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Quantifying, and Dealing With, the Deepwater Spill
Gooseygoose writes with a link to this analysis by Boston University professor Cutler Cleveland. "Some reports in the media attempt to downplay the significance of the release of oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident by arguing that natural oil seeps release large volumes of oil to the ocean, so why worry? Let's look at the numbers." Read on for a few more stories on the topic of the Deepwater Horizon spill.
theodp writes with some information on the remote-controlled efforts to stanch the oil's flow: "The work Tito Collasius does sounds a little like science fiction: Men on ships flicking joysticks that control robots the size of trucks as they rove miles beneath the sea in near-freezing depths no man could hope to reach. But BP's spill efforts rest in the hands of underwater remote-operated vehicle (ROV) pilots, who 'fly' the ROVs from command centers aboard ships, joysticks in hand and large banks of screens in front of them offering a view of the challenges they confront in the waters below. ROVs are typically used for commercial (as in the oil industry), oceanographic (science research and exploration), and military (mine reconnaissance and recovery) missions. If you're interested in joining Tito, training's available."
Even if BP were to effect a perfect block for the oil, though, there's still quite a bit of it swirling in the Gulf — you've probably seen some gut-wrenching pictures of the affected wildlife. Reader grrlscientist writes "Some people claim that we should euthanize all oiled birds immediately upon recovering them. But I argue it is our ethical responsibility to protect, clean, and save these birds, even after they've been oiled, just as we should preserve and clean their habitats."
I first heard this line of reasoning on Fox News and my first reaction was "scale, people." What's funny is that our local Fox affiliate keeps sending reporters up to the beaches of Santa Barbara where there's a fairly large natural oil seep as if to say, "See? It's no big deal..."
The reasons we are probably seeing things like this is to undo or mitigate the damage to the coastal tourism that is already being seen in the gulf area as a reaction to the spill. This will go more common as more and more industries away from the spill are hit with less and less business from the consumers on the beaches.
This will hit hard around election time if something can't be done to curb the expected negative growth in the economy caused by this. Expect the idea to get really popular in the next couple months.
Seems like there's far more oil than can be accounted for by dead organisms alone.
The total global biomass has been estimated to be 2000 billion tonnes with 1600 billion of those tonnes in forests.[13][14]
Net primary production is the rate at which biomass is generated in a given area, mainly due to photosynthesis. Some global producers of biomass in order of productivity rates are
* swamps and marshes: 2,500 g/m/yr of biomass[15]
* tropical rain forests: 2,000 g/m/yr of biomass[16]
* algal beds and reefs: 2000 g/m/yr of biomass[15]
* river estuaries: 1,800 g/m/yr of biomass[15]
* temperate forests: 1,250 g/m/yr of biomass[15]
* cultivated lands: 650 g/m/yr of biomass[15][17]
* deserts: 3 g/m/yr of biomass[17]
* open ocean: 125 g/m/yr of biomass[15][17]
* tundras: 140 g/m/yr[15][17]
(Multiply by millions of years...)
You can't take the sky from me...
While Palin's pretty shamelessly rent-seeking (drill in Alaska? why, how convenient!) the idea that we've been avoiding one ecologically sensitive area (pristine Alaska wilderness) in favor of drilling in another, potentially more sensitive area which is also much much riskier to drill in (the Gulf) for whatever reason (perhaps it's easier for people to conceive of the former as wilderness-y?)... that part of her idea is not without merit. Regardless of our ultimate course of action, we should be sure that we are weighing the potential environmental impact a bit more dispassionately, and with an eye to overall impact - including the impact of the risks, so elusive and difficult to grasp until disaster strikes.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I think we can all agree that the liability caps were a stupid, stupid idea by now and if we retroactively enforce them, we essentially give the government to take down whatever business they don't really like. [...] it is simply unfair to change the rules of a game in progress.
If Congress can retroactively extend the length of copyrights that were granted half a century ago, then apparently changing the rules of a game in progress is A-OK.
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I'm undoing a lot of mod points to say this, but separation caused this mess: A lack of regulatory oversight and trusting that the private industry was putting in adequate safeguards. Business and State need to be working in a partnership -- it's a necessity. There was a disconnect; The people making the laws and doing the regulatory oversight didn't have the training or knowledge to know what measures would be effective (and what was just window-dressing).
I think the two of you are saying the same thing in the opposite way. There were lots of experts working on the regulations. Unfortunately, they were all experts working for businesses. They knew they were putting in loop holes. Government and business worked together to screw the people in a manner that looked like they were working together for the betterment of everyone.
What we need to look at right now is how that relationship can be structured to best serve the public interest, rather than private interests as it has until now.
See, there was an involvement between the two. They just worked really hard to make it look like they were being helpful while harming the people. Whether it's the banks, the oil companies, or the automotive cartel shooting themselves (and the American people) in the foot in the long term to try to get next quarter's profits up, they work really hard to pretend to be helpful while giving the expert advice and guidance to make some of the worst legislation possible.
Learn to love Alaska
"Making a good impression" would sort of imply Obama would have to retroactively cease being the single politician who has received the largest financial contributions from BP, though, wouldn't you think??