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'Frothy Gunk' From Deepwater Horizon Spill Harming Coral
sciencehabit writes "The massive oil spill that inundated the Gulf of Mexico in the spring and summer of 2010 severely damaged deep-sea corals more than 11 kilometers from the well site, a sea-floor survey conducted within weeks of the spill reveals. At one site, which hadn't been visited before but had been right in the path of a submerged 100-meter-thick oil plume from the spill, researchers found a variety of corals — most of them belonging to a type of colonial coral commonly known as sea fans — on a 10-meter-by-12-meter outcrop of rock. Many of the corals were partially or completely covered with a brown, fluffy substance that one team member variously calls 'frothy gunk,' 'goop,' and 'snot.'"
That's why Santorum supports more drilling.
I thought this was about the Presidential election. Thankfully I take the time to read the the summary, well, most of it. Some.
Luckily for BP overfishing wiped out those areas years ago. When I was a kid I heard a lot about the gulf mackerel stocks being pretty much wiped out.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
We're sorry. We said we were sorry. Go away. Leave us alone.
I think the choice words were, "I want my life back."
It's hell when society expects corporations and rich people to take responsibility for something. That's for ordinary suckers.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No, instead, everybody with a fishing boat will continue to blame the NOAA for every single last thing that happens to the fishing industry, including the results of overfishing.
If NOAA enforces fishing less, they're purposefully trying to ruin the industry in some kind of unfathomable conspiracy with the government and the oil companies and blah blah blah.
If NOAA allows for fishing, they're not protecting the ocean's wildlife enough and the smaller boats don't stand a chance to haul anything in when the bigger purse-sein boats are stealing it all, blah blah blah.
In all the time I've spent debating with fishermen, usually at Jane Lubchenco's Facebook, since the Deepwater spill, I've never seen one fisherman write that perhaps it's a good idea to try to preserve the industry by fishing less.
I think for most fishermen it's either
a) a foregone conclusion that all the fish will be fished to extinction so why dare to hold them back from making their livelihood
b) a foregone conclusion that it's impossible to seriously deplete fish stock from the world's "fisheries" so holding fishing back is conspiracy
blah blah blah blah
The thing is they talk about it like they have some kind of thriving business going when I'm sure if I had been there in the various meeting places where they go to argue with, heckle, and defame NOAA authorities over the years, I would probably have heard fishermen blaming every one but themselves for their decreasing livelihood.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I'd rather drill on land. So we can monitor it easily and if there is any spill, it is easy to contain, seal, and clean up. But environmentalists have a fit if you say "ANWR"
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So oil drilling is pushed off shore. But it is too close to the shore! Environmentalists don't like those oil rigs! Move them farther out!
So we push the limit on how far we can push the oil rigs out... and when they are in an area very hard monitor, very hard to contain, very hard to seal, and very hard to clean up... the environmentalists have a fit that it isn't cleaned up fast enough.
Let the oil companies drill on land. Open up the oil we have on land where it is safer, cleaner, and can be better monitored. That is much better than trusting some other government to monitor (we will never hear about any spills), or having it in an area that an accident could cause massive damage. Plus we can transport oil by pipeline (burning no fossil fuels). That would be much better than a fleet of oil tankers (we all know how environmentally friendly those things are...)
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
Anyone else saw Frothy Gunk and thought it was a story about a new Ubuntu release?
This was literally a cover up. Dump toxic chemicals on top of the oil slick, so it would sink, thus avoiding the PR disaster that came with a beach landing of oil slicks. So they traded the beach for the sea floor, and most Americans promptly went back to bed, or down to the beach to let their kids swim.
Or better yet, convert the country over to renewable alternative fuels, such as solar, hydro, geothermal, wind, etc. Subsidize electric cars instead of oil companies so that the power is generated at scale in power plants instead of hideously inefficiently inside relatively hideously inefficient internal combustion engines.
You'd kill two birds with one stone. Most of these power generation technologies are much cleaner, so you don't have to worry about things like oil spills. Also, you'd permanently sever our parasitic and detrimental dependence on the Middle East and other oil-producing countries that do not have our best interest in mind. And it's better for us as well--imagine never having to go to a gas station to "fill up" again, and paying less than 25% for the energy equivalency of gasoline.
Let the oil companies drill on land. Open up the oil we have on land where it is safer, cleaner, and can be better monitored
To what purpose? Oil companies are already drilling on land. The untapped sources we have are not going to affect the price of gas at the pump or significantly prolong our ability to rely on oil.
Plus we can transport oil by pipeline (burning no fossil fuels).
That depends entirely on what is powering the pumps. Which in the case of the Alaskan pipeline's 11 pump stations is natural gas or liquid fuel. What, you didn't think the oil just flowed "downhill" all the way from Alaska did you?
The enemies of Democracy are
I guess Cthulu has been beating off?
Where IS Captain Hindsight when we need him?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Why is it that this entire thread has been riddled with "Santorum" comments, yet only a couple people seem to have wanted to start any sort of informed discussion about this issue?
Sure, Americans DID go back to bed after the BP disaster (to quote another /.'er) but this disaster is still the reason I think twice before eating shrimp in the U.S. It's an environmental disaster of epic proportions, and we've just let it ride.... even on Slashdot? I remember reading article after article, the outrage and hope that big oil would finally get it's comeuppance... and now nothing?
Also, if any of you people are paid to troll this thread with nonsense (and I know someone in marketing who says this is more likely than you might think), then shame on you.
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You don't know the first thing about coral biology, do you?
A coral is a colony of many small polyps, sometimes living in symbiosis, or parasitosis with algae (Zooanthelae), which provide an additional energy source for the colony.
If the algae are expelled, the coral loses its color, and is said to be "bleached".
So, in almost half of the corals, a majority of the polyps died, or showed signs of severe stress. In a quarter of the corals, 90% of the polyps died. or showed signs of severe stress.
(Imagine you're a researcher examining the course of a smallpox epidemic several hundred years ago. The death records are grouped by parishes. Since most people did not often travel from village to village, but stuck to their local communities, it makes sense to talk about parishes in which "a majority" of the inhabitants died, and parishes in which "most" of the people died, and so on. In this case, the coral is the village; the polyp is the individual vilager.)
I pity anyone who values filthy lucre over beauty. IMO it's a mental illness.
I don't. People have different preferences and goals in life. I honor peoples' individual choices as long as they don't harm others, even if I think they are bad ones.
And business and cheap energy is not "filthy lucre". I could similarly talk about people who value dirt (which is filthy almost by definition!) over the lives and welfare of their fellow men.
Your point about different preferences for different people is well taken, but "I honor peoples' individual choices as long as they don't harm others" is off-topic. In this case, the choices by the oil industry ARE harming others. A lot of people in fact. Residents of the gulf of Mexico obviously very directly, the rest of the world through global warming, smog, and asthma indirectly (though the oil industry is of course only part of the issue.)
It's shortsighted to think of it as "cheap" energy when the externalized costs are so much higher than the alternatives.