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Panel Says U.S. Not Ready For Inevitable Arctic Oil Spill
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "As eagerness to explore the Arctic's oil and gas resources grows, the threat of a major Arctic oil spill looms ever larger—and the United States has a lot of work to do to prepare for that inevitability, a panel convened by the National Research Council (NRC) declares in a report released yesterday. The committee, made up of members of academia and industry, recommended beefing up forecasting systems for ocean and ice conditions, infrastructure for supply chains for people and equipment to respond, field research on the behavior of oil in the Arctic environment, and other strategies to prepare for a significant spill in the harsh conditions of the Arctic."
Shortest version: no one has any idea how any spill cleanup techniques would work in the arctic environment.
It's not an 'oil spill' it's 'petrochemical philanthropy'. In fact, BP should be allowed to write off the value of the crude they selflessly gave to gulf coast residents just as they would any other charitable donation.
The US may not be prepared, but they can take a note from Australia's efforts when they needed to clean oil spills off penguins.
Retired Mobil Oil exec Louis Allstadt recently said that fracking can't be done safely with current technology. "Making fracking safe is simply not possible, not with the current technology, or with the inadequate regulations being proposed," said Allstadt, retired executive vice president of Mobil. http://www.timesunion.com/busi... This is similar to the situation with arctic drilling, but for somewhat different reasons. To do it right would require too much equipment and too many safety procedures to be cost effective. They would need to do the work quick and dirty to make a good profit. That is precisely what is happening with fracking, where gas companies have been exempted from the clean water act and other environmental protections. If they were required to comply, they couldn't afford to extract the gas. That explains the rush to frack, before the sweetheart deal is over.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Am I correct in assuming that you do not believe that YOU are part of the 5-6 billion that should be eliminated?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Subject is appropriate. We're talking here about proposals to drill for oil in Alaska.
But yes Russia and Canada would also face similar problems with disasters in the arctic.
By pouring it into the sea, they have prevented it from being burned and poured into the sky as CO2.
Instead it's eaten by bacteria and such and released into the environment as CO2, without even the benefits of us burning it.
I don't read AC A human right
Now, you extrapolate taking into consideration a more remote area with even worse access conditions, and the colder temperatures.
An extreme environmental disaster will be the result.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Nobody has to cull anybody.
It turns out that education and economic development leads rapidly to a decline in the birthrate. This has happened everywhere, pretty nearly universally, with exceptions among certain insular religious sects that value both a very high birthrate and literacy like Mormons and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Canadian here. Keep your donation.
Unpleasantly enough, gathering crude oil from floating slicks and contaminated beaches might actually be less destructive than extracting it from tar sands... Luckily, with the Harper Regime's war on science going better than most wars on abstract concepts, we should be spared the knowledge of whether or not that's true.
There are methods for population control that exist beyond genocide. Just choose to not have kids. Of course people then whinge about freedoms and such so that idea isn't palatable as a law, but it DOES exist beyond "One Child" Policy...just give incentives. A tube-tied/snipped bonus, either gender, that pays out either lump or over time, whatever. Void by preexisting children. NOT void by adopting (get both? baby bonus and not having kid bonus?).
Won't help in third world/uneducated/religious moron areas, but you can solve that part by 1-educating/helping them, and 2-containing them until they solve themselves out (like rabbits do).
figure out a way to make it socially acceptable for women to attend school and work outside of the home -- 99% of the problem solved right there. :(
Another Alaskan here (from SE) - just wanted to point out that the most popular bumper sticker in the state is a small black square that says "Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill". In those four words are the summation of the pretty much the entire of Alaska's ethos.....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!