[NatureNS] Gulf Oil Spill: the lesson's to be learned

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Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 22:36:22 -0700
From: Matthew Baker <mattbaker@gmail.com>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Cc: Christopher Majka <c.majka@ns.sympatico.ca>
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NUKE THE GULF!!!!




On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Brian Dalzell <aythya@nb.sympatico.ca>wrote:

> Once in the Gulf Stream, the oil will be off the coast of NS in less than a
> month.   If ever there was a time to use a small-yield nuclear device (as a
> tool, to cauterize the wound) this would seem to be it.  Of course there
> would be lingering radiation, but that has to weighed against the total
> death of the Gulf of Mexico, and perhaps the world's oceans (which are of
> course, all totally connected).  There is plenty of blame to go around here,
> not just BP, but all of humanity, to some degree.
>
> =====================================
>
> ---- Christopher Majka <c.majka@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> > Hi Suzanne,
> >
> > I believe that the evidence here points in another direction, and
> > hence the lesson to be taken is rather different.
> >
> > The Situation
> >
> > I think its pretty clear that despite their enormous resources, BP and
> > the US government are simply unable to stop this oil leak. Even if the
> > newest plans of clogging the leak with mud and concrete succeed (the
> > "top-kill" strategy, or the so called "junk short" or the so-called
> > "top-hat"), there have already been five weeks of uninterrupted,
> > spewing oil, phenomenally damaging and expensive already, to say
> > nothing of the astronomical costs of years of restoration and
> > remediation, to say nothing of the law suits, compensation to
> > fisherman, and the enormously tarnished corporate image of BP, and oil
> > drilling and exploration in general.
> >
> > The truth is we (meaning all of humanity), despite all our
> > technological prowess, are really not that clever or that capable when
> > it comes to dealing with such disasters. All the king's horses and all
> > the king's men have thus far not been able to put Humpty Dumpty back
> > together again.
> >
> > The Lesson
> >
> > The lesson here is that these mega-energy projects are phenomenally
> > dangerous. Events like the Exxon Valdez spill, or Three Mile Island,
> > or the Chernobyl nuclear meltodown, or the Gulf Oil disaster may
> > happen quite infrequently but when they do (and they inevitably will,
> > since even our best safety measures and failsafe mechanisms will
> > sometimes fail, as they did this time when the well-head cutoff
> > mechanisms refused to function) the consequences are catastrophic.
> >
> > We need to wean ourselves off both fossil-fuels and energy mega-
> > projects (for this reason and many others) and seriously commit to
> > renewal, decentralized measures and projects that allow us to live a
> > much more sustainable existence. There simply isn't always a "techno-
> > fix" available and if we rely on the promises of gigantic
> > multinational energy consortiums (who have a vested interest in such
> > projects) that they have "fail-safe" ways of dealing with any problem,
> > the biosphere is going to be traumatized again and again, and its
> > increasingly not in great shape to absorb such environmental "shock
> > therapy."
> >
> > Marching to Washington, or throwing the US military into the melee,
> > isn't going to fix it. We need to deal with nature and our planet with
> > respect and humility, because careless humanity really has the
> > capacity to cause a serious breakdown, and like the sorcerer's
> > apprentice, we may not be able to fix the mess we've made.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > On 25-May-10, at 3:31 PM, Suzanne Townsend wrote:
> >
> > > Could be my usual shoot-from-the-hip approach however I think that
> > > siphon thing was working quite a bit, and they could continue to do
> > > that and improve it and employ many more of the same thing.
> > >
> > > If the 2 governments, US & UK, treated this like they did WW II and
> > > the bomb, they could fix it in short order. I don't think anything
> > > short of declaring war will work -- war on the oil at its source
> > > (the broken seam/well) and wherever it went (surely they can figure
> > > a way to siphon off 5-mile-by-8-mile-by-300'-thick submerged islands
> > > of oil, surely they can deploy troops to those currently empty-of-
> > > helping-hands beaches being destroyed, etc). How else to cut through
> > > the politics, lawyers, and red tape? Oh the lawyers, imagine, nobody
> > > can do a thing without five signed forms. All these ideas and
> > > technology already developed and ready to go (or already there) but
> > > no permission to use them.
> > >
> > > Time for BP to lose the rays of its flag like Japan after WW II,
> > > have its assets seized by the UK/US.... time to fight (a good way)
> > > for so many lives...
> > >
> > > I'm ready to march on Washington, Ottawa, wherever, or, better yet,
> > > sponsor people who already live in those places and who would not go
> > > otherwise to represent me in my stead (so I don't have to use more
> > > oil/gas to get there myself).
> > >
> > > Totally all my own unscientific opinion... for whatever it's worth :!
> > > --Suzanne
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 2:56 PM, David & Alison Webster <
> dwebster@glinx.com
> > > > wrote:
> > > Hi Suzanne & All,                May 25, 2010
> > >     Working at 1.5 km with complications of murky water and methane
> > > ice don't make it easy but I get the impression that the engineers
> > > involved either lack both imagination and know-how or they have been
> > > told (quietly) to not try too hard; from a BP standpoint,
> > > compensation to the few who get past the lawyers may cost less than
> > > containment.
> > >
> > >     This may be incorrect, but dispersing the oil with wetting
> > > agents would (to me) logically increase toxicity by increasing the
> > > water/oil contact surface. So I wonder. Does use of dispersants mean
> > > that toxicity is not increased or does it mean that the problem (as
> > > viewed superficially) seems to be lessened ?
> > >
> > >     This event