I have been very distraught about the Gulf and
the wildlife and the sand but there is clearly
child endangerment going on in Destin.
I am posting this so people will see just how
ignorant people are and how desperate they are
to buy the propoganda of "Come on in, the water's fine".
We have dolphins dying and wildlife dying and stupid
parents allowing children to swim inhttp://www.youtube.com/...
This was the week that many conservationists were dreading because there was a compromise on the table at the International Whaling Commissions annual Meeting in Morroco. The deal was supposed to spare lives while giving up the moratorium on commercial whaling by allowing Japan, Norway and Iceland to whale under very strict guidelines, to slaughter whales within smaller quotas than the ones they follow today.
For many like me, this compromise was still too many whales killed. Many scientists agreed that the quotas agreed to were unsustainable under any circumstance and no matter how closely they were monitored.
First, 57 Democratic Senators walked out of a caucus meeting today sounding like they'd been to a summer blockbuster movie instead. The meeting was thrilling and inspirational. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:
"A number of senators said this was the best caucus they've ever attended," Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) said at a press conference after the meeting. "It was really very, very powerful. It was inspirational, quite frankly."
And within a few hours, we learn why Democratic Senators sound like 57 cats who hijacked the cream truck: Reid is making a high-stakes gamble on a climate bill. Not a clean energy bill, but a climate bill to cap greenhouse gases. Details below the fold.
I love Michigan. Anyone who has ever seen the fantastic Great Lakes, fished our bountiful streams or walked our beautiful beaches which rival those of California or Florida would feel as strongly as I do. If you've seen our "Pure Michigan" ads, you get a little glimpse of how protective we are of our natural resources. But now, as the Gulf is being damaged beyond anything we can imagine for generations to come, by our demand for oil riches - the Great Lakes are on the verge of ecological disaster too.
The criminals running loose are responsible for another life lost.
Gulf boat captain shoots himself on boat's deck
A Gulf of Mexico charter boat captain from Alabama committed suicide yesterday after he allegedly became too upset over the BP oil spill ruining the charter boat business.
UPDATE: I don't like presenting issues without some form of solution or action. There is a resource available for mental health and suicide.
crossposted at intlawgrrls
On June 22, Judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction overturning the Department of Interior’s May 28, 2010 Temporary Moratorium on deepwater drilling. Several facets of this decision are truly astonishing. Nowhere in the decision is there any recognition of the unique, emergency circumstances or the grave threat to the public that the agency was seeking to combat. Nor did the judge pay much attention to the express and explicit congressional intention that offshore oil activities be suspended when necessary to protect against environmental threats.
 Pelican Gate |
Originally this was a story of people who had no concern for the environment or the value of old trees. Then it became the story of the destruction of the habitat for an endangered species. It progressed to being a story of civil irresponsibility when workers for Seton Hall Prep were instructed to demolish some 90 year old Japanese yew trees in favor of what were called "test pits." Exactly what was being tested was unclear.
Imagine your local Widget Factory, employs dozens of workers,
to put together hundreds of the latest Must-have Widgets, each and every day.
Now imagine this Widget Factory, in the hopes of increasing profits,
took all its industrial by-product Gunk, gathered them up each day,
and quietly dumped them, each night around midnight, when no one was looking,
in the local River waterway. Pollution be gone!
Instant Profit Gain, right? No costly "Gunk Processing" equipment to buy or operate. No extra hidden costs, need be added to that Price of a Widget -- which could keep consumers from flocking to Widget Retail Outlets, right?
Wrong ... ONE Big Problem in this Free Market scheme ...
The Folks living downstream on that local River waterway!
The Folks making a living on the beauty and productivity of that River --
They all might notice that somethings up, in their once pristine Waterway?
They might eventually figure it out too, that "Widget One" has been "cutting corners", in its responsibility to be "good neighbors".
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today issued a notice of violation and is seeking a $2.9 million fine from the city of Birmingham in Alabama for a 2008 incident in which city workers killed off more than half the population of a small endangered fish.
The fish kill resulted in the deaths of 11,760 watercress darters and injury to 8,900 other darters.
Marco Rubio, running as a Republican for U.S. Senate from Florida, yesterday:
So now you’re talking about deep-water drilling. And I only want to see it if it can be done safely. And that’s why it’s so important that we study why this happened. And if you tell me we’re going to have to put up with a couple of more of these, of course not. But can it be done safely? There is evidence that it can be done safely. It’s being done safely all over the world.
So Rubio says he'll only support oil if it's safe, and then says there's evidence that "it's being done safely all over the world."
Case closed, right? Thanks to Dick Cheney's energy task force, oil is safe, right? Drill, baby, drill. Right?
Yeah. Uh, except there's always this:
It's being done safely all over the world. Except when it's not.
You ready to pay seven cents per gallon in 2011, and eleven cents per gallon in 2035? That's exactly what would happen if we ban offshore drilling. Here's more on this from RFF Fellow, Stephen P.A. Brown, at the Resources For Future:
"If such risks are not taken fully into account, offshore oil and natural gas production will be too great; oil and natural gas prices will be too low; and the consumption of oil and natural gas will be too high," Brown writes. "Are tighter controls or a permanent ban on deepwater drilling in the United States a reasonable response to such externalities – or an overreaction?"
Brown assesses the implications of a permanent tightening of U.S. government control on deepwater offshore drilling through three scenarios. The first case represents business as usual. The second imposes additional regulatory safeguards that would increase the cost of exploration, development, and production in U.S. deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas by a combined 20 percent. The third case examines the implications of a permanent U.S. ban on drilling in deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas.
Gulf Coast law firms Levin Papantonio, Eastland Law and others have begun filing a series of civil RICO actions in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama to hold BP accountable for the false assurances it gave the American people that it could handle a worst-case scenario deepwater oil spill. The suits allege that BP committed mail fraud, wire fraud and potentially other RICO predicate act violations when the company sought permits from the federal government for deepwater offshore drilling, knowing that it did not possess the technical expertise or equipment necessary to respond to an emergency such as the ongoing Deepwater disaster.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
For weeks on end we have watched our dependence on Big Oil cause the greatest environmental disaster this country has ever seen. We have been horrified by pictures like this. We have been saddened by the stories of all of the Gulf Coast residents who have lost their jobs and are now struggling to make ends meet. And we have been angered by the ineptitude of the BP executives who allowed this tragedy to happen and could not care less if the Gulf Coast ever recovers.
The attitude of corporate greed and environmental irresponsibility has once again reared its ugly head, this time in the state of California, where on Monday, a deceptive ballot initiative called the California Jobs Initiative qualified for the state's November ballot.
This brief diary is intended to solicit comments from people more knowledgeable than I about Australian politics.
Australia has a new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and she's promising to pursue some kind of limits on carbon emissions. This is particularly significant since Australia is a big coal exporter and high per-capita carbon emitter.
More over the fold.
As if the oil companies from Texas – and their allies in the corridors of power - hadn’t done enough harm to our country already (for more, see the late, great Gulf of Mexico), now they are at it once again. This time, it’s Valero and Tesoro, pouring money into a campaign this election season to undo California’s landmark, clean energy and climate law, AB 32. On Tuesday, the oil companies’ proposition was certified for the November ballot. The fight, as they say, is on!
Why should you care? Let us count the ways.
Head meet wall. Just when you think it cannot get more insane, it does. The moratorium that the Potus declared in response to the catastrophe in the GOM, has not halted the off-shore drilling plans by BP in Alaska. In today's NY Times there is a long piece about how the criminally negligent BP is forging ahead with the Liberty Project.
Three miles off Alaska's coast, BP is set to drill 2 miles under the sea and then farther horizontally (6-8 miles) to get to the 100 million barrel reservoir in US waters. Why you may ask hasn't this project been halted along with other off-shore oil-drilling moratoria? Because they gamed the system by building a 31 acre pile of rock and gravel, in 20+ feet of water, so they can call it onshore. BP long ago received the state and federal permits and has only to file it's final application. Plans are to start drilling this fall.
There's more below.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting four public information meetings on the proposed study of the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and its potential impacts on drinking water...The meetings will provide public information about the proposed study scope and design. EPA will solicit public comments on the draft study plan.
The public meetings will be held on:
* July 8 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. CDT at the Hilton Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas
* July 13 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. MDT at the Marriot Tech Center’s Rocky Mountain Events Center in Denver, Colo.
* July 22 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT at the Hilton Garden Inn in Canonsburg, Pa.
* August 12 at the Anderson Performing Arts Center at Binghamton University in Binghamton, N.Y. for 3 sessions - 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT
Go below the fold for more essential information.
One of the coolest government sponsored programs on earth is the Solar Decathlon, created by and sponsored by US Department of Energy. Universities from around the world compete in the event with student teams designing and building zero net energy, sustainable homes for the future.
The event is so popular (and so cool) that this year Europe organized a Solar Decathlon - Europe.
Links to US and European events below. Here are the main goals.
Whale sharks, some as large as 40 feet, are the gentlest giants in the ocean and they are threatened mainly by human hunting and by loss of habitat. The oil spill in the Gulf is threatening this majestic animal even further by rendering it's Gulf of Mexico habitat uninhabitable. Here is a brief introduction to the whale shark from the Whale Shark Project:
The Whale shark the biggest fish in the sea and there are only a few whale species larger than it. Thought to reach up to a possible 20 meters and 34 tonnes it seems difficult to believe that Whale Sharks feed on microscopic plankton rarely more than 3 mm in size. The combination of its immense size and characteristic checkerboard pattern makes the Whale Shark almost unmistakable and completely unforgettable.
The Whale Shark Project's site is here
The shark is important to the ecosystem because they are what is called apex predators meaning they are at the top of the ocean food chain. Removal of these predators would have a top down effect on the ocean's ecosystem just as the destruction of coral and algae at the bottom of the ocean has a bottom to top impact. See more below:
The current ROV DIARY: BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 133.
Rules of the Road
PLEASE visit Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier's diaries to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!
To repeat: please refrain from commenting in this mothership diary, unless you're volunteering for a submersible shift.
UK geothermal project passes milestone
Assisted by a £460,000 grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Newcastle University scientists have created a giant twin borehole central heating system, so the hot water can be raised up from 1,000m down, passed through a heat exchanger and then reinjected, via a second borehole, back in to the rocks 420m down.
Well hot damn. Even the backward former colonials have been doing some stuff like that but not so much. We are more addicted to coal, oil and natural gas so much so that we are filling the oceans with petroleum.
Because the water is twice as salty as seawater, it cannot be discharged into rivers. Pumping it back underground resolves an issue
Very good.
Whatever will those scientists in the land of Sir Isaac Newton think of next?
Boomers, I didn't want to have to do this. I didn't want to have to spend time and room on Daily Kos's rec list (if you so honor me) debunking pure bullshit. But in recent days, the bullshit has gotten wider and wider circulation. I've had to write a form letter to use in replying to emails asking me about bullshit. First, it was the Matt Simmons' bullshit about the seafloor opening in a huge gash, which is where most of the oil was coming from.... and so we should nuke the well (????).
Most recently, I've had to contend with the dougr bullshit from an otherwise wonderful website, The Oil Drum.
Both, doomsday scenarios (as if we needed those right now). Both, bullshit.
Jump the manure heap with me and I'll explain why this is all bullshit and I'll also issue a challenge to anyone in the Oil and Gas industry, or anyone else, to prove otherwise.
So you know about the gulf, right? Of course you do. And it makes you sick.
And you've watched An Inconvenient Truth, and you have decided to align yourself with the remarkably united opinion of scientists that (1) are sane, (2) are honest and (3) have actually worked on climate science. That is to say, you know that human activity has reached the level of having a real effect on the planet.
So you do what you can - recycle, cut back on unnecessary purchases or trips, write to your congressthing.
That's wonderful. And you know it's wonderful. But there's a hole nestled deep in your mind. On one side of it, the ten dollar bill you found that you're pretty sure belonged to the lady up by the corner. On the other, your inability to rush down to Louisiana, save a family of pelicans, throttle Tony Hayward and plug the leak with his ... um, yacht. There has to be something more.
So what to do? Well, in the immortal words of Mickey Rooney: "Hey kids, let's put on a show!"
