Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster

[Jan Klimkowski]

:call:

BP oil spill: scientists find giant plume of droplets 'missed' by official account

A 22-mile plume of droplets from BP's Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico undermines claim that oil has degraded

White House claim that spilled oil has vanished is disputed

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 19 August 2010 19.00 BST

Scientists have mapped a 22-mile plume of oil droplets from BP's rogue well in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, providing the strongest evidence yet of the fate of the crude that spewed into the sea for months.

The report offers the most authoritative challenge to date to White House assertions that most of the 5m barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf is gone.

"These results indicate that efforts to book-keep where the oil went must now include this plume," said Christopher Reddy one of the members of the team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

The report, which is published in the journal Science, also said the plume was very slow to break down by natural forces, increasing the likelihood that oil could have travelled long distances in the Gulf before it was degraded.

"Many people speculated that subsurface oil droplets were being easily degraded," said Richard Camilli, the lead author of the paper. "Well we didn't find that. We found it was still there."

At the heart of the debate is the rate at which naturally occurring microbes have consumed the oil from the runaway well. Even by the White House estimates, about one quarter of the oil was siphoned away from the well, skimmed off the surface, or burned. But the White House, in a high-profile briefing, earlier this month suggested that microbes had eaten as much as 50% of the remaining oil.

The study reinforces earlier reports from research voyages led by scientists from the University of Georgia and Texas A&M University who detected the presence of deepwater plumes of oil.

But the authors argued that theirs was more authoritative as it is the first to be published in a major peer-reviewed journal since oil began pumping into the ocean from the broken well four months ago. The authors also noted their access to superior technology including one of the few underwater robots available outside the oil industry.

According to their findings the deepwater plume measures 22 miles long, 1.2 miles wide and 650 feet high.

The team took around 57,000 samples from the plume during a 10-day research voyage at the end of June. It found that the plume was not made up of pure oil but a combination of toxic oil compounds including benzene and xylene.

The study puts the White House and government scientific agencies in an increasingly awkward position after a high-profile announcement two weeks ago that the oil was broken down or had been cleaned up.

A team led by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that just over a quarter of the 49m barrels of oil remained in the Gulf as a light sheen on the surface or degraded tar balls washing ashore.

It also raises new questions about the strategic decision taken by the Obama administration to use nearly 2m gallons of chemical dispersant Corexit to break up the oil, including some on the ocean floor 5,000 feet below the surface.

The administration faces further pushback today in a congressional hearing on the fate of the oil and the safety of seafood from the Gulf.

Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, said the White House accounting for the oil is misleading and that only 10% of the oil that spewed into the Gulf has been removed from the ocean. Jane Lubchenco, the NOAA chief and herself a marine scientist, has stood by the government estimates.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20...ists-plume

[Peter Lemkin]

BP's "Cloak of Silence": Geology is "Fractured", Relief Wells May Fail :bebored::listen:

by Washington's Blog

Global Research, August 21, 2010
Washington's Blog - 2010-08-20

Few people in the world know more about oil drilling disasters than Dr. Robert Bea.

Bea teaches engineering at the University of California Berkeley, and has 55 years of experience in engineering and management of design, construction, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of engineered systems including offshore platforms, pipelines and floating facilities. Bea has worked for many years in governmental and quasi-governmental roles, and has been a high-level governmental adviser concerning disasters. He worked for 16 years as a top mechanical engineer and manager for Shell Oil, and has worked with Bechtel and the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the world's top experts in offshore drilling problems, Bea is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, and has been interviewed by news media around the world concerning the BP oil disaster.
Washington's Blog spoke with Dr. Bea yesterday.

WB: Is BP sharing information with the government?

Bea: No. BP is using a "cloak of silence". BP is not voluntarily sharing information or documents with the government.

In May, for example, Senator Boxer subpoenaed information from BP regarding footage of the seafloor taken before the blowout by BP's remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). We still have not received a response 12 weeks later.

[Bea subsequently clarified that he's not sure whether BP has failed to release the information, or Senator Boxer's committee has sat on the information. My bet is on BP. Indeed, BP has refused to answer some very basic written questions from Congressman Markey, chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. See this and this. Indeed, it is unclear whether BP is sharing vital details even with Thad Allen, Secretary of energy Chu, or the Unified Command].

WB: Might there be problems with the relief wells? I know that it took a couple of relief wells to finally stop the Ixtoc leak, and it has taken as many as 5 relief wells to stop some blowouts.

Bea: Yes, it could take repeated attempts.

WB: Are there any conditions at BP's well which might make killing the leak with relief wells more difficult than with the average deepwater oil spill?

Bea: That's an interesting question. You have to ask why did this location blow out when nearby wells drilled in even deeper water didn't blow out.

You have to look at the geology of the Macondo well. It is in a subsalt location, in a Sigsbee salt formation. [For background, see this and this]

The geology is fractured.

Usually, the deeper you drill, the more pressure it takes to fracture rock. This is called the "fracture gradient".

But when BP was drilling this well, the fracture gradient reversed. Indeed, BP lost all pressure as it drilled into the formation.

WB: Is it possible that this fractured, subsea salt geology will make it difficult to permanently kill the oil leak using relief wells?

Bea: Yes, it could. The Santa Barbara channel seeps are still leaking, decades after the oil well was supposedly capped. This well could keep leaking for years.

Scripps mapped out seafloor seeps in the area of the well prior to the blowout. Some of the natural seeps penetrate 10,000 to 15,000 feet beneath the seafloor. The oil will follow lines of weakness in the geology. The leak can travel several horizontal miles from the location of the leak.

[In other words, the geology beneath the seafloor is so fractured, with soft and unstable salt formations, that we may never be able to fully kill the well even with relief wells. Instead, the loss of containment of the oil reservoir caused by the drilling accident could cause oil to leak out through seeps for years to come. See this and this for further background].

WB: I know that you've previously said that you're concerned that there might be damage to the well bore, which could make it more difficult for the relief wells to succeed.

Bea: Yes, that's still a concern.

WB: I have heard that BP is underestimating the size of the oil reservoir (and see this). Is it possible that the reservoir is bigger than BP is estimating, and so - if not completely killed - the leak could therefore go on for longer than most assume?

Bea: That's plausible.

WB: The chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon said that the Macondo well was originally drilled in another location, but that "going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools", and that BP abandoned that well. You've spoken to that technician and looked into the incident, and concluded that “they damn near blew up the rig.” [See this and this].

Do you know where that abandoned well location is, and do you know if that well is still leaking?

Bea: The abandoned well is very close to the current well location. BP had to file reports showing the location of the abandoned well and the new well [with the Minerals Management Service], so the location of the abandoned well is known.

We don't know if the abandoned well is leaking.

WB: Matthew Simmons talked about a second leaking well. There are rumors on the Internet that the original well is still leaking. Do you have any information that can either disprove or confirm that allegation?

Bea: There are two uncorroborated reports. One is that there is a leak 400 feet West of the present well's surface location. There is another report that there is a leak several miles to the West.

[Bea does not know whether either report is true at this time, because BP is not sharing information with the government, let alone the public.]

WB: There are rumors on the Internet of huge pockets of methane gas under the well which could explode. I've looked into this rumor, and have come to the conclusion that - while the leak is releasing tremendous amounts of methane - there are no "pockets" of methane gas which could cause explosions. Do you have any information on this?

Bea: I have looked into this and discussed methane with people who know a tremendous amount about it. There is alot of liquid and solid methane at the Macondo site, but no pockets of methane gas.

WB: That's good news, indeed.

Bea: But there was one deepwater leak I worked with where tremendous amounts of hydrogen sulfite were released. We had to evacuate two towns because of the risk. [I didn't ask Dr. Bea if there were any dangerous compounds which could be formed from the interaction of the crude oil and methane with chemicals in the ocean water or dispersants].

And with the Bay Charman oil leak, more than 50% of the oil stayed below the surface of the ocean. [As I've previously pointed out, the US Minerals Management Service and a consortium of oil companies, including BP, found that as little as 2% of the oil which spill from deepwater wells ever makes it to the surface of the ocean. And the use of dispersant might decrease that number still further].

WB: I have previously argued that nuking the well would be a bad idea. What do you think?

Bea: [Bea agreed that nuking the well would be counter-productive. He told me a story about a leaking deepwater well that he was involved in killing. A nuclear package was on its way to the well site but - fortunately - the well stopped by itself before a nuke was deployed. I'm not sure whether this is classified information, so I won't disclose the name of the well. Bea also discussed alternatives in the form of high-pressure, high-temperature conventional explosives, echoing what Bill Clinton said recently].

WB: Thank you for your generous time and for sharing your expertise with us, Dr. Bea.

Bea: You're welcome.

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the Gulf of Mexico. New evidence has badly shaken the Obama administration’s rosy narrative about the alleged disappearance of most of the oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s blown-out well. Early this month a report by government scientists declared three-quarters of the oil had vanished, either collected or dispersed. But numerous reports contradict the administration’s sanguine picture of the cleanup effort.

Researchers at the University of Georgia said about three-quarters of the oil is still lurking below the surface of the Gulf and may pose a threat to the ecosystem. Separately, a study released last week by the University of South Florida scientists found oil in sediments of an underwater canyon and evidence that the oil has become toxic to critical marine organisms. On Thursday, a team of researchers confirmed the existence of a vast underwater oil plume stretching twenty-one miles from BP’s blown-out well. Christopher Reddy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said the amount of oil in the plume is unknown.

Speaking before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Thursday, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration senior scientist Bill Lehr acknowledged that only ten percent of the oil has been cleaned up and that large quantities, evaporated or dispersed, remain in the Gulf ecosystem. The subcommittee chair, Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts, closed the hearing criticizing the administration’s so-called "premature celebration" and urged further vigilance.

REP. EDWARD MARKEY: BP, in my opinion, will try to walk away as fast as they can. BP lowballed the size of the spill in the first week, saying it was 1,000 barrels. Then they said it was 5,000 barrels. They knew in the first week that it was a huge spill. It turns out to be between 53,000 and 63,000 barrels per day. That is not 1,000 barrels. That changed the level of response in those first weeks, in those first months, because of the misleading information. People were less vigilant than they would have been. The response was less intense than it would have been if we understood the magnitude.


AMY GOODMAN: And this is Christopher Reddy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution about the amount of oil in the plume.

CHRISTOPHER REDDY: All I can tell you is that we found a plume. And I can’t tell you how much oil is in it, because we don’t have the values yet. We know there is a plume. We know its length. We know its shape. We know that we collected water samples in it. And when we have analyzed those samples, we’ll be able to constrain how much—what the inventory of those compounds were in there.


AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer and expert on measuring oil spills, from Florida State University. He also testified at Thursday’s hearing and said the actual amount of oil removed from the Gulf is around ten percent and predicts the spill will likely remain harmful for decades.

Ian MacDonald, welcome to Democracy Now!

IAN MacDONALD: Hello.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what you have found? Talk about what the government says, and talk about what all these different studies, including yours, are saying now about the amount of oil in the Gulf.

IAN MacDONALD: Well, what’s happening now, we can confirm that the oil that had been visible, that had been so troubling to us and to the ecosystem, as floating layers on the surface of the ocean, has largely disappeared from view. But that does not mean that it’s gone from the ecosystem or gone from our problems. Much of that oil has either sunk to the bottom and has become shallowly buried in marine sediments or in coastal soils, where it will pose, as I said, a threat to the ecosystem for years to come, or potentially it remains in dissolved layers both at the surface and in the deepwater layers that Reddy and Camille Li and his other colleagues at Woods Hole referred to. And as you said at the opening, this scenario of where the oil is and the concerns that it raises about the future of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem contradict the way in which this government report of August 4th was rolled out by Jane Lubchenco and by Carol Browner.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about how this study by NOAA was done by the National Oceanographic institute.

IAN MacDONALD: Well, the hearing on Thursday before Representative Markey’s subcommittee was pretty remarkable. The questioning went on for over an hour and a half. And during the course of the questioning of the three government witnesses that were there—Bill Lehr of NOAA, Paul Anastas of Food and Drug—of EPA, and Don Kraemer of the Food and Drug Administration—Markey focused on Lehr and made Lehr roll back the statement that three-quarters of the oil was gone. And he was obliged to admit that, in fact, probably 80 percent of the oil is still in the ecosystem.

It seemed clear from Lehr’s testimony that what happened was that he and other scientists at NOAA compiled a report, which they intended as an internal document for the responders so that they could understand the different categories of oil, what had happened to these oil—this budget, as it were, to guide some of the response efforts, and at some point, this report, intended as a private document, became a very public document and was presented by Lubchenco, Browner and by the White House as a scientific result, definitively showing that the oil was gone and inferring that there was little further threat to the ecosystem. What was presented as scientific fact is largely conjectural and contained no references to the scientific literature, none of the algorithms or formulas or other information that would allow investigators or independent investigators to assess what had been done. So this made what should have been science into a policy and a PR exercise, and that’s an unfortunate turn of events in informing the public about the next—future of this oil disaster.

AMY GOODMAN: So where did this report come from, Ian MacDonald?

IAN MacDONALD: Well, it came from NOAA. It was written by Bill Lehr, who is a physicist and a senior responder to oil spills within NOAA. And he put it together. What it is is it’s the results from a series of spreadsheets and other algorithms that look at the different pieces of the oil, the different components of the oil, separated between the water and the burning and the skimming, and it says, well, you know, knowing what we know about how oil behaves and the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, knowing what we know about the type of oil that was discharged, what’s likely to have happened to it. And so—and then it presents these projections, these model results, which describe—you know, they have good numbers on the burning and skimming. They know how much they recovered with the skimming operations, and they have a reasonable idea of what the burning does. But all the rest of the report is not based on measurement, but based on theoretical models, which were not available. So, this report, which should have been science, in fact, became a policy and PR. And that continues an unfortunate trend within NOAA of rolling out seemingly authoritative statements about the oil discharge, only to have to correct them or revise them subsequently. And it’s not the way we want to see our government handling such a catastrophe or calamity for such a large region.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you call this government report a cover-up, Ian MacDonald?

IAN MacDONALD: No, I wouldn’t call it a cover-up. I would call it a misdirection. I think it was an example of taking a rosy scenario, which was compiled prematurely and was still under progress by the scientists who were in charge of putting it together, and then projecting it as scientific fact. That’s not a cover-up, per se, but it very much—you know, it’s much in line with the early statements that Representative Markey referred to where the government and BP said confidently that there was only a thousand barrels or 5,000 barrels coming out of the well, and we know that it was at least ten times that, and was subsequently—were forced to admit.

I guess the other thing that the oil budget does not account for, and which I’ve been concerned about, as have others, is the amount of gas that was released. This is an unprecedented discharge, this exploded well belonging to BP, unprecedented in the fact that it was in 5,000 feet of water and that the discharge went on in an uncontrolled way for nearly a hundred days. That’s really never occurred before. And much of the science, as Reddy and his colleagues have told us, still needs to be done to figure out where all that oil is. But we do know, from BP’s own numbers, that the oil comprised about 3,000 cubic feet per barrel of gas. If you present the numbers, not in units of volume, in like cubic feet or barrels of oil, but in equivalent units of mass or equivalent units of energy, barrel of oil equivalents, what that 3,000 cubic feet per barrel means is that the oil plus the gas is equal to 1.5 times the oil alone. In other words, if the discharge was over four million barrels of oil, the total discharge of oil plus gas was over six million barrels. And I say—and others agree—that under the auspices of the Oil Pollution Act, this total amount should be treated as the discharge for which BP is liable.

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, won’t this report help BP in all future suits?

IAN MacDONALD: It could be construed that way, and that has been troubling all along, is that many of the statements by the Coast Guard, by the Unified Command, could be construed as minimizing the effects. And Markey bore down on that fact at many times during his questioning and during the testimony, pointing out that these sort of lowball estimates constrained the way we thought about and constrained the way the response effort went forward. So when we were being told that we didn’t need to measure the rate of the spill because the response effort was already at 100 percent of the capacity and nothing would change if we knew different, that turns out not to have been true at all. It wasn’t, in fact, until Secretary Chu and members of the USGS began carefully to put together spill rate estimates or discharge rate estimates that the response began to actually get control of the situation on the bottom of the ocean and began to be able to shut this thing off. So we desperately needed those numbers, and the government was very unwilling in the beginning, dragged its feet and denied the necessity of doing so. And at a number of crucial junctures in this, I’m afraid the government has done this, at least at an executive level. Congress, on the other hand, has been very forthright about forcing the release of the video and about holding BP’s feet to the fire in terms of continued hearings. So it’s an interesting contrast in response.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. When you talk about the Unified Command, when we flew over the Gulf of Mexico, were taken up by the Coast Guard, and the Coast Guard spokesperson, his ID that he was wearing had a BP symbol behind it. And I asked him about that, and he said—well, he didn’t know why it was like that. But I also spoke with a consultant who worked out of Mobile, Alabama, and he, too, had to wear an ID with a BP logo. These are people who are working for the government, right? Unified Command—this is the Coast Guard. Can you explain that relationship, Ian MacDonald?

IAN MacDONALD: Well, it stems from the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and subsequent studies about how best to manage an oil spill. And the decisions made and the way that it was structured does a couple of things that we ought to reconsider as we go forward and think about the next steps. What it does, first of all, is it places the responsible party—i.e. the oil company or the drilling company, whoever it is that’s created the discharge, who’s lost control of the oil—it makes them responsible for the cleanup, the actual physical logistics of operating the cleanup and response operation, and with the oversight of the Unified Command under the Coast Guard’s immediate jurisdiction. It also brings in the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior, the Department of Commerce in the form of NOAA, and Homeland Security. So you have quite a number of cabinet-level advisers sort of all mixing around and trying to direct a private corporation, which of course has its own very deep legal and logistic concerns.

So BP, all the way through this, of course, has had public relations and legal concerns that it’s dealt with, and many of its responses can be seen through the lens of BP trying to manage both their immediate public relations image and the legal trials and tribulations that they’re going to face in court for years to come. And then you filter that through a—you know, a Unified Command structure comprising at least four cabinet-level positions, and you’ve got a very muddled situation. It’s not easy for the public to understand, and I don’t think it’s easy for the Coast Guard to run. So, Thad Allen, although I’m critical of some of the things he’s done, he’s certainly maintained his equilibrium throughout this and managed to be a calm spokesman, if not always a correct one.

AMY GOODMAN: When we come back, I want to ask you about the effect of so much oil underneath the water, on the bottom of the sea. We’re talking to Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University. We’re speaking to him in Tallahassee. When we come back, we’ll also be joined by Dahr Jamail, who has been spending time in Mississippi talking to the fishermen, who are concerned or refusing to go out because of the dispersants, afraid that they, too, could get sick. Stay with us.

[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest, Ian MacDonald, oceanographer at Florida State University. Before we go to Dahr Jamail, I wanted to ask you, Ian, about this oil under the sea, what this means, what, for example, Woods Hole was talking, Christopher Reddy.

IAN MacDONALD: What Christopher Reddy has documented and what the University of South Florida also showed, in a different direction, was that the oil spread out underwater far from the well site. And we don’t know what’s going to happen to that oil. We do know, from the Woods Hole report, or the Woods Hole scientists concluded that the rate at which the oil is being consumed by microorganisms is much slower than what NOAA credited that rate to be. We also know from the findings of the South Florida group that thousands of square miles of the ocean bottom have been sprinkled with degraded oil, tar balls, if you like, and still more of that oil has been concentrated along the coastal sediments and in coastal soils. And what that material does is it sinks down several inches, maybe a foot or more, below the sea bottom, and it finds a layer where there’s relatively little oxygen, and it stays there for decades. In that position, as we’ve seen in Prince William Sound after Exxon Valdez and elsewhere, that oil restructures the ecosystem in fundamental ways. The oil, which had dissolved on the surface layers, may affect plankton and fish larvae. The bottom line, if you read the NOAA report honestly and fairly, is that the Gulf of Mexico received a massive dose of hydrocarbons. And we have to watch for years to see how quickly it recovers.

My concern in the aftermath of all this is that we have the resolve and the wherewithal properly to assess and, most importantly, properly to restore the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, which was already in trouble before this grave insult. And I hope that the very large fine that BP is going to have to pay as a result of this, that a great portion of that—although we’re very concerned about hotel owners and shrimpers and so forth—it’s Mother Nature who’s been made to clean up our big mess, and we need to put Mother Nature first in line for repayment, as we go forward. And I think that there are movements within Congress to establish an ocean endowment that would do that, through programs to restore the wetlands, establish marine protected areas, regulate coastal communities to force them to clean up their runoff. There are many, many programs. But the costs are high, and the costs are recurring. And the way forward through an ocean endowment, I think, is what we have to hope for.

AMY GOODMAN: Ian MacDonald, I’d like to ask you to stay with us. We’re going to turn, though, now to Dahr Jamail.

The Obama administration announced last week it’s safe to eat fish and shrimp caught in the 78 percent of federal waters in the Gulf that are now reopened to fishing. But many are still concerned about the levels of toxins in the water and the impact on marine life. Independent journalist Dahr Jamail has been reporting from the Gulf Coast for over a month now. Last week he spoke to some commercial fishermen in Mississippi who are refusing to trawl because of the oil and dispersants that are still in the water. James "Catfish" Miller told Jamail, quote, "Why would we lie about oil and dispersant in our waters, when our livelihoods depend on our being able to fish here?" Dahr Jamail joins us now by Democracy Now! video stream from Texas, where he lives.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Dahr. Talk about what you have found in Mississippi.

DAHR JAMAIL: Last Thursday, I went out on a boat with Mr. Miller, as well as his friend and another commercial fisherman, Mark Stewart. Both of them are long-term, multi-generational fishermen in Mississippi, and they also are both former members of BP’s Vessels—so-called Vessels of Opportunity program, the VOO program, both recently released from that program as BP scales back its response efforts. And they’re very concerned because they usually trawl for shrimp around the Mississippi Sound and sometimes outside the barrier islands of Mississippi, and they—what they told me, and actually what they showed me, is that the area is extremely unsafe, that oil, submerged oil, mixed with dispersants, have infiltrated the area.

We drove around on his trawler for several hours, and you could watch on the sonar clouds popping up. We were in about twelve, thirteen feet of water. And the middle part of the area would literally fill up with a big cloud, and we would stop the boat, and he would basically drop down, tie some sorbent pad to a grappling hook, drop it down in the water and pull it up, and it would be covered in sort of a slimy, brown oil-dispersant mix. And it was—we did that eight times. Every single time, we caught oil and dispersant mix.

And it was a very disturbing thing to see, in addition to the fact that these guys said, "Look, we refuse to fish here, because this is so toxic, and we can see that there’s less life here." They have friends who have started to try to fish, because the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources on August 6 reopened much of their fishing grounds to commercial fishermen and recreational fishermen. And they know personally, both Miller and Stewart—they know commercial fishermen who are going out and catching either nothing or a maximum 200 pounds of shrimp per go, in a situation where normally they would be catching between 700 pounds and a thousand pounds a night. And according to them, 200 pounds, you can’t even pay your—cover your expenses with that much. They’re also reporting seeing crabs in the middle of the day trying to crawl out of the water, because there is not enough oxygen in the water. They’re seeing far, far less birdlife and overall marine life throughout the entire Mississippi Sound, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about who is spraying the dispersant, Dahr?

DAHR JAMAIL: These men, along with numerous other commercial fishermen, all of which were members of the VOO program in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the western Panhandle of Florida, are all pointing the finger at BP for hiring out-of-state contractors, meaning not Gulf Coast community workers but people who don’t live on the—in the Gulf Coast region, to come in and go out in a type of boat called a Carolina Skiff, which is basically being used as a utility boat. Both Miller and Stewart both told me they’ve been eyewitness to this. And these boats basically go out to the areas that VOO workers identify as oiled areas, that the VOO workers will go up in all four states over the last several months, find the oil, call in the location to BP command, be sent away from that oil, and then they will see, as they go in from their day of work out on the water, they’ll see these foreign—these out-of-state contract workers, private contractors, going out in these Carolina Skiff boats with big white tanks in them, 375-gallon white tanks, and go out and spray the oil. And Stewart and Miller both told me they were eyewitness to this personally, that they saw these boats at times hosing down from the boats with dispersants giant patches of oil floating in the water. And then, when they would come—the VOO workers would come back out the next day, go to where the oil was they had located the day before, and there would be nothing but a big pasty, white, emulsified, foamy substance atop the water, which has become commonly known throughout the Gulf region now as the remnants of dispersed oil, after they come out, hit it with dispersants, sink the oil, and then that’s all that’s left. And this has been reported to me by commercial fishermen, most of which were members of the VOO program in all four of the most heavily affected states to date.

AMY GOODMAN: Ian MacDonald, can you talk about the danger of these dispersants? Do you understand what it is, and that whole issue of the fact that it was proprietary, the company that made it? Did you and other scientists, the US government, ever reveal exactly what was in these dispersants and their effect on the marine life in the ocean?

IAN MacDONALD: I think we have a better idea what’s in the dispersant now than we did to begin with. There have been a couple of different types of dispersant applied. Apparently, what they were using to start out with was fairly toxic overstocks, and then they came out with a newer formulation that was less toxic. I think if the Carolina Skiff operation that we’ve just heard described is what’s going forward, I’ll say that I’ve seen similar things offshore Louisiana, offshore Venice. If you go out to the tide line, after the oil stopped flowing, what it tends to do is the thin layers of oil roll over on themselves, and they roll over and roll over until they become huge gooey mats of a sort of a ropey light brown stuff, which floats in the tide line. I mean, it’s not a continuous thing, but there are these big clumps of it. You know, the appropriate response would be to go out and try to skim it up and remove it from the ecosystem. But if you use dispersant in the way that’s been described, what you do is you hide it from view. You sink it to the bottom of the ocean, with the hope that somehow or another Mother Nature is going to clean it up for you. So, essentially, what’s been described here, dispersant is being used to sweep this stuff under the rug, instead of remove it from the house. And, you know, that is a matter of grave concern, if that’s what’s happening on a broad scale.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Dahr Jamail, talk about, in this last—in your last comment here, what most surprised you in this month, and in the progression of the month, before you returned to Texas?

DAHR JAMAIL: I think the ongoing cover-up by BP of simultaneously scaling back the response effort along with trying to act as though everything is OK and life is back to normal, because what I’ve seen across the Gulf region, actually over the last couple of months, most of which spent down there, is that there’s massive fish kills in one or all of the four states on any given day. There’s massive amounts of oil continuing to be found, both submerged as well as floating around and washing up on land. And people are suffering in a very severe way. And from what I’m seeing, the crisis seems to continue to get worse, more and more people being made sick living along the coast, blaming the use of the dispersants. Meanwhile, BP and the federal government and the Coast Guard and NOAA, among other federal agencies, continue to pretend as though everything’s just fine. And actually, right now, it seems to be the worst I’ve seen it yet.

AMY GOODMAN: And it’s interesting. You spent a lot of time in Mississippi. Haley Barbour, the Governor, what are people’s attitudes toward him, since he’s being talked about as a possible Republican presidential candidate?

DAHR JAMAIL: He’s hated by every single commercial fisherperson I spoke with in Mississippi had nothing but terrible things to say about Haley Barbour. He’s looked upon as an extremely corrupt official. For example, Mr. Bill Walker, the head of Mississippi’s DMR, who opened up the grounds, basically announced last Monday that Mississippi was given $25 million of response-effort moneys, only $500,000 of that has been spent. And he announced that everything’s good, the oil is gone, we won’t be issuing out any more of that money. And that’s being viewed by people in Mississippi as another money grab by Governor Haley Barbour.

AMY GOODMAN: Dahr Jamail, I want to thank you for being with us, speaking to us from Marfa, Texas, has been reporting from the Gulf for the past month. And Ian MacDonald, oceanographer at Florida State University, thanks so much.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/23/sc...ion_and_bp

[Peter Lemkin]

Gulf fishermen being held responsible for toxic seafood
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0821/fisherm...c-seafood/
By Daniel Tencer
Saturday, August 21st, 2010 -- 9:12 pm

Federal government admits not testing for arsenic, mercury or other toxic heavy metals in seafood

The US government, and even President Obama himself, have said that Gulf seafood is safe to eat in the wake of the massive BP oil spill.

But an admission from the federal government that it hasn't been testing Gulf seafood for toxic heavy metals, and news that fishermen are being forced to sign waivers making them liable for toxins in their catch, suggest not everyone is convinced of the safety of Gulf seafood.

Louisiana fishermen's activist Kindra Arnesen says dock owners are asking fishermen to sign waivers that put the full responsibility for toxins found in the catch on the fishermen themselves.

"This liability cannot fall with our fishermen," she said in a video posted to blogger Alexander Higgins' Web site.
Story continues below...


Arnesen's claim comes as Louisiana prepares to allow shrimping on the coast to resume this Monday. A news report from IPS says many shrimpers in the Gulf are simply unwilling to go back in the water, due to fears their catch could be contaminated.

Mississippi commercial shrimper James "Catfish" Miller told IPS there's only one place on the state's coast where oysters can be caught, "and there is oil and dispersants all over the top of it."

Mississippi lifted its ban on commercial fishing in the Gulf earlier this month, but Miller and others refuse to start fishing again. Miller showed IPS a simple test to prove the waters are still contaminated: He sank an absorbent rag into the water, and minutes later pulled it up. "The rags were covered in a brown oily substance that the fishermen identified as a mix of BP's crude oil and toxic dispersants," IPS reports.

NO TESTING FOR TOXIC HEAVY METALS

In House hearings this week, federal government officials indicated they have not been testing for heavy metals known to exist in crude oil, some of which can be toxic to humans and are believed to be able to build up in marine life after an oil spill.

During questioning by House Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), FDA Acting Deputy Director Donald Kraemer said his agency isn't monitoring for the presence of heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury in Gulf seafood. He suggested that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may be handling that area.

But NOAA senior scientist Bill Lehr didn't have an answer for Markey as to whether the NOAA is monitoring for heavy metals, and said only, "We'll get back to you with an answer on that."

"It's my understanding that compounds like mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals that are present in crude oil have the ability to accumulate in the tissues of fish in levels that may cause harm particularly to pregnant women and children," Markey said.

But the FDA's Kraemer told Markey that his agency "does not expect to see an increase" in heavy toxins from the spill.

That comment befuddled some oil spill observers and scientists. As Washington's Blog notes, crude oil contains not only heavy metals, but organic compounds such as benzene and toluene, which are toxic to humans.

An Associated Press report earlier this month reported that a study on crab larvae in the Gulf concluded that oil from the spill is making its way into the food chain:

The government said last week that three-quarters of the spilled oil has been removed or naturally dissipated from the water. But the crab larvae discovery was an ominous sign that crude had already infiltrated the Gulf's vast food web -- and could affect it for years to come.

"It would suggest the oil has reached a position where it can start moving up the food chain instead of just hanging in the water," said Bob Thomas, a biologist at Loyola University in New Orleans. "Something likely will eat those oiled larvae ... and then that animal will be eaten by something bigger and so on."

Tiny creatures might take in such low amounts of oil that they could survive, Thomas said. But those at the top of the chain, such as dolphins and tuna, could get fatal "megadoses."

"In my 42 years of studying crabs I've never seen this," [biologist Harriet] Perry said.

'CULTURAL GENOCIDE'

Kindra Arnesen, who works with the Cultural Heritage Society of Louisiana, is warning of a "cultural genocide" of the Gulf Coast fishing industry if the government doesn't start testing for heavy metals in seafood.

"There's going to be a cultural genocide of they don't test the seafood and make sure that it's safe," she said. "Not only to protect our fishermen, but hello, what about the consumer? ... We pride ourselves on bringing fresh, uncontaminated seafood to the market for the consumer to eat."

The concerns of fisherman and scientists alike seem to contradict the positive tone the federal government has taken with respect to oil in the Gulf.

"Let me be clear: Seafood from the Gulf … is safe to eat,” President Obama recently said at an appearance in Theodore, Alabama.

It's "important for consumers... to know that their food is safe, but it’s also important for the fishermen and processors, who need to be able to sell their products with confidence,” Obama said.

[John Kowalski]

The link below is for a web page that has a fascinating story about how BP is buying up search results on Google to divert web surfers from other web pages to their web page which has their version of events.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1657945/bp-sn...pr-attempt

John

[Magda Hassan]

Thank you John. I'm amazed that this is getting the attention it deserves.

[Magda Hassan]

Oil leaking from burning rig in Gulf of Mexico

Updated 2 hours 36 minutes ago
A mile-long oil slick is spreading from an oil platform ablaze in the Gulf of Mexico, the US Coast Guard said overnight, citing a report from rig workers who jumped into the sea to safety.
The fire started after an explosion ripped through the rig, dumping all 13 workers aboard into the ocean.
"All 13 are accounted for and they are all wearing some sort of an immersion suit that protects them from the water," Coast Guard chief petty officer John Edwards said.
The workers told rescue crews that the slick was about 10 feet wide but hoped that no more oil would leak into the sea, Chief Warrant Officer Barry Lane said.
"It was relayed to us by the survivors that they were able to initiate shutdown procedures before they abandoned ship," he said.
"We've been told that the fire is contained but not out."
The Coast Guard has sent cutters and helicopters to the area, some 145 kilometers south of Vermilion Bay in Louisiana, but has not yet been able to assess the condition of the rig or how much oil has escaped.
All 13 workers aboard the platform when it caught fire managed to escape and are being transported to an area hospital.
Officer Lane did not have an update on their conditions but one of the workers had been reported injured.
The blast comes more than four months after an explosion ripped through the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, some 80 kilometers off Louisiana, killing 11 workers and unleashing an environmental catastrophe.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/...001250.htm

[Peter Presland]

There's a long way to go on this one yet.

How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event

Ominous reports are leaking past the BP Gulf salvage operation news blackout that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico may be about to reach biblical proportions.

251 million years ago a mammoth undersea methane bubble caused massive explosions, poisoned the atmosphere and destroyed more than 96 percent of all life on Earth. [1] Experts agree that what is known as the Permian extinction event was the greatest mass extinction event in the history of the world. [2]

55 million years later another methane bubble ruptured causing more mass extinctions during the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM).

The LPTM lasted 100,000 years. [3]

Those subterranean seas of methane virtually reshaped the planet when they explosively blew from deep beneath the waters of what is today called the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, worried scientists are increasingly concerned the same series of catastrophic events that led to worldwide death back then may be happening again-and no known technology can stop it.

The bottom line: BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years.

The oil giant drilled down miles into a geologically unstable region and may have set the stage for the eventual premature release of a methane mega-bubble.

Ryskin’s methane extinction theory

Northwestern University's Gregory Ryskin, a bio-chemical engineer, has a theory: The oceans periodically produce massive eruptions of explosive methane gas. He has documented the scientific evidence that such an event was directly responsible for the mass extinctions that occurred 55 million years ago. [4]

Many geologists concur: "The consequences of a methane-driven oceanic eruption for marine and terrestrial life are likely to be catastrophic. Figuratively speaking, the erupting region "boils over," ejecting a large amount of methane and other gases (e.g., CO2, H2S) into the atmosphere, and flooding large areas of land. Whereas pure methane is lighter than air, methane loaded with water droplets is much heavier, and thus spreads over the land, mixing with air in the process (and losing water as rain). The air-methane mixture is explosive at methane concentrations between 5% and 15%; as such mixtures form in different locations near the ground and are ignited by lightning, explosions and conflagrations destroy most of the terrestrial life, and also produce great amounts of smoke and of carbon dioxide..." [5]

The warning signs of an impending planetary catastrophe—of such great magnitude that the human mind has difficulty grasping it-would be the appearance of large fissures or rifts splitting open the ocean floor, a rise in the elevation of the seabed, and the massive venting of methane and other gases into the surrounding water.
Such occurrences can lead to the rupture of the methane bubble containment—it can then permit the methane to breach the subterranean depths and undergo an explosive decompression as it catapults into the Gulf waters. [6]

All three warning signs are documented to be occurring in the Gulf.

Ground zero: The Gulf Coast

The people and property located on the greater expanse of the Gulf Coast are sitting at Ground Zero. They will be the first exposed to poisonous, cancer causing chemical gases. They will be the ones that initially experience the full fury of a methane bubble exploding from the ruptured seabed.

The media has been kept away from the emergency salvage measures being taken to forestall the biggest catastrophe in human history. The federal government has warned them away from the epicenter of operations with the threat of a $40,000 fine for each infraction and the possibility of felony arrests.

Why is the press being kept away? Word is that the disaster is escalating.

Cracks and bulges

Methane is now streaming through the porous, rocky seabed at an accelerated rate and gushing from the borehole of the first relief well. The EPA is on record that Rig #1 is releasing methane, benzene, hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases. Workers there now wear advanced protection including state-of-the-art, military-issued gas masks.

Reports, filtering through from oceanologists and salvage workers in the region, state that the upper level strata of the ocean floor is succumbing to greater and greater pressure. That pressure is causing a huge expanse of the seabed-estimated by some as spreading over thousands of square miles surrounding the BP wellhead-to bulge. Some claim the seabed in the region has risen an astounding 30 feet.

The fractured BP wellhead, site of the former Deepwater Horizon, has become the epicenter of frenetic attempts to quell the monstrous flow of methane.

The subterranean methane is pressurized at 100,000 pounds psi. According to Matt Simmons, an oil industry expert, the methane pressure at the wellhead has now skyrocketed to a terrifying 40,000 pounds psi.

Another well-respected expert, Dr. John Kessler of Texas A&M University has calculated that the ruptured well is spewing 60 percent oil and 40 percent methane. The normal methane amount that escapes from a compromised well is about 5 percent.

More evidence? A huge gash on the ocean floor—like a ragged wound hundreds of feet long—has been reported by the NOAA research ship, Thomas Jefferson. Before the curtain of the government enforced news blackout again descended abruptly, scientists aboard the ship voiced their concerns that the widening rift may go down miles into the earth.
That gash too is hemorrhaging oil and methane. It’s 10 miles away from the BP epicenter. Other, new fissures, have been spotted as far as 30 miles distant.Measurements of the multiple oil plumes now appearing miles from the wellhead indicate that as much as a total of 124,000 barrels of oil are erupting into the Gulf waters daily-that’s about 5,208,000 gallons of oil per day.

Most disturbing of all: Methane levels in the water are now calculated as being almost one million times higher than normal. [7]

Mass death on the water

If the methane bubble—a bubble that could be as big as 20 miles wide—erupts with titanic force from the seabed into the Gulf, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will immediately sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists participating in the salvage operation will die instantly.

Next, the ocean bottom will collapse, instantaneously displacing up to a trillion cubic feet of water or more and creating a towering supersonic tsunami annihilating everything along the coast and well inland. Like a thermonuclear blast, a high pressure atmospheric wave could precede the tidal wave flattening everything in its path before the water arrives.

When the roaring tsunami does arrive it will scrub away all that is left.

A chemical cocktail of poisons

Some environmentalist experts are calling what’s pouring into the land, sea and air from the seabed breach ’a chemical cocktail of poisons.’

Areas of dead zones devoid of oxygen are driving species of fish into foreign waters, killing plankton and other tiny sea life that are the foundation for the entire food chain, and polluting the air with cancer-causing chemicals and poisonous rainfalls.

A report from one observer in South Carolina documents oily residue left behind after a recent thunderstorm. And before the news blackout fully descended the EPA released data that benzene levels in New Orleans had rocketed to 3,000 parts per billion.

Benzene is extremely toxic and even short term exposure can cause agonizing death from cancerous lesions years later.

The people of Louisiana have been exposed for more than two months—and the benzene levels may be much higher now. The EPA measurement was taken in early May. [8]

Doomsday

While some say it can’t happen because the bulk of the methane is frozen into crystalline form, others point out that the underground methane sea is gradually melting from the nearby surging oil that’s estimated to be as hot as 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Most experts in the know, however, agree that if the world-changing event does occur it will happen suddenly and within the next 6 months.

So, if events go against Mankind and the bubble bursts in the coming months, Gregory Ryskin may become one of the most famous people in the world. Of course, he won't have long to enjoy his new found fame because very shortly after the methane eruption civilization will collapse.

Perhaps if humanity is very, very lucky, some may find a way to avoid the mass extinction that follows and carry on the human race.

Perhaps.
…………

Sources

[1] The Permian extinction event, when 96% of all marine species became extinct 251 million years ago.

[2] “The Day The Earth Nearly Died,” BBC Horizon, 2002

[3] Report about the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM), which occurred around 55 million years ago and lasted about 100,000 years. Large undersea methane caused explosions and mass extinctions.

[4] Ryskin Theory
Huge combustible clouds produced by methane gas trapped under the seas and explosively released could have killed off the majority of marine life, land animals, and plants at the end of the Permian era—long before the dinosaurs arrived.

[5] James P. Kennett, Kevin G. Cannariato, Ingrid L. Hendy, Richard J. Behl (2000), "Carbon Isotopic Evidence for Methane Hydrate Instability During Quaternary Interstadials," Science 288.

[6] “An awesome mix of fire and water may lie behind mass extinctions”

[7] “Methane in Gulf 'astonishingly high'-US scientist”

[8] Report: “Air Quality - Oil Spill” TV 4WWL video Links

“BP engineer called doomed rig a 'nightmare well’”

History Channel Mega Disasters - Methane Explosion

“BP Official Admits to Damage Beneath the Sea Floor"

[Christer Forslund]

Illness Plagues Gulf Residents in BP's Aftermath

By Dahr Jamail

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21945
Global Research, November 16, 2010
Inter Press Service

ORANGE BEACH, Alabama, Nov 15, 2010 (IPS) - Increasing numbers of U.S. Gulf Coast residents attribute ongoing sicknesses to BP's oil disaster and use of toxic dispersants.

"Now I have a bruising rash all around my stomach," Denise Rednour of Long Beach, Mississippi told IPS. "This looks like bleeding under the skin."
Rednour lives near the coast and has been walking on the beach nearly every day since a BP oil rig exploded on Apr. 20. She has noticed a dramatically lower number of wildlife, and said that many days the smell of chemicals from what she believes are BP's toxic dispersants fill the air.
Yet her primary concern is that she and many people she knows in the area have gotten sick.
"I have pain in my stomach, stabbing pains, in isolated areas," Rednour added. "The sharp stabbing pain is all over my abdomen where this discolouration is, it's in my arm pits and around my breasts. I have this dry hacking cough, my sinuses are swelling up, and I have an insatiable thirst."
Rednour's recent problems are a continuation of others that have beset her for months, including headaches, respiratory problems, runny nose, nausea, and bleeding from the ears.
In response to the massive spill last summer that released at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of Corexit dispersants - which have been banned in 19 countries - to sink the oil. The dispersants contain chemicals that many scientists and toxicologists have warned are dangerous to humans, marine life and wildlife.
A March 1987 report titled "Organic Solvent Neurotoxicity", by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), states: "The acute neurotoxic effects of organic solvent exposure in workers and laboratory animals are narcosis, anesthesia, central nervous system (CNS) depression, respiratory arrest, unconsciousness, and death."
Several chemicals and chemical compounds listed in the NIOSH report, such as styrene, toluene and xylene, are now present in the Gulf of Mexico as the result of BP's dispersants mixing with BP's crude oil.
Captain Lori DeAngelis runs dolphin tours out of Orange Beach, Alabama.
"All my muscles hurt," DeAngelis told IPS. "By the time I climb my stairs every muscle in my legs are in spasm. I'm coughing, I have a constant sore throat and hoarse voice."
In addition to these symptoms, her memory is fading. "I have totally blanked out on a lot of important stuff," she said. "I can hardly remember having talked to people who've interviewed me. That's how bad it is. I'm having to bring pen and paper with me and write down everything so I don't forget."
Last month, Dr. Wilma Subra, a chemist and Macarthur Fellow, conducted blood tests for volatile solvents on eight people who live and work along the coast.
"All eight individuals tested had Ethylbenzene and m,p- Xylene in their blood in excess of the NHANES 95th Percentile," according to Subra's report. "Ethylbenzene, m,p-Xylene and Hexane are volatile organic chemicals that are present in the BP Crude Oil. The blood of all three females and five males had chemicals that are found in the BP Crude Oil."
DeAngelis was one of the people tested.
The health problems she and Rednour are experiencing are now common along the Gulf Coast, from Louisiana all the way to Florida.
Chuck Barnes is director of the Alabama district of the Eastern Surfing Association, and is responsible for organising surfing competitions.
"In early September our local government gave the all-clear so surfers started going back into the water," Barnes told IPS. "But we immediately had several surfers get sick with headaches, upper respiratory problems, and other things and that's when I decided we needed to test the water."
Barnes says that tests conducted in the Orange Beach area "all came up toxic".
"Now I'm worried about the fact that everybody is still giving the all clear signal, but nobody [government] is doing honest testing," he said. "We have fresh tar balls washing up right now. They just turned the Gulf into their huge science experiment, and we're just sitting here under the microscope waiting to see what happens to us."
Joe Overstreet, a merchant seaman, lives in Fairhope, Alabama, which is on the coast and Mobile Bay. He also had his blood tested by Dr. Subra.
"I have a new rash on my body now, on my chest, and this is after an older rash I've had that turned into blisters. I did the blood test in Pensacola, and when it was returned I tested positive for six of the nine chemicals in BP's dispersants," he said.
Overstreet worked as an oil disaster response worker for BP.
"I take Benadryl pretty much every night so I don't wake up with a headache," he told IPS. "I have pains on my right side recently, and unbelievable headaches. When they start happening I have to stop everything. I have them every day."
Overstreet, who has worked in the oil fields and is familiar with the dangers and chemicals used, said he and his neighbours "could smell the Benzene coming up into the bay. I was working on the beaches, and on low tides we can see the clams out there. They used to be white. Now they are all black. And nobody seems to pay any attention to this. I've lived here all my life and I know it's not right."
Like others, he is mystified by the lack of appropriate response by government authorities.
"I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. Nobody seems to be doing anything or talking about it," he said.
DeAngelis is worried about the dolphins she has come to love and protect, as well as humans living along the coast.
"It's devastating," she said. "My identity is wrapped in being Captain Lori, but I don't know if I can go on my waters and watch out for my babies, and nobody will tell us what is happening. I can't come up with the right words. This is the meanest, most deceitful, most horrible thing the government could do to us."

[Peter Lemkin]

Gulf War Syndrome, now Gulf of BP Syndrome. Depleted (sic) Uranium all over Iraq and parts of former Yugoslavia; Toxics in our food, water, air, products, homes, bodies, soil, genetically-modified non-foods, new toxics and xenobiotics moved, invented, emplaced......the Corporations and the Greed and lack of care of anything but profit they live by are destroying life [and the quality of it even faster] on this small Planet........I've read technical reports on the dearth of certain types of sea life in the Gulf, which are not expected to recover for decades. I'll bet those suffering the new Gulf of BP Syndrome will get about as much 'care' as those in NYC suffering from the WTC's poisonous dust [or those in Bophal got!]. Same system. Same lack of accountabilty. Same lack of universal health care. Same lack of human care. Same lack of care for anything but power and profit. Sickening and deadly....with more like this to come. I think Jensen's idea of the need for dismantling of much of 'civilization' [and all of Corporations and Oligarchy] - while it sounds extreme - is the only real answer. To me, it is no surprise that all aspects of the environment, polity, democracy, freedoms, rights, finances, health, peace, justice, rule of law and other such trivialities are all collapsing in RAPID synchrony.....to me it is perfectly clear the inter-relationship of it all.....bye bye Gaia [and is human burden]...bye bye.