Slashdot Mirror
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."
Unfortunately, the BP execs seem to be replicating the behavior of so the called "hoodies" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodies ) from England.
Tough luck for the folks in the Gulf . . .
And tough shit for any stockholders in BP . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I also think there is tremendous value in showing people the true costs of our oil dependence, so hopefully, society will begin realize that some risks are simply too great to support in our endless quest to satisfy this dependence.
People value their big cars, big homes, energy guzzling electronics and expect other people to solve the problem or they just don't give a shit. As far as some people are concerned, fuck the birds! We need to make way for "progress"! Or God put us here to do what we want!
People are cruel, shallow, and small minded.
All a misanthrope needs to do is sit back with a beer and watch humanity destroy themselves with their shallowness and stupidity.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
...Those people of the effected gulf states will begin to believe it...
BP and some of our corporate-owned politicians are doing everything they can to keep people from believing there's any problem. BP has reportedly bought $50,000,000 of media outlets for maintaining their image. Also, reportedly, local police are turning photographers away from places where there's coated wildlife to be seen, and saying that they're doing it at BP's behest. (Since when did your local cops work for a corporation?)
Governor Haley Barber is skipping meetings about the problem and telling the media, "Come on in, the water's fine", comparing it to the light film of gasoline you sometimes see behind a motorboat when you get into the water to ski.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Large-scale natural oil seeps, and more significantly, the extreme depths of many large oil reservoirs (upwards of three miles *below the ocean floor*) makes some, including myself, wonder where does all that oil really come from?
Sure, some oil is likely from long dead organisms, but how does one explain the vast amounts of oil that exists? Seems like there's far more oil than can be accounted for by dead organisms alone. And, more curious, is the large amounts of oil located so deep below the ocean floor ... How does one explain that?
Ron
all of our politicians are corporate owned. Its just a few of them -cough- democrats -cough- are owned by "green" businesses who want BP, a competitor, out of business and so they are raising more of a panic than others.
And why does it surprise you that cops are working for corporations? The majority of them are uneducated, ignorant, abusive thugs. They want their tax increases to get more money and higher pay increases. If they can get some corporations behind the tax increases, they have a higher chance of passing.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
If they are forced to pay $50 billion, they got screwed by the government.
You can't change the rules while the game is in progress. No matter how much we like to hate BP, you have to realize they were just playing the game as it was presented by the US government. 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.
Should BP pay for the spill? Absolutely, but we missed our chance in 1990, it is simply unfair to change the rules of a game in progress.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Unless they're putting nuclear reactors directly in the SUVs, oil is completely orthogonal to nuclear power.
Oh, I'm sorry. How has uptake of electric cars been going in France and Japan? What percentage of the overall automotive market do they make up?
I'll wait...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
you don't have any ability to lead or think abstractly about problems in your own right
you can only wait for someone else to lead, you can only depend upon someone else to do the right thing
why didn't you just tell me up front you think of yourself as a slave? save all the effort. i thought i was talking to a responsible human being, not a lemming
so you go, back in your little box, where everything makes sense and you don't have to think about problems or potential problems
sorry to have disturbed you with, you know, the idea of electric cars, which is obviously some sort of crazy hippie pipe dream that no one, no one at all, is taking seriously
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You've never bought petrol? Or a product with plastic in it?
You never bought one of those products because it was cheaper than a competitor?
Methinks you need to think about it a little more...