Gulf Oil Spill: After The Panic Nature Sorted It Out
THE Gulf Oil Spill was the top trending term on Twitter for 2010. Barring the unmasking of Julian Assange as an alien in the employ of Queen Elizabeth, aka Grassy Knoll and Princess Diana, the poll league table is unlikely to be altered. So, what of the Gulf Oil spill? What happened next? Before we go on, a word from 2000, when we were told that oil is a natural essence that has been leaking into the Gulf long before photoshopping BP drilled, Tony Hayward went sailing and we chanted:
The ooze is a natural phenomena that’s been going on for many thousands of years, according to Roger Mitchell, Vice President of Program Development at the Earth Satellite Corporation (EarthSat) in Rockville Md. “The wildlife have adapted and evolved and have no problem dealing with the oil,” he said.
Still, he called it “A tragedy beyond comprehension“. And maybe man shold have just left the oil alone:
The damage has been done — and thanks to the experimental chemical dispersants, we will spend years trying to figure out exactly what that damage is, as well as its true extent — and there is still mighty cleanup effort required for the crude as well.
The doom mongers got their dead whale. Obama milked it.
Now we learn:
The ecosystem of the Gulf itself turns out to have suffered remarkably little damage from the continuous gushing of oil into the water from April 20 till July 15, when the leaking well was capped. One group of scientists rated the health of the Gulf’s ecology at 71 on a scale of 100 before the spill and 65 in October. By mid-August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was having trouble finding spilled oil …
NOAA explained one reason for this in a report in August: “It is well known that bacteria that break down the dispersed and weathered surface oil are abundant in the Gulf of Mexico in large part because of the warm water, the favorable nutrient and oxygen levels, and the fact that oil regularly enters the Gulf of Mexico through natural seeps.” In other words, the organisms that normally live off the Gulf’s large natural seepage of oil into the water multiplied extremely rapidly and went on a feeding frenzy. Another 25 percent of the spilled oil—the lightest and most toxic part—simply evaporated at the surface or dissolved quickly.
Damage to wildlife, too, was relatively sparse.
Drill, baby. Drill…
Posted: 20th, December 2010 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
