The BP oil spill & Gulf deep sea corals

I dont doubt that. The EPA allows dispersants. It causes the oil to sink. Dumb, dumb ,dumb. If they only used absorbants there would have not been oil damage in the depths and the lower food chain.
 
The EPA is a joke! Waiting around for the President to make a decision instead of releasing skimmer ships and equipment immediately to clean up. Can you imagine if the everyone else worked like the Feds; "News Flash" wreck on I10 today that had traffic clogged for 12 hours while the police waited for the mayor to make a decision?
 
Its VERY difficult to talk enviorment and remain politically neutral ... but suffice to say most of us without blinders on realize corporate influences have some roles in broad enviormental decisions and then the politics of money comes into play
(I'm assuming stating the obvious isn't a violation of the ua)

...basically I'm asking is do we lay this on BP or ourselves in general? Certainly the scope of this tradgedy will affect most of us in some manner
 
Its time to stop buying gas from BP and refuse to keep comsuming as we are and change now .We have alternate fuels and battery power to now start living and showing the world that we can change. If not now then when? It is time to take a stand and use hydrogen natural gas or battery power instead of killing our planet.Wake up now before its too late!!!
 
ReeferBill said:
Its time to stop buying gas from BP and refuse to keep comsuming as we are and change now .We have alternate fuels and battery power to now start living and showing the world that we can change. If not now then when? It is time to take a stand and use hydrogen natural gas or battery power instead of killing our planet.Wake up now before its too late!!!
Click to expand...
While agree we need to change, most of the alternatives available at this point are not only too expensive an option for most, but are doing as much damage being produced as just running on gas. Where is it that people think electric comes from by the way? There are "clean" electric options (battery), but the majority of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels. (pumping the waste from coal into a shaft drilled in the earth is not clean, its only perceptibly clean)
I am 100% for cleaning up our act. I just think that we can't jump on alternate technology just because it exists. How many (mercury filled) compact fluorescent light bulbs do you think have landed in the landfills because of lack of knowledge that they need to be recycled?
And to sum it all up, why is toilet paper white? (seriously, unbelievable amounts of work/energy go into bleaching paper white just so it can look nice for...well, wiping your....)
*stepping off the soapbox*
 
spieszak said:
While agree we need to change, most of the alternatives available at this point are not only too expensive an option for most, but are doing as much damage being produced as just running on gas. Where is it that people think electric comes from by the way? There are "clean" electric options (battery), but the majority of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels. (pumping the waste from coal into a shaft drilled in the earth is not clean, its only perceptibly clean)
I am 100% for cleaning up our act. I just think that we can't jump on alternate technology just because it exists. How many (mercury filled) compact fluorescent light bulbs do you think have landed in the landfills because of lack of knowledge that they need to be recycled?
And to sum it all up, why is toilet paper white? (seriously, unbelievable amounts of work/energy go into bleaching paper white just so it can look nice for...well, wiping your....)
*stepping off the soapbox*
Click to expand...

I completely agree that electric vehicles are not the solution to reducing our dependence on politically/economically unstable and environmentally harmful fuel sources like oil since most electricity comes from burning coal which releases mercury, particulates, and other pollutants into the atmosphere and nuclear still has that whole "where do we put this radioactive waste?" problem.

But I do think some biofuels will eventually be the answer to our energy problem in the future. Corn based ethanol will never be the solution, it requires too much land and inputs to be sustainable. In my personal opinion from biofuels classes I've taken and research I've done, algae is the best solution for supplying our energy needs. Algae produces several times more energy per acre than first and second generation biofuels and requires less farm equipment. The only problem with algae farming is keeping the algae cultures pure from contamination and separating algal cells from water to convert to oil. Oil and gas companies certainly have the money to invest in convert to algae production (some are already investing millions in algae research) and if the government spent as much money on building these facilities here in the U.S. as they did on wars in foreign oil producing countries we would be independent from foreign oil. Just my 2 cents....
 
It's very sad to see that soft coral covered in oil. Like Eric the Half-Bee said, our earth has endured worse. Hopefully we (as a human race) have learned enough from this mistake and the oil companies take steps to prevent a disaster like the BP spill again.
 
spieszak said:
And to sum it all up, why is toilet paper white? (seriously, unbelievable amounts of work/energy go into bleaching paper white just so it can look nice for...well, wiping your....)
Click to expand...

Whoah.....easy now! I'm all for alternative, viable fuels. But ditching white toilet paper....are you out of your mind? :D
 
The one thing that jumped out at me from this was that the pictures and results they released are all from 2010, the same year as the blowout. The article states the researchers have returned to the site since then but are not releasing their results yet. I'll let ever one make their own conclusions on that, but I would be willing to be dollars to cents if that coral was still looking dead or had completely wiped out, they would not be sitting on the data from their most recent trips.
 
Ira said:
The one thing that jumped out at me from this was that the pictures and results they released are all from 2010, the same year as the blowout. The article states the researchers have returned to the site since then but are not releasing their results yet. I'll let ever one make their own conclusions on that, but I would be willing to be dollars to cents if that coral was still looking dead or had completely wiped out, they would not be sitting on the data from their most recent trips.
Click to expand...

Good point. They are also talking of coral colonies affected that are less than 10 miles from the "spill". While it does suck that they died, I guess it would kind of be expected from animals living that close to ground zero.
 
Its protocol to hold all data until they finish the study, but my guess is that the only photos that make it to the public eye will be the ones that show damage IF they ever come out at all. Corals are very hardy and are one of the few animals that has survived numerous global extinctions. They will rebound, but in the mean time we should tap the Alaskan tundra and leave the water alone since its under enough stress already.
 
I live on the Gulf Coast in Alabama and I own and operate a charter boat in Orange Beach, AL taking tourist fishing. I would bet just about anything that the corals near ground zero took a huge hit. On a positive note I can say that the live bottom in our area seems to be doing ok. We fish over live coral bottom as well as man made structures that are covered in coral and so far we haven't seen any major coral die off. I hope it continues that way and some how the reefs around ground zero recover, but I'm sure it will take many more years for it to recover than it took to destroy it.
I'm on the gulf fishing 100 days or more a year so I can try and answer questions any of you may have about what we are seeing out there.
I would never take up for BP, but do not let the media fool you. If they can find anything bad out there they will plaster it everywhere they can. In my opinion the media has done more damage to our business than B.P.


OH yeah, I vote for keeping the toilet paper white also.
 
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The media loves a train wreck...but bad news sells...
but countering that is a current media blitz of commercials aimed squarely at enviormental regulation..... no opinion offered, just pointing it out
 
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