Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill in living color



Thanks to NASA's excellent satellite program, this is why we as a nation do not need anymore offshore oil drilling. NOAA now estimates that 5000 barrels of oil have leaked each day since Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank. That's 210,000 gallons of oil per day leaking from the broken, submerged remains of the rig. Threatening our nation's most productive shrimp fishery. Potentially about to foul some of the most ecologically productive coastal wetland in the U.S. Within a reasonable boat ride of New Orleans.

When is enough enough? How much longer will my home state of Louisiana have to suffer the ravages of our oil addiction (which is also a major contributor to coastal wetlands loss there)? Do we really want to "Drill Baby Drill" anymore?

2 comments:

Tom said...

This was the last nail in the coffin for me. If we cannot put in effect FAIL-SAFES to prevent these sorts of accidents, we don't need to be doing it.

Philip H. said...

Thomas,
Like so many other things, the failsafes in the oil industry are there for a disaster that no one in the industry ever expects to happen. So while they may test well, an dthey may meet the latest standards, no one ever expects to use them, thus no one is really willing to invest in them. Our culture is a WE Don't Fail culture, and so when we do, there's a lot of head shaking and hand wringing, but not much real change. Same thing happened vis the levees and Katrina - if you are from Louisiana as I am, thse were events always discussed as "when" not if.