Gulf Recovery: Helping those that need it most

by Laurence Lewis

Don't believe the hype. It isn't over. For many residents of the Gulf Coast it won't be over for a very long time. According to Krissah Thompson and David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post:

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The Downplaying of Dispersants

by scorpiorising

I almost choked on my breakfast cereal when I read this headline in the Times Picayune today: Senator gently scolds EPA's Director(for that headline today there is no online link posted yet, so I included a link from basically the same article yesterday). Now I didn't see the entire video of that questioning, but I did see a compilation of remarks both from Senator Mikulski and Lisa Jackson. "Gentle" is a value ascribed to the interaction that I wouldn't necessarily use. I will admit though, it could have been a lot stronger from Mikulski and company. There is also a grilling, at the same hearing, of a NOAA official that is worth seeing.

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FEMA Trailers Still Making the Rounds (with updates)

by Miep

Banned Trailers Return for Latest Gulf Disaster

NYT, June 30

VENICE, La. — In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, they became a symbol of the government’s inept response to that disaster: the 120,000 or so trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to people who had lost their homes.

The trailers were discovered to have such high levels of formaldehyde that the government banned them from ever being used for long-term housing again.

Some of the trailers, though, are getting a second life amid the latest disaster here — as living quarters for workers involved with the cleanup of the oil spill.

Cross-posted from Right of Assembly

h/t to RV Home Yet? for the links.

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Wolf Sushi

by murrayewv

Doesn’t sound very appetizing, does it?  Why would you eat raw slices of a warm-blooded, pack hunting predator that is on the top of the food chain and whose numbers are critically threatened by hunting?
If you are a bluefin tuna sushi or sashimi eater, you are eating a wild population that is overfished and on the verge of collapse before the oil disaster.  You are eating wolves of the sea, warm-blooded pack hunters roaming the northern hemisphere before returning to one of two spawning areas- the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea.  

The tipping point is now, this year, this month today.   Take home message of this diary for those busy this Father’s Day: Stop eating bluefin tuna, and tell restaurants and fish shops to stop buying it for their customers.  Call it a moratorium, not a boycott.  

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Voices for Nature

by David Kroning II

As an environmental historian who has worked on fisheries-related issues for more than two decades, I’m not surprised by the popular discourse surrounding the oil gushing uncontrollably in the Gulf of Mexico.  It is only the most recent assault in a long, destructive campaign by humans to bend Nature to its will.  

The most frequent questions that have arisen from this crisis could have been written in advance out of the rhetoric of the last crisis: "What does this mean for fishermen and their ‘way of life’",  "What does this mean for tourism and the dollars tourists bring to the region?", "What does this mean for the political futures of Governor Bobby Jindal, or President Barack Obama?", "What will this mean for the price of shrimp?"

In short, "What does this mean for me?"

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Drill Here, Drill Now economics soundly defeated (w/ graphic)

by Eclectablog

We all heard it and we all laughed at it. We know we consume 25% of the worlds oil but only own 2% of the worlds' oil reserves. We know that the amount of oil we'd get from additional domestic drilling is a tiny smidgen of what is produced globally. [Click for bigger version {.pdf}] But, nonetheless, the GOPosaurs and other Big Oil-loving conservative teabagger types still chant the mantra and believe against all evidence to the contrary that we can keep oil prices low by drilling in the USA. Now we have solid economic evidence to the contrary.

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What Our Leaders Can Do

by JRandomPoster

There's been a lot of talk about what our leaders can - and should - be doing to address the Gulf catastrophe. This is a time when we need strong leadership.  And I'm not talking about waving some magic wand, or having the President personally plug the leak.  I'm quite cognizant of the fact that there are no known good solutions at this point in time. But there are actions that can be taken to lead us both towards a solution to the ongoing crisis, towards prevention of further drilling incidents, and towards breaking our addiction to the wasteful use of our energy and resources that can be taken, and taken now.  These are pragmatic actions that lead towards a stronger nation and towards ensuring that future generations have at least some resources and energy supplies.  Furthermore, they are actions that would increase political capitol and push the electoral calculus in favor of our Democratic leaders.

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Cheney's BP Energy Extremes Must End

by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse

A government policy based on desperation to remain on fossil fuels combined with corporate greed and weak lawmakers means more disasters in our future. Extreme sports are known for activities that have a high level of inherent dangers. Cheney and Bush adopted this extreme philosophy into our energy policy in 2001 because the U.S. is "running out of conventional, easily tapped reservoirs of oil and natural gas located on land or in shallow coastal waters." Cheney's solution was to increase drilling in what BP has called the new "energy frontiers": The only solution, it claimed, would be to increase exploitation of unconventional energy reserves -- oil and gas found in deep offshore areas of the Gulf of Mexico, the Outer Continental Shelf, Alaska, and the American Arctic, as well as in complex geological formations such as shale oil and gas.

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Above the Oil--The Threat of "Black Rain."

by Dartagnan

There is no record of a hurricane ever encountering a large oil spill. One of the unresolved questions posed by the Gulf disaster is the impact of seasonal Hurricanes on the oil mass, and vice versa. Beyond the debate of whether the slick would weaken, or possibly strengthen the hurricane, and beyond the issue of dispersal or non-dispersal of the oil within the mass, several sources have raised the possibility of an "oil rain" spreading  inland through sea spray caught up in the Hurricane, while others have ridiculed the idea, contending that oil is heavier than water and could not be "evaporated" or otherwise transported into clouds.   A Compilation of the theories notes: A hurricane would significantly dilute the oil, but it also could scatter the oil over a wider area. If the layer of oil is thin, high winds and seas will mix and 'weather' the oil, which helps accelerate the biodegradation process. However, there is the chance for windborne oil particles from sea spray to be moved inland.

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