speaking of bailouts and welfare for BP and other multi-billion dollar corporations out of the other side of their mouth."
Unenergy reminded us that The Earth is our Grandma, Fossil Fuels her death panel: "Below is an extract from a movie I watched a while back which had a pretty powerful monologue at the end. Many people have likely forgotten or not seen this movie, and I have linked to it at the end with a video of the dialog, but it is as relevant today as it was back in 1994."
Growthbuster folks found shelter in GrowthBusters Network Pitches in on Documentary Shoot: "Since we’ve so far raised only a modest percentage of our production budget for the film, Hooked on Growth, I have to be creative to capture the material we need while spending as little as possible."
Im a frayed knot recalled mom's advice in We're too good to live in a pig sty: "So now we have a planet that is becoming a pig sty. And all of us are too good to live in a pig sty. Instead of arguing about who left it there, we are arguing over scientific nuances of global warming and climate change."
Round-ups, Wrap-ups & Digests
eKos: eKos Earthship: Mass Lizard Extinctions Expected Due to Global Warming: "Our distant, cold blooded relatives are not doing so well. Amphibians have thus far taken the brunt of humanity's assault on biodiversity. Habitat loss, atrazine pollution, invasive species, and the Chytrid fungus are taking their toll, causing 30% of amphibians to be included on the IUCN's red list of threatened species. Scientists now believe that lizards face mass extinction due to climate change."
eKos: eKos Earthship Sunday: "Ask the Coast Guard: What would you like to ask the federal Unified Command (including Coast Guard and other government officials) regarding the Gulf oil disaster? Post a question, or tip the question(s) you like."
rfall : Gulf Oil and African Ivory--Eco News in Black and White: "Tonight's Climate Change News Roundup is brought to you courtesy of the letters B and P and the number 0. As in 'British Petroleum' and 'Zero workable ideas for how to actually stop the disaster in the Gulf.'"
mark louis: Alternative Energy Round-Up: "New Jersey has become the latest state where an unprecedented surge of applications for solar photovoltaic incentives has suddenly exhausted funding." ROUNDUP
Animals
Ellinorianne had two more sad installments in the Lily saga, Lily the CA Gray Whale has Died: "First she was a he, old and frail, then after freeing her from her the fishing lines, they thought this Gray Whale might have a chance. But she came back. Ultimately though, I think many knew she was doomed not to make it." And here.
She also urged some action in the Ellinorianne World Wide Protest - Free Lolita the Killer Whale Kept in Captivity for 40 Years: "Lolita is the only killer whale owned by the Miami Seaquarium in Miami Florida and she's been alone for all this time kept in a cement box that is far too small for her. She's also known for being very friendly, docile and cooperative."
Donna O gave us a sad update on the foundling fledging tufted titmouse in Five days and a feast of mealworms....
Politicians
RLMiller presented another award in SeaScum Murkowski Hates EPA, Hearts Big Oil: "Congratulations, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Baked Alaska)! While this honor has been bestowed in the past on dumb statements, today's award goes to positions taken out of sheer greed. And she's not just saying dumb things. She's preparing a vote, as early as next week, on a resolution disapproving of the EPA's decision to regulate carbon."
DragonPup also had tough words for the Senator in Oil Spill Liability: 118 minutes: "Like many other people here, I was disheartened, but not surprised that Lisa Murkowski (R-BP) is blocking S.3305 which would raise the liability limit from a mere $75 million to a more appropriate $10 billion. Now personally, I sometimes have trouble comprehending numbers when they get that huge, so I thought I'd help myself by breaking it down mathematically."
slinkerwink told us why she thinks Why President Obama Should Ban Offshore Drilling: "It's good that he calls for additional safeguards and protections to be put in place, but given the enormous scale of the disaster we are seeing in the Gulf of Mexico, there should be a permanent moratorium put on offshore drilling as we do not have the present technology to deal with a disaster of this scale."
It is Time for Some Good Ole Fashion Political Courage wrote wildweezle: "President Obama needs to declare a national emergency and take control of the Gulf Oil Crisis now! He and his administration need to show some POLITICAL COURAGE and stop worrying about what is going to be said about them and whether they are going to be blamed for this catastrophe. If there is one problem our president has, he doesn’t seem to realize that he is going to be BLAMED for everything that goes wrong in this country for the next 35 years!"
Energy & Transportation
In another of his long-running Sunday Train series, BruceMcF took on Local Electric Transport and the Energy Independence Levy: "If we reduce our oil consumption by 5% a year over each of the next twenty years, that allows use to be free of our oil addiction if we choose to be. But as I observed last week, since 60%-70% of our oil consumption is in transport, that means that in each decade, seven out of the ten 5% reductions have to come out of transport.I set forward three of the seven for the coming decade last week: the Steel Interstates, national funding for sustainable power local transit corridors, and a target of 5% "Active Transport" - pedestrian and cycle transport."
In the battle for a wind farm, Muskegon Critic wondered Where's the Friggin Green Cavalry?: "Ya know...me and a group of very hard working, very dedicated, very passionate people have been busting our butts day after day after day, in FOUR COUNTIES to maintain support for a 1150 MW wind farm proposal in West Michigan. Many of us are unemployed, or underemployed. Many of use have cars that we dare not drive outside the city limits because they're just as likely as not to die, so we all pile into a rusty compact. Meanwhile, the people trying to kill this thing are awash in money from the lakeside home owners with million dollar homes."
He also wrote about Michigan's Offshore, Great Lakes Oil Drilling Ban - I Like It: "A ban on drilling for oil and gas in the Great Lakes was passed by the Michigan congress as recently as 2002. But of course it didn't last long until right wing wackos started pissing and moaning about it and calling for a lifting of the ban."
terryhallinan found some Hungarians In Hot Water: "The Hungarian geothermal district heating project of Hungarian PannErgy and Icelandic Mannvit are advancing, with drilling to start at the project at Miskolc and reinjection wells to be drilled at the Szentlörinc project....The well depth is planned to be 2.3 km."
Drilling in the Arctic seemed like a bad idea to
Olympia: "Canadian legislators want to get it right before BP is allowed to drill in the Arctic. Anne Drinkwater (President of BP Canada)is testifying on the safety of drilling in the Arctic before a hearing by the Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee on Natural Resources. She has offered few answers and no assurances that they would be able to clean up any oil spill off the Arctic coast."
rperks sent an invitation in Movies Save Mountains: "Join us at Nashville's historic Belcourt Theater for two powerful, acclaimed new documentaries that bring us into the lives of coal country residents grappling with the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining."
tomc112 lamented the lack of good incentives in Biofuels Supporters Read this: "Biofuel jobs are dying because of the failure of the Democrats to pass the $1.00 per gallon tax credit."
greenman3610 initiated a new video series with Renewable Energy Solution of the Month: Wind: "Many readers of my video series, "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" have asked me to address renewable energy solutions as well."
jamessMaybe, 'Farming' the Wind and Sun, CAN Work?: "Even those "folks in High Places" are starting to get a clue! Maybe achieving National Security is about more than just building 'firewalls' and 'early warning systems'? Maybe it's about Energy Independence?"
The Gulf Gusher
A Siegel: What we want, and don't want, to see at the aquarium ...: "Not once this month, without my starting the conversation, has Gulf oil been discussed: even when talking / working with people who live / work within miles of the Gulf Coast. More than once, after starting a conversation, someone commented along the lines "but, I thought it was getting better" or "doesn't BP have this under control". Even with weak (and often misleading) traditional media attention, a more accurate understanding is not far out of reach ... it is unclear how many Americans are reaching."
tle: Shut down the rigs and declare war: "I have commented here previously that I wanted ALL offshore drilling stopped. Not just new drilling. All drilling. 60 Minutes tonight has confirmed my worst fears."
Crashing Vor: Oilies: "The Times-Picayune's indefatigable business writer, Rebecca Mowbray, reports this morning that BP has already begun paying out claims to more than a thousand fishers and shrimpers whose livelihoods have disappeared in the spreading cloud of oil from the Deepwater Horizon wreck. Neither the company nor the claimants are overjoyed."
RustyCannon: The First Eleven Deaths From the Deepwater Horizon Updated with link to video: "There is so much justifiable outrage over the widespread destruction that is and will be caused by the BP/Transocean/Halliburton/Deepwater-Horizon disaster that it has nearly faded into obscurity that eleven men died on the first day of this man-made tragedy. I have not seen a single memorial on TV to these oil workers."
Something the Dog Said: Is MMS Criminally Negligent?: "[T]here have been the rumblings that there might be criminal proceedings against Transocean ( the rig owners), BP (the lease owners) and Halliburton (the folks who set the cement plugs that did not hold) . This is a good thing, as we should never lose sight of the fact that 11 people were killed in the initial explosion, as well as the enormous and on-going devastation to fisheries and tourism in the Gulf of Mexico.If criminal charges only happen to those three groups it will miss one of the most critical and culpable players in the tragicomedy which lead up to the greatest ecological disaster ever to impact the United States; namely the Minerals Management Service."
Fishgrease: Fishgrease: DKos Booming School II: "Obama needs to decapitate the USCG immediately, put a hard ass in charge, and then personally tell BP that the United States of America is not going to be pushed around by some half-assed self-important British corporation. This is OUR country. WE run things here. BP has waged an attack on our COAST, and the present Commandant of the United States COAST Guard is showering BP with praise. Fisrt step: Fire his ass."
Fishgrease: Fishgrease: Pivotal Discoveries Are Booming: "Regarding my language, I really don't normally write or speak that roughly, unless I'm out in the patch actually working. I'm going to clean it up on DKos. That stuff was useful in my first booming diary as a means of helping us all express our outrage. Now, we're all just about shot-through with outrage, so I'll clean it up. I might forget every now and then, especially when talking about BP's management and our Coast Guard's Commandant. Please cut me some slack on that."
rfall: BP CEO: We are trying to solve the Gulf's problems: "BP is using homeopathic techniques to inject very tiny amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico to restore the fish population and bolster the Gulf's economy!"
1BQ: BP using "unprecedented" deep-sea dispersant injections: "OK, because this hasn't been done before, the government is allowing BP to test the method not in a lab, but in the gulf. Whatever works, right? This is an emergency and expediency is important."
politik: Who is BP?: "I've spent quite a bit of time today trying to peel a bit of the BP onion. I don't claim to have uncovered all the products and services and businesses that fall under the BP umbrella. I would be remiss if I didn't mention BP's investments in alternative energy sources, such as BP Solar. I am glad to see that some of the profits of this conglomerate are directed toward alternative energy. I was almost getting a warm and fuzzy feeling about it until I learned that Greenpeace awarded them the Emerald Paintbrush for worst greenwash in 2008."
Clytemnestra: BP protest images - get them her: "But then I began reading the morning news and comments from BP officials and I, like many, got angry. Then I fired up my imaging software and took my anger out on BP's logo."
Matt Osborne: Stop The BP Bailout!: "All that's lacking here is a handy buzzphrase, so I nominate "STOP THE BP BAILOUT." The taxpayer shouldn't be hit with a single thin dime of the cleanup expenses; every penny should come from the company that screwed up so badly."
Southernlib: BOYCOTT BP!: "Tony Hayward's description of the Deepwater Horizon Spill as "relatively tiny" is simply appalling. How anybody can stick up for BP now is beyond me."
vc2: Obama lashes out at oil industry over BP spill: "President Obama was not happy with the industry's display at the congressional hearings on the catastrophic oil spill from the rig's explosion. He also addressed the incestuous relationship between MMS and the oil industry."
innereye: Oilpacalypse -- Gas Leak Creating a Deep-Water Dead Zone: "There are 188,000 to 527,000 metric tons of hydrocarbon gas being injected into the deep water gulf each day. The dissolved natural gas being released will be more deadly than the oil."
Adept2u: Provocative Thinking Dispatched to the Gulf Region: "We’ve jumped beyond the concerns of any industry and landed squarely in the realm of an all hands on deck ecological and humanitarian disaster that is going to require the best minds and talents of a great many people. I can imagine had this disaster occurred under a Republican administration. We would be told that the industry is fully capable of handling this disaster, and everything they say can be believed as if it came from the very mouth of truth."
Woodworker: water, oil and sawdust, part 2: "Out of concern for the oil, BP disaster in the Gulf, I have continued my experiment, using sawdust to extract oil from water."
Steven D: We Know Why Safety Was Job Last: "Let's play Jeopardy. Today's category is "Politics and Big Oil." And the answer is: Dick Cheney."
Patric Juillet: Breaking: BP Chief: It's a Drop in the Ocean!: "Yep! I kid you not. I nearly barfed into my coffee mug as el stupido supreme, Tony Hayward spews more bullshit to us, and makes a mockery of known facts."
Crashing Vor: A Biologist's View of the Spill: "A brief note: Some of the people quoted in this diary are currently at work studying the effects of the Gulf oil spill on the estuarial environments of South Louisiana. Their work is often linked to state, federal and industry funding. For this reason, I have elected to refer to them by pseudonyms or otherwise obscure their identities and positions. I recognize that this makes this account more hearsay than journalism. You may choose to treat it as you wish. I stand by my story."
stiffneck: Who is going to wash those birds with Dawn?: "I want to wash birds. I'm not kidding, I am willing to travel to wherever they need washing. I'm also willing to clean up the dead fish that will be floating in along the Gulf Coast. I'll clean up for nothing, but for those jobless Americans that are part of the unemployed, there must be at least another 250,000 jobs waiting for this one. And let BP pick up the tab."
jamess: Deep Water Engineer explains how to Stop the Gushers: "I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR yesterday, when I heard this Oil Rig Engineer call in and explain a "common sense" way to put a halt to the Oil Gusher in the Gulf. He was a shocked by BP's incompetent, "shotgun" approach -- to contain the mess, as most of us have been."
LaFeminista: Typical: Put a lawyer in charge.: "I know that I will probably be flamed for daring to say that lawyers are not suitable for managing technical and engineering based agencies. They cannot understand the nuance, and technicalities of many of the procedures used when mining and and drilling are concerned. Yes I know some lawyers are highly intelligent, but they have no, and yes I repeat no fundamental training in either engineering or science. I'm afraid management experience, and the understanding the intricacies of the law are not enough."
Miep: Memories of the ocean: "But still, I remember, even as a little kid, the thing where you go down to the ocean and you get tar on your feet. I had no idea what it was, never thought about it. Thought it was just something that grew in the ocean, I guess."
shpilk: The potential human price of the BP Gulf oil disaster ..: "So I have to ask myself, how many people who have never been diagnosed with asthma will go through what I did. I think it may be a good idea to have an information campaign, if these vapors are going to be present, so people know what they can expect as they face this potential disaster. This summer is not going to be a good one for people in the Gulf of Mexico. I just hope we don't see massive numbers of people getting sick, or worse.
lmelnick: Stop the Slick Tactics: "I want us, the government to take over this ungodly mess. It won't make me feel any better about the creatures which mistake a floating island of oil blobs for their real home in sea kelp. Or for the birds and sea mammals which must dive or swim through the "water column" full of oil debris and try to live."
8ackgr0und N015e: Enjoy the Florida beaches while you can.: "The guilty parties will hide behind the corporate veil and a compliant congress will not seek them out. Insulated by a phalanx of high-priced lawyers, the guilty parties will pay pennies on the dollar to settle "legitimate" claims. Just like Iraq, Katrina, and Wall Street, the destruction of our coastline and ocean habitats will be publicly lamented by the very people who make a killing by promoting the practices that brought this catastrophe upon us."
YucatanMan: Vast Undersea Pollution - BP's (invisible) Disaster: "Scientists Find Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf: ' Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.'"
Gorette: I want a fu.^in* "categorical exclusion" for my dispersant, corruptionexit: "I'd love to put all those federal employees of OURS, all the ones who gave those "categorical exclusions" to BP under immediate fucking* indictment. There are so many fucking problems with BP and with MMS that it's hard to know where to begin."
House: Disaster Mapping with OBIA: "Object-Based Image Analysis or OBIA, will be key in what will be the largest ecological disaster mapping project and its subsequent monitoring efforts to date. It enables the automated mapping and classification of disparate data sources across large geographic areas at varying scales."
TheRealAlasandra: Is the Oil Spill Destroying the Gulf Coast: "Sadly many Mississippi officials and new agencies seem to be trying to down play the spill."
boatgeek: What's up with that 1851 law?: "I know there's a lot of outrage out there about Transocean's bid to limit their liability. Keep in mind that this is a standard practice in any maritime accident, just like the defendant in a lawsuit will always ask the judge to dismiss the case. It's a low-risk move that might pay off huge. But it's also extremely unlikely to succeed."
DWG: Did Salazar reform the Minerals Management Service?: "Salazar's characterization of the MMS as "tarnished by scandal" was an understatement. The MMS, particularly the Lakewood office in Colorado, was a veritable nest of vipers during the Bush administration. Some of the shenanigans at Lakewood were outlined in this article in the Colorado Independent by Eric Luning."
MeMeMeMeMe: Meet the Minerals Management Service: "I applaud President Obama for the proposal he announced today: 'And so I’ve asked Secretary Salazar to conduct a top-to-bottom reform of the Minerals Management Service. This week, he announced that the part of the agency which permits oil and gas drilling and collects royalties will be separated from the part of the agency in charge of inspecting the safety of oil rigs and platforms and enforcing the law. That way, there’s no conflict of interest, real or perceived.' I won't sit in judgment of how long it took him to take this step. Fuck knows how many federal agencies are thoroughly diseased and corrupted by the previous administration, and what a daunting task it must be to comb through all the rot and attempt to clean it up. Better late than never."
BSmojo: Am I stupid- How is this going to work?: "Ok I am not a scientist and in fact far from it, I am a waiter. I serve food in a fancy restaurant. I am no expert. But can someone who is, please explain how this straw sucking the oil up to the tanker is suppose to work?"
thinkingblue: History Of "Spill Baby Spill" on Rachel Maddow.
patsm: A "Silver Lining": "I am sorry, but NOTHING, not even the prospect of jobs, can make anything about the oil spill beneficial. There is no "silver lining", not even more jobs, that can even put the slightest dent in the immediate and long-term devastation that spill has caused and will continue to cause. For any newspaper or news agency to suggest that there is good in all of this is wishful thinking at best and foolishness at worst."
BlueDragon: Dead Pigs in Dead Gulf?: "Scientists are now dumping pigs into dead ocean zones to test what scavengers will emerge to feast on their carcasses."
Richard Crainum: Nuke the Gusher: "Why? Because, at the end of the day, the consideration of blowing up a nuclear weapon anywhere on the face of the planet will get people's attention - and fast - which is exactly what we need right now to get an overwhelming national cacophony raised over this gusher. Hell, come to think of it, there seems to be more secrecy around this gushing oil well than the Manhattan Project itself. Anyway, that's it - get on the NUKE THE GUSHER bus. Let them tell us why this is a bad idea, or why this solution would be worse than the anticipated (and lingering) generational effect of the gusher itself. ...Once again, I feel the need to NOTE: I DO NOT ADVOCATE NUKING THE GUSHER."
hgregory76: We're all going to pay more for seafood because of BP: "I love seafood. Be it a delicious tuna steak, oysters on the half shell, or enjoying a crab feast, I'm always buying good quality, fresh, healthy seafood to cook for my friends and family. Now, due to gross negligence from an oil company and its contractors, I'm going to have to pay a lot more for it."
Bob Patterson: Has BP slit the world’s wrist?: "If the environmentalists, who are asserting that if the flow from the BP drilling platform mechanical malfunction isn’t stopped soon all the world’s marine life will become extinct and the production of oxygen by the world’s oceans will cease and humanity and all other living animals will die of asphyxiation, are right in their assessments then they will have also won the debate concerning the odds on extinction for polar bears."
Gary Norton: BP Claims Success With New Pipe: "The tube will capture only some of the spillage. “While not collecting all of the leaking oil, this tool is an important step in reducing the amount of oil being released into Gulf waters,” the statement said."
Christian Dem in NC: Administration trying to make BP foot entire bill for oil spill.
Ohiobama: The Oil Age Hemorrhage: "Some days ago, a front-page diary on DailyKOS held a contest to name the oil gusher in the Gulf. I didn't care for any of the choices, but I wasn't quick enough to come up with this obvious entry: The Oil Age Hemorrhage."
matador: I want the EPA director, Lisa Jackson's job: "I mean, "what the hell"?! Her agency has approved BP's use of the chemical dispersant "Coexit 9500", even though it has been shown to be toxic? Doesn't that fact alone demonstrate gross incompet[e]nce?"
innereye: Gas Leak 3000 Times Worse Than Oil: "Now, this is certainly going to occur, and for a long-long time, the oxygen rich waters flowing into the deep gulf will become depleted as the oil breaks down. That is on the long term. On the shorter term the real issue is the growing deep water dead zone of hydrocarbon-rich/oxygen-poor waters in the gulf at depths greater than 700 meters."
CheeseMoose: What Kind Of Monsters Are We?. A poem.
wbramh: It Came From Beneath the Sea: Snark.
wbramh: Surprising New Way to Prevent Oil Spills: A Gas Chamber. Snark.
real satire: BP Turns to Euro to Save Gulf: "The two-part plan calls for billions of Euro notes to be dropped into the Gulf’s waters in order to absorb the oil already spilled, and for more Euro notes, as well as Greek government bonds, to be included in a second ‘junk shot’ into the leaking well where it is hoped they will sufficiently expand to clog the leak."
ask: BP – At the Bottom of the Barrel – and Still Sinking.
Unenergy: BP : Let's keep the Astrophysicists busy guessing how many jelly beans in the jar: "It seems that BP are about to offer America's finest scientists an opportunity to engage in a game of jelly bean guesstimates due to their unwillingness to measure the flow coming from the leaks at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Sound unbelievable? Follow after the fold and I'll explain what is going on here, which, in my personal and professional opinion, shouldn't be."
Mike Stagg: Why BP doesn't want to know how much oil is gushing?: "While researching an article on Oilpatch Socialism in Louisiana, I stumbled across a law firm's blog that suggests why BP has no real interest in determining the actual amount of oil gushing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico."
Keith Pickering: 60 Minutes: Critical equipment damaged weeks before blowout: "The bottom line: the blowout was caused by gross negligence on the part of BP. There is no other way to spin it."