Putting a face on the oil "spill"

Lex · Post by **Lex** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:19 pm

Warning: Graphic, sickening images

First the wildlife. The toll on the human residents yet to be understood.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/0 ... e_oil.html

I made a donation a couple of weeks ago. I think it's time I made another. Here's a list of organizations and agencies that are involved:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/04/bp ... math-help/

P-600 · Post by **P-600** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:10 pm

This picture was on a Facebook group that I joined: Stuff the BP execs in the hole (or something like that) This group has really good links and updated on a regular basis..so freaking sad

loria · Post by **loria** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:26 pm

This (not the post , but the event) has just put me straight over the edge--This spill will be an issue for decades--and very possibly more. a pox on the admin that led to these rules and I WILL also hold the current admin to task for not recognizing and dealing with the issues that allowed this to happen (though i will admit that trying to untangle all of that has to be hard)
BP KNEW about problems in MARCH--think you are safe in New england? Guess again........this had SCREWED the eastern seaboard and probably much more than that.--if we have a bad hurricane season (which has been forecast) then that area is triply screwed--this ...after Katrina? My heart is breaking.

nothintolose · Post by **nothintolose** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:29 pm

Lex - thanks for the link - so sad! It's so upsetting to think about all of the animals.

I saw a guy on the news with a reporter in his boat saying he was out in the water and the fish were bumping into his boat, and he could see them gasping for air.

I don't know about around the country, but it's on the news 24/7 here, and it's so distressing.

Wakey · Post by **Wakey** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:46 pm

Someone told me 11 humans died.

The photog purposely got close enough to rattle the bird to get the distress shots. Nice job!

loria · Post by **loria** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:23 am

Wakey wrote:Someone told me 11 humans died.

The photog purposely got close enough to rattle the bird to get the distress shots. Nice job!

yes, 11 people died and countless others have lost their livelihoods and thousands of animals have been impacted (and the cleaning job for the birds puts even more stress on them--and many don't survive that) and whole coastal marine estuaries (which are basically nurseries) are probably wiped out for who knows how long? and many cleanup workers are probably going to get sick (many are complaining of illness now) --and who knows what kind of consequences that will have because it sounds like no one is listening to them-
so While i feel horrible for that bird in the picture, it puts another face on the disaster which is abstract to most of the country. I hope it was taken to be cleaned and survived the process, because it most certainly would have died. Picture or not.

greyhoundmom · Post by **greyhoundmom** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 10:17 am

Family in Panama City are waiting for the worst. The service industry there will be completely out of business. So many jobs lost for those who work minimum wage. BP sucks......

alw1977 · Post by **alw1977** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 2:01 pm

This is quite close to my little corner of the country, and I have many friends and family that live near affected areas. I am sickened.

It's easy to blame BP, and while they certainly have a large part in this they are not alone. Transocean, our good 'ol government (including past administrations of both parties) and every single company doing deep water drilling in the gulf is at fault. In Norway and Canada, regulations require at least two relief wells. We didn't require that, and here we are today. Big Oil was in the pocket of our government, and now we all pay.

BP got unlucky, but it could have been any of the companies drilling in the area. There were ways to prevent this, but it was expensive to drill relief wells. So they rolled the dice instead. And we all lose. BP? It's but a drop in their financial bucket.

soxfan22 · Post by **soxfan22** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 10:33 pm

Lex wrote:Warning: Graphic, sickening images

First the wildlife. The toll on the human residents yet to be understood.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/0 ... e_oil.html

I made a donation a couple of weeks ago. I think it's time I made another. Here's a list of organizations and agencies that are involved:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/04/bp ... math-help/

Lex, thanks for posting this. Probably hard to believe, but even for a "right winger" like myself, the images are heartbreaking.

We were watching FOX the other night, and they were showing the first imaged of animals. There was a pelican just standing in the oil, covered, eyes slowly blinking...And my 4 1/2 yr old son Jack asked me what happened to him, and why doesn't he move?

Heartbreaking. Tough to explain to a child, but as usual with me, I pulled no punches with the little man. It is what it is, and it needs to be fixed...soon.

soxfan22 · Post by **soxfan22** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 10:47 pm

I will add though that all is not lost. The 1979 IXTOX oil "spill" went on for a year, spilling 140 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. If you read the story below, you'll see that 170 miles of US coastline was coated with oil back in 79. The predictions were that the ecosystem would never recover. However, it only took a few years before there was no longer even a trace of oil in the marshes, etc from that spill. I watched some show on Discovery about this spill the other night. Scientists hypothesize that either the oil was diluted from the pounding surf, or microorganisms devoured the oil over time.

The Earth has a way of healing itself.

http://www.newser.com/article/d9g4i3ng0 ... rizon.html

nothintolose · Post by **nothintolose** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 12:02 am

I hope you're right soxfan, and I pray that the hurricanes stay away from the entire Gulf Coast this summer so that we can focus on cleaning up the oil.

One other comment...to us, we get frustrated with the whole blame game crap. Who cares?!?!?! Quit wasting time and clean up the oil. It was the same with Katrina, what ended up happening was locals and church groups and volunteers from all over the country rebuilt our cities because everyone else was too busy pointing fingers and making promises. Let's hope they learned something.

sailorgirl · Post by **sailorgirl** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:37 am

nothintolose wrote:Quit wasting time and clean up the oil.

Here Here!

cptnkirk · Post by **cptnkirk** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 11:32 am

While this tradegy sucks anyone who thinks it's just a BP thing is sadly mistaken. Could of happened to any of the big oil companies out there. I'm allready sick of hearing boycott BP. As long as we keep using fossil fuels this stuff will happen no matter how carefully things are thought out. I just hope I see the day when we all rely on clean alternative energy, until then we will see more tradgedies like this one.
We as humans can sure foul up the planet and have to deal with the consequences but mother earth has been around for Billions of years, she's seen way worse. Not trying trivialize this event, it is bad and getting worse and it certainly sucks big time especially for those animals and the people whose livelyhoods will be ruined.

soxfan22 · Post by **soxfan22** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 12:56 pm

cptnkirk wrote:While this tradegy sucks anyone who thinks it's just a BP thing is sadly mistaken. Could of happened to any of the big oil companies out there. I'm allready sick of hearing boycott BP. As long as we keep using fossil fuels this stuff will happen no matter how carefully things are thought out. I just hope I see the day when we all rely on clean alternative energy, until then we will see more tradgedies like this one.
We as humans can sure foul up the planet and have to deal with the consequences but mother earth has been around for Billions of years, she's seen way worse. Not trying trivialize this event, it is bad and getting worse and it certainly sucks big time especially for those animals and the people whose livelyhoods will be ruined.

Right on point, Cptn!

Nuc-u-lur...Nuc-u-lur...Nuc-u-lur...

I'll say it again (because I know how much my fans here love when I post)...France gets 75% of their power from Nukes...France is the darling of the left...Why is Nuclear not good enough for us? We haven't built a new plant in 30 some years!

augie · Post by **augie** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 7:25 pm

soxfan22 wrote:Why is Nuclear not good enough for us?

It sounds scary (they make bombs out of that stuff!)

Three Mile Island. The technology has likely improved to the point where it is orders of magnitude safer (I admit that I don't know this for a fact, but it seems quite plausible seeing similar advances in related technologies). The kicker here may be that, in light of the "spill" in the Gulf, can we trust the government/industrial partners to do the "expensive" steps needed to maximize safety?

And probably the biggest reason - NIMBY

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