Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series.
In this weekly series we have been discussing the benefits of a vegetarian diet including; better health, animal rights, frugal living, global food crisis, food safety and the immense contribution of meat production to climate change/depletion of resources.
In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).7
In a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels.
Daniel Tencer reports this morning at RawStory that it appears that "a rare and endangered species of sea turtle is being burned alive in BP's controlled burns of the oil swirling around the Gulf of Mexico, and a boat captain tasked with saving them says the company has blocked rescue efforts."
"Mike Ellis, a boat captain involved in a three-week effort to rescue as many sea turtles from unfolding disaster as possible, says BP effectively shut down the operation by preventing boats from coming out to rescue the turtles."
This Wednesday, President Obama is scheduled to meet with about a dozen Democratic and Republican Senate leaders on developing a comprehensive energy bill that can get through Congress.
Leading up to that meeting, we all need to contact these Senators (see contact information below) - Harry Reid, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, Richard Lugar, Barbara Boxer, Jeff Bingaman, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Judd Gregg, Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, Jay Rockefeller, and Debbie Stabenow - and let them know how strongly we feel about this issue. A few key points to emphasize as we make our calls and write our emails.
Late last night I read the powerful, incredible New York Times expose on the knowing failure of oil corporations and intentional lack of the right safety equipment that caused the Gusher in the Gulf. I had just written a diary on Bush's Executive Order to give free rein to oil corporations! The link between the two could not be more clear: BP chose to do everything fast and dirty. Had they not ignore safety reports about faulty BOPs and shear rams failures, they could easily have avoided this catastrophe.
BP knew they were operating unsafely. Read the Times article.
The Bush/Cheney administration had empowered them to do so from May 2001. If Republicans are going to blame this disaster and its cleanup on Obama then let the true blame be placed on Bush/Cheney for enabling the oil industry to run roughshod over safety precautions, regulations and oversight.
PLEASE REC the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership!
The NY Times has this graphic showing the extent of the surface oil slick as of yesterday:
The grid squares on the map are about 70 miles on a side (~5,000 square miles each), and the total area of the slick as shown is about three of those squares, or 15,000 square miles of ocean surface.
The estimates of the oil flow rate from the well of course have been all over the park. A story yesterday reports that an internal BP memo pegged the "worst case" flow at 100,000 barrels per day.
So let's take that "worst case" estimate and see how it comports with the NY Times picture.
more...
More than once in these posts I've cited the work of Times-Picayune business reporter Rebecca Mowbray. She is deeply knowledgeable in many of the industries that affect our state's economy, particularly energy and insurance. And this Sunday, she drove a stake through the heart of a simplistic talking point at the crossroads where those sectors meet.
President Obama is systematically increasing the chances that mountaintop removal mining (MTR) permits may not be granted by insisting on compliance with the law. One tool that mining companies, and other corporations that harm our environment for their own profit, hate is an environmental impact statement (EIS). An EIS is generally a document based on scientific studies and data that analyze the environmental impacts of a proposed project, such as MTR. When a project might have a significant environmental impact, then an EIS may be required to answer questions, such as what are the environmental impacts, are there alternatives to the project, and can mitigation measures lessen these impacts. Corporations that want to rape our environment dislike EIS because it reduces the chances of their projects being approved as they want. Not only is the decision maker better informed of the facts, but the public is allowed to participate in the EIS process and environmental organizations have been successful in terminating projects by litigation. Bush used one tool to increase the chances of project approvals, and now Obama has nixed this tool, paving the way for more EIS required for MTR.
It's another horrendous story coming out of the Gulf, as wildlife rescue people try to help wildlife struggling to swim in oil, get out of it and escape it.
The awful news is coming now that these rescuers are being denied access to rescue these endangered turtles from the waters near the spill and that the oil soaked turtles are being burned alive.
There is nothing I can do to hold back tears as I read about this story recently, hearing about people attempting to save more lives, as little as they may seem, more lives and an endangered species, sea turtles, burning in oil rather than being rescued.
An ancient species as well, the sea turtle represents mother earth, creation, longevity, and wisdom and everything that BP is not. This is a tragedy that we cannot allow, the turtles have been here much longer than any of us, we cannot allow them to disappear because of BP!