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The answer is not from oil and coal – Gulf spill disaster
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by YankeeJim | April 30, 2010 at 03:38 am
183 views | 4 Recommendations | 2 comments
It is springtime when birds are nesting and the young brood is learning to feed and to survive in the delicate Gulf shoreline. I once lived on a Gulf of Mexico island and watched the birds and fish perform their daily routines throughout the seasons of the year. The smallest creatures feed upon the smallest organism and the larger upon them up the food chain.
Suddenly, one day, a new substance appears. It is a thick black stuff that extinguishes the small creatures immediately. It surges toward the shoreline, unstoppable. Unwitting birds are in its path and the oil covers them, making them unable to fly and unable to rid their feathers of the chemical that will doom them.
Fishes too will succumb to the surprise invasion of the oil pollutant. Everything is spoiled, the least of which are the clean sandy beaches that will absorb the oil and carry with it a petroleum smell that will last for years.
Everything in its path is spoiled by the 5,000 barrels a day leak spewing from a hole drilled by humans to fuel their appetite for the stuff. Hundreds of miles of coastline are contaminated because we are too slow and ignorant to invest in solutions that are readily available.
Where is the will? Is our plate too full to deal with this problem also?
Last week it was the miners and coal dust; this week its the oil and a slick in the gulf. Can we not save ourselves and the environment with an intelligent alternative?
“Birds under threat as oil hits La. shore
Spill may prompt rethink of Obama’s coastal drilling plansMOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER - Migrating birds, others nesting on the shoreline, such as pelicans, and even river otters and mink living on Louisiana's fragile islands and barrier marshes are among the animals which will be hit first by a massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill that has started to ooze ashore.
The leak from a blown-out well a mile underwater is five times bigger than first believed. Faint fingers of oily sheen were reaching the Mississippi River delta late Thursday, lapping the Louisiana shoreline in long, thin lines. Thicker oil was about five miles offshore. Officials have said they would do everything to keep the Mississippi River open to traffic.
The oil slick could become the nation's worst environmental disaster in decades, threatening to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez in scope. It imperils hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life.”
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YankeeJim
Arlington, Virginia, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 11:23 on April 30th, 2010
How do we get people to translate this disaster into personal action, though? Those of us already caring know that our personal action is to choose energy conservation, alternative fuels, and human powered transport whenever we can. However, most people will rather try and find a technological way to contain the oil in future rather than give up the profits and comforts that our current system offers!
Some of us will go there to the Gulf and start washing birds. Some will write letters to representatives and many of those will sound like lunatics. Most of us, however, can at best pick up the bicycle instead of the car keys. We can choose the smart car or hybrid over the SUV. And yes, we can further embrace technology that lets us work from home, get our information digitally instead of on paper with ink, and wear out our clothes more slowly, and all the other imaginative ways we should be minimizing our personal footprint.
at 15:12 on April 30th, 2010
Which ever party wants a cause can find one here. The answer is emergency action and investment to accelerate alternative energy. Check out Bloom Energy. See what you think.