'Not for public': the oil spill may be getting much worse

[Nordic]

Not sure if this has been posted before. If it has, forgive me:

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/132


Wanted: Some Journalists With Guts to Take on the Government and BP!

by:
Dave Lindorff

The Obama administration and BP have clearly been conspiring to hide the magnitude of the Gulf oil catastrophe from the public. One way they're doing this is by threatening jail terms and $40,000 fines against those who go to document the fiasco.

That is ridiculous. There is not a conceivable justification for banning the media from fully covering this environmental disaster.

It's close-up images of the BP fiasco like this that BP and the government don't want you to see

It’s not a safety issue. It's not national security. It’s not even an issue of reporters getting in the way: in many cases journalists have been barred from areas where nobody is doing anything, but dead sea creatures are piling up on the beach.

The answer to this effort to bury the story is for journalists, and especially photo journalists, to go enmasse to the Gulf and violate the ban. Go ahead. Get arrested in the hundreds, or at least dozens. Let's have a collective defense of the First Amendment! I cannot believe that people are letting this pass.

I mean for god's sake, CNN's Anderson Cooper ran a story on the ban. Why isn't he in jail right now, or out on bail, for refusing to accede to it?

If the big media companies and their prettified "talent" won't put their bodies and their financial muscle on the line to break this official wall of silence, then individual journalists need to do it. (Maybe the corporate media airheads will at least cover the spectacle.)

The lethargy and quiescence of mainstream American journalists and their publishers in the face of this government clampdown on access to public land and critically important information regarding the extent of the Gulf oil disaster stands in stark and shameless contrast to Italy, where journalists have gone on strike, closing down most of the country’s newspapers and news bulletins, over government plans to restrict reporting based upon material gained from police wiretaps. In Italy, journalists clearly care about their right to information. In the US, all the mainstream media drones want is a steady stream of press releases and official press briefings, and they’re happy.

For the record, if people will front us the air fare and a few hundred bucks for expenses to cover a couple days in New Orleans, the staff of ThisCantBeHappening! will be down on the beach with cameras and videocams ready to confront the censors. (We trust that there will be attorneys ready to defend us pro bono, and are looking into that now. We also hope there will be dozens of other like-minded journalists willing to stand with us and demand the right to enter disaster areas to report on what we find.) You can send contributions using the Paypal button on the right side of the homepage.

Meanwhile, if you're a journalist and want to join in such an effort to defend the First Amendment, please contact us at dlindorff@yahoo.com

[Simulist]

Methane bubble "doomsday" story debunked

For several days, bloggers and journalists have been passing around a news story about how the BP oil disaster will unleash a "giant methane bubble" and initiate a mass extinction. Yes, it's a myth. And we've busted it.

In this article, called "Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event," a guy named Terrence Aym takes some information he got from a "Mega Disasters" TV special on undersea methane bubbles and mixes it with comments about how there are "giant rifts" beneath the sea and an "information blackout." He proposes that a "twenty mile methane bubble" dislodged by the BP oil disaster will erupt from the ocean floor, causing tidal waves and giant explosions. The sad part about all this is that news organizations and blogs took the story seriously.

While it's true that there are methane bubbles (and methane ice) beneath the ocean floor, they are not about to erupt from Gulf and destroy all life on Earth. This morning I spoke with two Earth scientists, Dave Valentine of UC Santa Barbara and Chris Reddy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who study methane and oil seeps from the sea floor. Valentine has just been out to the Gulf to study the methane levels there, and told io9:

During our recent cruise to the Gulf we observed significantly elevated levels of methane at water depth greater than 2500 feet, in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon spill site. While the total quantity of methane and other hydrocarbons is enough to cause problems with the regional ecosystem, there is no plausible scenario by which this event alone will cause global-scale extinctions.

So yes, there is a methane seep. No, it will not cause tidal waves or explode.

Another fishy fact in the methane bubble doomsday story is Aym's description of how methane bubbles are what caused the End Permian mass extinction event 250 million years ago - a mass extinction that I wrote about recently, here. Many scientists do believe that atmospheric changes and ocean anoxia (de-oxygenization) were to blame for that extinction - but even Gregory Ryskin, the scientist that whose highly speculative work is cited in the article, doesn't try to claim this as the sole cause, nor does he believe that one bubble of methane could bring down the biosphere instantly. The End Permian extinction took millennia to happen.

So the BP oil spill isn't going to end the world - it's just going to kill a lot of ocean life. And already-existing methane seeps may be doing slow, deadly damage to our climate. All this makes it even more obvious that we need to invest in alternate forms of energy. But who wants to hear difficult, complicated pieces of information, when we could just be screaming about doomsday?

If you'd like to learn more about how methane bubbles really work, here are a few scientific articles:

Dissolved methane distributions and air-sea flux in the plume of a massive seep field, Coal Oil Point, California

Enhanced lifetime of methane bubble streams in the deep ocean [PDF]

Fate of rising methane bubbles in stratified waters: How much methane reaches the atmosphere [PDF]

Methane discharge from a deep-sea submarine mud volcano into the upper water column by gas hydrate-coated methane bubbles [PDF]

Or you can indulge in rank speculation:

Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.

I sincerely hope this has been successfully "debunked," since I freely admit that I do not want to believe the story.

[82_28]

I sincerely hope this has been successfully "debunked," since I freely admit that I do not want to believe the story.

I was going to do a write up about this, but simulist, you provided kinda what I was going to say.

Here was my tell: 251(ONE) million years ago. It's a joke.

Here's also the deal. Methane is 250 degrees Fahrenheit COLDER on Titan and forms pools, rivers, lakes and seas there. It would not be 34F at the bottom of the gulf forming any kind of frozen methane crystals either -- do correct me if I am wrong if there is some form of physical law my layman's take doesn't comprehend or is leaving out.

[Laodicean]

New containment cap lowered over crippled Gulf oil well

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- BP says it has placed a new containment cap on its crippled well in the Gulf of Mexico that's been gushing oil since an explosion and fire April 20.

The company hopes the new cap will be able to completely contain the leaking oil, but tests are still needed to determine its effectiveness.

Video supplied by BP showed robotic arms gingerly lowering the new 18-foot, 150,000-pound cap over the well, with little oil appearing to escape.

If the new cap does not completely contain oil from the crippled well, some may have to be brought to the surface to waiting containment ships. But under a worst-case scenario, there could be new damage to blowout preventer.

Cap that shit tight, yo......

[Simulist]

I sincerely hope this has been successfully "debunked," since I freely admit that I do not want to believe the story.

I was going to do a write up about this, but simulist, you provided kinda what I was going to say.

Here was my tell: 251(ONE) million years ago. It's a joke.

Good point. It sort of reminds me of the guy who worked at the dinosaur museum, giving tours. "The bones of this dinosaur are 65 million years and 7 days old," he said confidently.

A woman in the tour group exclaimed, "That is simply amazing! How can you be so accurate with your carbon dating process?"

The tour guide replied, "Well, when I started working here, the bones were 65 million years old — and I've been working here a week now."

[Nordic]

Such is the state of journalism today. I.e. journalism is dead, and nobody knows what to believe, so these kinds of ridiculous stories take hold and people believe them and spread them around.

We need our press back.

[nathan28]

I sincerely hope this has been successfully "debunked," since I freely admit that I do not want to believe the story.

+1, but at this point you could tell me that BP oil execs "were last seen rubbing tarballs over the bodies of prostitutes, muttering something about 'getting that ETA on capping to you tomorrow'"

[Simulist]

Yeah, I agree, Nathan.

Nothing — maybe literally "nothing" — would surprise me anymore.

[82_28]

I sincerely hope this has been successfully "debunked," since I freely admit that I do not want to believe the story.

I was going to do a write up about this, but simulist, you provided kinda what I was going to say.

Here was my tell: 251(ONE) million years ago. It's a joke.

Good point. It sort of reminds me of the guy who worked at the dinosaur museum, giving tours. "The bones of this dinosaur are 65 million years and 7 days old," he said confidently.

A woman in the tour group exclaimed, "That is simply amazing! How can you be so accurate with your carbon dating process?"

The tour guide replied, "Well, when I started working here, the bones were 65 million years old — and I've been working here a week now."

Good point as well. This could be precisely why it has been so important to keep creationism in the limelight, works, on the back burner for so long. It would always be a coup de tat to teach people idiocy over individuality. When left to be free individuals all humans get along.

It's the bullshit that a figure like Norquist would like us to believe -- for example. We're against collectivism and we're for "individualism", except the reverse is actually the truth. They're motherfucking fascists, cowards and liars. Mostly fascist though. Anytime you hear a right wing fuck say that he stands for freedom, think the exact opposite. They are terrified of you seeing through what has taken them years to come to terms with -- namely that his inner fears power his bloodthirstiness and he needs to kill that innocent little boy within him that was once in fact, innocent. Democrats on the other hand, at the local level for sure, are just motherfucking idiots. At the upper levels, Democrats are just republicans. What does the R stand for in "republican"? Democrat.

[82_28]

Have I happened to post any Paris recently? I'm all over this song right now if anyone hasn't noticed.

[mentalgongfu2]

When left to be free individuals all humans get along.

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I don't think that statement is true at all. Free individuals have conflicts with each other, too; perhaps more so than anyone else.

[Hammer of Los]

My dear Nordic;

Such is the state of journalism today. I.e. journalism is dead, and nobody knows what to believe, so these kinds of ridiculous stories take hold and people believe them and spread them around.

We need our press back.

Well quite, ridiculous stories like Osama Bin Laden was responsible for 911, Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, Dr David Kelly committed suicide, the CIA oppose drug dealing, JFK et al were murdered by lone nuts, Al Megrahi was responsible for Lockerbie, the death of Princess Diana was an accident etc etc etc. The list goes on forever.

So much information contradicts so many "sanctioned narratives" that it is clear there is little to no real journalism in the West. It doesn't pay well, hurts your career prospects and is more than a little dangerous to boot. In recent surveys in the UK, it was found that the only profession folk despised more than politicians was journalists. I'm not surprised.

As to the doomsday methane bubble, such stories are always popular.

One day one will be right and that will be the end of us. Until then I remain sceptical, although I am not disputing the horrific ongoing destruction of the earth's ecosystems and human, animal and plant life in the name of industrialised, transnational corporate progress towards ever fatter profits. It can and does look pretty grim.

But access to the internet has given us the facts which demonstrate that many officially sanctioned narratives actually perform the function of covering up the truth. This explains the appeal of "counter-knowledge." Besides which, of course, all orthodoxies have their day and must give way when their time has come.

[tazmic]

Spill costs to cut BP tax bill by $10bn

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/74cbd9c4-8dee ... ftcamp=rss

"Money spent plugging the well, cleaning up the oil, and compensating people who have lost out because of the spill, can be written off against tax, the company believes, reducing the net cost to BP."

"Of its principal expected liabilities, only the fines that might be imposed by the US authorities would definitely not be tax-deductible."

[2012 Countdown]

Looks like the highly contentious 'berm' project is a bust...


OIL-STOPPING ISLAND CRUMBLES INTO THE GULF: BIG PICS


July 13, 2010 -- More photographic evidence surfaced today that an artificial island being built to stop the Gulf oil spill from reaching the Louisiana coast is nearly under water.

Over the weekend, coastal scientist Leonard Bahr published images from an anonymous source within the federal government showing what appeared to be a massive sand berm near the Chandeleur Islands being deeply eroded by wave action even as it was still under construction.

In an email to Discovery News this morning, Bahr passed on a new set of close-up photos of the construction site (above, and below). Taken on July 8, the images show sharp-edged sand cliffs running right down to water's edge, a clear indication that wave action from the gulf is eroding the man-made dunes. Even more striking, several pieces of earth-moving equipment and fuel tanks appear to be sinking into the waves.

Bahr, a staunch opponent of the berm project, has called it "a fool's errand." Not only will these short-lived sand piles not stop the oil, he argues, they are siphoning money and sand from parts of the Louisiana coast that desperately need restoration.




http://news.discovery.com/earth/berms-e ... gn=rssnws1

====

GULF'S ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS ALREADY FAILING

A dramatic series of of aerial images show that plans to build artificial islands to block oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill from reaching Louisiana's sensitive marshland appear to be crumbling. Literally.

Two months ago, against the advice of many coastal scientists, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal began furiously campaigning for the construction of six artificial islands to hold back the advancing oil. The federal government quickly granted Jindal his wish, and construction on the islands has been continuing apace.

But images taken of one construction site near the northern edge of the Chandeleur islands appear to show the sea washing away a giant sand berm over the course of about two weeks.

The first image, at top, was taken on June 25. The second and third, below, were taken from roughly the same vantage point on July 2 and 7. All three images were first published yesterday by coastal scientist Leonard Bahr on his blog, LACoastPost.

Bahr, a former researcher at Louisiana State University, spent 18 years in the governor's office, advising five administrations on their coastal policy.

"There have been a number of plans over 20 years to save the coast," he said. "But after Katrina, it morphed into 'coastal protection,' which gives me pause."

The crucial difference is that within the Jindal administration, coastal policy has been cast as a war between man and the sea. Plans have been devised to build massive levees and other earthworks to defend the Mississippi River delta and its marshes from the Gulf of Mexico.



http://news.discovery.com/earth/gulfs-a ... iling.html

[82_28]

More photographic evidence surfaced today that an artificial island being built to stop the Gulf oil spill from reaching the Louisiana coast is nearly under water.

Well, duh. Who in their right mind even thought that would even work? Perhaps landlocked peeps who don't routinely observe the ocean and all of its awesome power and vastness? That's gotta be it. I laughed when I first heard they were going to attempt this sand berms. Imfuckingpossible! The ocean will sweep that shit away in no time flat, let alone an ocean with a hurricane over it.

Somebody got a good contract out of it though. Love to read the fine print of that one. Nobody in their right mind thought that shit would work. A vast seawall would have, but of course those take years and years to plan and build and of course on this scale, probably humanly impossible.

Stick a fork in it.