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View Full Version : The BP oil spill & Gulf deep sea corals


doctorgori
03/26/2012, 05:46 PM
just for your digestion...
I'm sure the assorted sides will have thier own particular spins

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46860353/ns/us_news-environment/

Eric the half-bee
03/26/2012, 08:17 PM
Thankfully, Earth has endured much worse assaults and recovered.

reefnut2012
03/26/2012, 08:45 PM
I dont doubt that. The EPA allows dispersants. It causes the oil to sink. Dumb, dumb ,dumb. If they only used absorbants there would have not been oil damage in the depths and the lower food chain.

alton
03/27/2012, 05:53 AM
The EPA is a joke! Waiting around for the President to make a decision instead of releasing skimmer ships and equipment immediately to clean up. Can you imagine if the everyone else worked like the Feds; "News Flash" wreck on I10 today that had traffic clogged for 12 hours while the police waited for the mayor to make a decision?

doctorgori
03/27/2012, 07:12 AM
Duplicate post

doctorgori
03/27/2012, 07:12 AM
Its VERY difficult to talk enviorment and remain politically neutral ... but suffice to say most of us without blinders on realize corporate influences have some roles in broad enviormental decisions and then the politics of money comes into play
(I'm assuming stating the obvious isn't a violation of the ua)

...basically I'm asking is do we lay this on BP or ourselves in general? Certainly the scope of this tradgedy will affect most of us in some manner

ReeferBill
03/27/2012, 07:28 AM
Its time to stop buying gas from BP and refuse to keep comsuming as we are and change now .We have alternate fuels and battery power to now start living and showing the world that we can change. If not now then when? It is time to take a stand and use hydrogen natural gas or battery power instead of killing our planet.Wake up now before its too late!!!

spieszak
03/27/2012, 07:44 AM
Its time to stop buying gas from BP and refuse to keep comsuming as we are and change now .We have alternate fuels and battery power to now start living and showing the world that we can change. If not now then when? It is time to take a stand and use hydrogen natural gas or battery power instead of killing our planet.Wake up now before its too late!!!
While agree we need to change, most of the alternatives available at this point are not only too expensive an option for most, but are doing as much damage being produced as just running on gas. Where is it that people think electric comes from by the way? There are "clean" electric options (battery), but the majority of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels. (pumping the waste from coal into a shaft drilled in the earth is not clean, its only perceptibly clean)
I am 100% for cleaning up our act. I just think that we can't jump on alternate technology just because it exists. How many (mercury filled) compact fluorescent light bulbs do you think have landed in the landfills because of lack of knowledge that they need to be recycled?
And to sum it all up, why is toilet paper white? (seriously, unbelievable amounts of work/energy go into bleaching paper white just so it can look nice for...well, wiping your....)
*stepping off the soapbox*

Ninong
03/27/2012, 09:42 AM
Dolphin and whale strandings in the Gulf have quintupled since the BP oil spill. Virtually all marine mammals tested have been found to be underweight and anemic with low blood sugar and showing signs of serious lung and liver disease.

http://healthygulf.org/201203231826/blog/bps-oil-drilling-disaster-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/gulf-marine-mammals-still-suffering

Gig 'em
03/27/2012, 04:39 PM
While agree we need to change, most of the alternatives available at this point are not only too expensive an option for most, but are doing as much damage being produced as just running on gas. Where is it that people think electric comes from by the way? There are "clean" electric options (battery), but the majority of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels. (pumping the waste from coal into a shaft drilled in the earth is not clean, its only perceptibly clean)
I am 100% for cleaning up our act. I just think that we can't jump on alternate technology just because it exists. How many (mercury filled) compact fluorescent light bulbs do you think have landed in the landfills because of lack of knowledge that they need to be recycled?
And to sum it all up, why is toilet paper white? (seriously, unbelievable amounts of work/energy go into bleaching paper white just so it can look nice for...well, wiping your....)
*stepping off the soapbox*

I completely agree that electric vehicles are not the solution to reducing our dependence on politically/economically unstable and environmentally harmful fuel sources like oil since most electricity comes from burning coal which releases mercury, particulates, and other pollutants into the atmosphere and nuclear still has that whole "where do we put this radioactive waste?" problem.

But I do think some biofuels will eventually be the answer to our energy problem in the future. Corn based ethanol will never be the solution, it requires too much land and inputs to be sustainable. In my personal opinion from biofuels classes I've taken and research I've done, algae is the best solution for supplying our energy needs. Algae produces several times more energy per acre than first and second generation biofuels and requires less farm equipment. The only problem with algae farming is keeping the algae cultures pure from contamination and separating algal cells from water to convert to oil. Oil and gas companies certainly have the money to invest in convert to algae production (some are already investing millions in algae research) and if the government spent as much money on building these facilities here in the U.S. as they did on wars in foreign oil producing countries we would be independent from foreign oil. Just my 2 cents....

thebanker
03/27/2012, 05:51 PM
It's very sad to see that soft coral covered in oil. Like Eric the Half-Bee said, our earth has endured worse. Hopefully we (as a human race) have learned enough from this mistake and the oil companies take steps to prevent a disaster like the BP spill again.

James77
03/27/2012, 07:25 PM
And to sum it all up, why is toilet paper white? (seriously, unbelievable amounts of work/energy go into bleaching paper white just so it can look nice for...well, wiping your....)


Whoah.....easy now! I'm all for alternative, viable fuels. But ditching white toilet paper....are you out of your mind? :D

low riderr
03/29/2012, 03:25 PM
if toilet paper wasnt white,how would you know when you were finished?

DanK13
03/29/2012, 04:38 PM
This thread took a dirty turn :hmm2:

Ira
03/29/2012, 07:19 PM
The one thing that jumped out at me from this was that the pictures and results they released are all from 2010, the same year as the blowout. The article states the researchers have returned to the site since then but are not releasing their results yet. I'll let ever one make their own conclusions on that, but I would be willing to be dollars to cents if that coral was still looking dead or had completely wiped out, they would not be sitting on the data from their most recent trips.

James77
03/29/2012, 08:24 PM
This thread took a dirty turn :hmm2:

....but the question still stands.....

if toilet paper wasnt white,how would you know when you were finished?

:lol: toilet humor, gotta love it :thumbsup:

James77
03/29/2012, 08:27 PM
The one thing that jumped out at me from this was that the pictures and results they released are all from 2010, the same year as the blowout. The article states the researchers have returned to the site since then but are not releasing their results yet. I'll let ever one make their own conclusions on that, but I would be willing to be dollars to cents if that coral was still looking dead or had completely wiped out, they would not be sitting on the data from their most recent trips.

Good point. They are also talking of coral colonies affected that are less than 10 miles from the "spill". While it does suck that they died, I guess it would kind of be expected from animals living that close to ground zero.

DanK13
03/29/2012, 09:44 PM
Its protocol to hold all data until they finish the study, but my guess is that the only photos that make it to the public eye will be the ones that show damage IF they ever come out at all. Corals are very hardy and are one of the few animals that has survived numerous global extinctions. They will rebound, but in the mean time we should tap the Alaskan tundra and leave the water alone since its under enough stress already.

captjab
03/29/2012, 10:40 PM
I live on the Gulf Coast in Alabama and I own and operate a charter boat in Orange Beach, AL taking tourist fishing. I would bet just about anything that the corals near ground zero took a huge hit. On a positive note I can say that the live bottom in our area seems to be doing ok. We fish over live coral bottom as well as man made structures that are covered in coral and so far we haven't seen any major coral die off. I hope it continues that way and some how the reefs around ground zero recover, but I'm sure it will take many more years for it to recover than it took to destroy it.
I'm on the gulf fishing 100 days or more a year so I can try and answer questions any of you may have about what we are seeing out there.
I would never take up for BP, but do not let the media fool you. If they can find anything bad out there they will plaster it everywhere they can. In my opinion the media has done more damage to our business than B.P.


OH yeah, I vote for keeping the toilet paper white also.

doctorgori
03/30/2012, 06:01 PM
The media loves a train wreck...but bad news sells...
but countering that is a current media blitz of commercials aimed squarely at enviormental regulation..... no opinion offered, just pointing it out

chilwil84
03/30/2012, 09:47 PM
its hard to say damage outside the imidiate area is directly effected when oil/tar balls regularly was up on gulf beaches before and after the spill that have been tested to say they dont come from the bp mess. while the bp mess is very wrong and they should all pay there are places where oil seeps out the bottom eveyday naturaly and life in the gulf has always moved on

dread240
03/31/2012, 08:14 PM
its hard to say damage outside the imidiate area is directly effected when oil/tar balls regularly was up on gulf beaches before and after the spill that have been tested to say they dont come from the bp mess. while the bp mess is very wrong and they should all pay there are places where oil seeps out the bottom eveyday naturaly and life in the gulf has always moved on

ding ding

I'm sorry but reports and studies that are then published by the media always have a hidden agenda to stir controversy, as making people talk is good for sales. The only pics you see are of right after the disaster, nothing current where it's probably rebounding (albeit slowly) and making a comeback. If it was all dead they would be plastering that pic everywhere, proof bp's oil was there and here is a barren wasteland of dead corals... it would fly off the shelves.

Do I think BP made mistakes, sure I do, but lets face it... they call things accidents for a reason. An accident by definition....

An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
A crash involving road or other vehicles, typically one that causes serious damage or injury.

unexpectedly and unintentionally.... but the problem with this country as a whole is as soon as people see accident the lawyers roll up and the dollar signs start flashing. It's not just BP... it's everybody. How many times have you seen somebody get sued because of a car accident. I don't wish bad on anybody, and yes because of an accident you will go through recovery and yadda yadda.... and instead of saying to yourself... oh it was just an accident... you go out and sue the other person for everything they have and ruin their life too... so now 2 people are screwed because of an accident. It's one thing when something is of total negligence, like drunk driving, it's another when it truley is an accident.

I'm sure at no point in time did BP sit around and go... man... lets blow some people up on an oil rig and cause a big spill, that will be awesome marketing. They lost lives on that rig because of an accident, and everybody instantly wanted to shun BP, oh don't buy from them, oh they're a terrible company because they had an accident. 2 years ago at a very prestigous hospital an electrician lost his life because somebody energized the bus bar while he was working in switchgear.... but nobody boycotted the hospital from that. Over 40 lives were lost building the original brandon shores power plant back in the day because of accidents... nobody turned the lights off and refused to use electricity, because they were accidents. Safety policies were in place and workers didn't follow them on both of those situations.

gomery12
03/31/2012, 10:31 PM
ding ding

I'm sorry but reports and studies that are then published by the media always have a hidden agenda to stir controversy, as making people talk is good for sales. The only pics you see are of right after the disaster, nothing current where it's probably rebounding (albeit slowly) and making a comeback. If it was all dead they would be plastering that pic everywhere, proof bp's oil was there and here is a barren wasteland of dead corals... it would fly off the shelves.

Do I think BP made mistakes, sure I do, but lets face it... they call things accidents for a reason. An accident by definition....

An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
A crash involving road or other vehicles, typically one that causes serious damage or injury.

unexpectedly and unintentionally.... but the problem with this country as a whole is as soon as people see accident the lawyers roll up and the dollar signs start flashing. It's not just BP... it's everybody. How many times have you seen somebody get sued because of a car accident. I don't wish bad on anybody, and yes because of an accident you will go through recovery and yadda yadda.... and instead of saying to yourself... oh it was just an accident... you go out and sue the other person for everything they have and ruin their life too... so now 2 people are screwed because of an accident. It's one thing when something is of total negligence, like drunk driving, it's another when it truley is an accident.

I'm sure at no point in time did BP sit around and go... man... lets blow some people up on an oil rig and cause a big spill, that will be awesome marketing. They lost lives on that rig because of an accident, and everybody instantly wanted to shun BP, oh don't buy from them, oh they're a terrible company because they had an accident. 2 years ago at a very prestigous hospital an electrician lost his life because somebody energized the bus bar while he was working in switchgear.... but nobody boycotted the hospital from that. Over 40 lives were lost building the original brandon shores power plant back in the day because of accidents... nobody turned the lights off and refused to use electricity, because they were accidents. Safety policies were in place and workers didn't follow them on both of those situations.

Nicely said, but unfortunately lawyers work on a 33% billing fee, so that's what is pushing more and more lawsuits. What are you going to say when a lawyer tells you in an "accident" that you can get this amount of money from it if you sue, if you win lawyer gets 33% if he loses then you just pay his fees, about 250/hr. how about this, let's decrease the amt you can sue for based on what you are sueing for. I mean does anyone remember the McDonald's coffee suit? Really, you put a hot cup of coffee between your legs and squeezed and burned yourself, and you sue mcd's and win, that's whats wrong with our country, no common sense in the legal system.

billsreef
04/02/2012, 10:30 AM
its hard to say damage outside the imidiate area is directly effected when oil/tar balls regularly was up on gulf beaches before and after the spill that have been tested to say they dont come from the bp mess. while the bp mess is very wrong and they should all pay there are places where oil seeps out the bottom eveyday naturaly and life in the gulf has always moved on

There is a huge, and I'd think very obvious difference between small natural seeps and the gushing of millions of barrels worth of oil from a blow out. Kind of like the difference between dripping a couple of drops of oil in your driveway while doing an oil change, and spilling a 55 gallon drum of oil in your driveway.

chilwil84
04/02/2012, 08:22 PM
There is a huge, and I'd think very obvious difference between small natural seeps and the gushing of millions of barrels worth of oil from a blow out. Kind of like the difference between dripping a couple of drops of oil in your driveway while doing an oil change, and spilling a 55 gallon drum of oil in your driveway.


you are absolutely corect i was just stating this based on what the media was telling us about every piece of tar that washed up on florida and the fact that they (the media) were doing everything but actually closing the beaches for something that had nothing to do with the bp disaster



who knows but maybe in time new life could learn to live around a petrolium leak the way the do around the gas hydrate leaks, we could be helping to create some new species (little bit a sarcasm)

BryanGoodson
04/03/2012, 07:24 AM
To this day i am a proud bp supporter. And to the morons saying go battery powered. When's the last time you pulled a tractor down the road with a Prius? Or when's the last time you seen a battery powered tractor capable of pulling itself and tons of steel through the ground for 10 hours straight. You haven't. And you won't. Just get rid of the tractors right? No tractors no farmers. No farmers no food.

tfrizz80
04/03/2012, 07:58 AM
Im no scientist by no means but isn't hydrogen the most abundant element known to man and highly flammable. I think honda made a hydrogen car some years back and for some reason it just disappeared. You can see all kinds of reactors on you tube built and running diy. I made a tiny one with a cup a rubber glove a piece of stainless steel and a lithium battery. Its was kindof neat when the glove filled up like a little balloon and put it to a lighter. I don't really know about the algae but I know we could be well on our way to fixing alot of problems in our country and our planet if it wasnt for the government.

doctorgori
04/04/2012, 10:19 PM
this is one of those "bordeline" topics that could skim into the polical realms so maybe we should tread carefully here ....

Anyway, sometimes you gotta look at these things objectivley.... BP supplies a product, a enviormentally sensitive "product" that is in high demand....this was a accicdent albeit a very impactful one, but still an accident...

my only beef with these "energy" companies is when they purchase "advertisments" to erode public support for the rules and "Regulations" that are designed to mitigate these type of accidents in the 1st place... Joe public has to decide the actual price of gasoline beyond the sheer dollars and cents of it...

is a dead whale or oily beach or dead reefs a fair tradeoff for saving a few more cents at the pump?

again, being carreful to keep this as an enviorment/business/consumer impact issue

alton
04/05/2012, 05:49 AM
In this case you had company that worked for BP that was behind schedule, over cost, and took a short cut or two and got people killed, accident? Lets compare, you are at a stop sign next to a blind curve, you do not see anyone coming so you pull out and get hit, that is an accident. Get behind the wheel stone drunk drive and kill someone, that is manslaughter. Do your home work check out all the explosions at petro plants along the gulf in the last 20 years and see whos names are on them? I have family and friends who work for oil companies and there are some very safe ones, but then there are some that are questionable. In this case it is political because we know what the root cause was and we know how to fix it, so instead of moving on we shut it and down give billions to other countries to drill in there waters and doesn't benefit anyone but a few. In the 70's we lived with tar balls here on the Texas Coast, not today because we and Mexico fixed the issues which cleaned up there rigs. We have to have oil and natural gas until one day we can find something cheaper, and safer. Solar is not there yet and solar panels are not made from energy from using other solar panels, at least not yet.

power boat jim
04/05/2012, 09:23 AM
Im no scientist by no means but isn't hydrogen the most abundant element known to man and highly flammable. I think honda made a hydrogen car some years back and for some reason it just disappeared. You can see all kinds of reactors on you tube built and running diy. I made a tiny one with a cup a rubber glove a piece of stainless steel and a lithium battery. Its was kindof neat when the glove filled up like a little balloon and put it to a lighter. I don't really know about the algae but I know we could be well on our way to fixing alot of problems in our country and our planet if it wasnt for the government.

The only problem with hydrogen is there is no economical "free" souce of it on this planet. It has to be removed from some other compound. That takes energy. The only known large source of "free" hydrogen is found on the sun.

doctorgori
04/05/2012, 03:45 PM
In this case you had company that worked for BP that was behind schedule, over cost, and took a short cut or two and got people killed, accident? Lets compare, you are at a stop sign next to a blind curve, you do not see anyone coming so you pull out and get hit, that is an accident. Get behind the wheel stone drunk drive and kill someone, that is manslaughter. Do your home work check out all the explosions at petro plants along the gulf in the last 20 years and see whos names are on them? I have family and friends who work for oil companies and there are some very safe ones, but then there are some that are questionable. In this case it is political because we know what the root cause was and we know how to fix it, so instead of moving on we shut it and down give billions to other countries to drill in there waters and doesn't benefit anyone but a few. In the 70's we lived with tar balls here on the Texas Coast, not today because we and Mexico fixed the issues which cleaned up there rigs. We have to have oil and natural gas until one day we can find something cheaper, and safer. Solar is not there yet and solar panels are not made from energy from using other solar panels, at least not yet.

True....
...also I've said this before: its a thin line between "conscience/awareness" and activism...

...as people we depend on leadership and goverment to address our concerns; whatever those might be...we just can't go in that direction here (because as we know political discussions always "devolve" into unwinnable arguments)...

Still, perhaps we maintain a in scope focus here that as "consuming individuals" we can collectivley have a impact via awareness, public opinion and product choices

loganbug3
04/06/2012, 12:38 AM
I just wish people would actually care a little bit about our planet (especially the underwater segment). It's as always difficult to balance the needs of our society, such as drilling for oil, with the consequences of what happens when we mess up. Call me an optimist but I still think we can manage a bit of balance in our world, I just wish people would take the steps to make it happen.

markaren
05/05/2012, 08:07 AM
It's very sad to see that soft coral covered in oil. Like Eric the Half-Bee said, our earth has endured worse. Hopefully we (as a human race) have learned enough from this mistake and the oil companies take steps to prevent a disaster like the BP spill again.

Agree. This was an unusual rig in the sense that it almost seemed planed for it to fail. Very very rare for modern rigs to have this issue.

Our oceans recover quite nicely from natural oil fissures. Oil floats for a reason...making it sink was weird when I first learned that. Yes our shores would get oily but the alternative is forever on the bottom with chemicals.

T Diddy
05/18/2012, 10:17 PM
sigh

HippieSmell
05/19/2012, 10:06 AM
To this day i am a proud bp supporter. And to the morons saying go battery powered. When's the last time you pulled a tractor down the road with a Prius? Or when's the last time you seen a battery powered tractor capable of pulling itself and tons of steel through the ground for 10 hours straight. You haven't. And you won't. Just get rid of the tractors right? No tractors no farmers. No farmers no food.

Yup. Tractors. The #1 consumer of oil in the world. If only we could solve the tractor problem...

HippieSmell
05/19/2012, 10:15 AM
The only problem with hydrogen is there is no economical "free" souce of it on this planet. It has to be removed from some other compound. That takes energy. The only known large source of "free" hydrogen is found on the sun.

Hydrolysis. If we'd use alternative energy sources to store their energy this way, a lot of problems could be solved. Couldn't be any more complicated than a nuclear reactor, and we've got tons of those.

sparr0w1
05/21/2012, 08:53 PM
To this day i am a proud bp supporter. And to the morons saying go battery powered. When's the last time you pulled a tractor down the road with a Prius? Or when's the last time you seen a battery powered tractor capable of pulling itself and tons of steel through the ground for 10 hours straight. You haven't. And you won't. Just get rid of the tractors right? No tractors no farmers. No farmers no food.

There is sooooo much to be said about the value of our current industrial farming system. What's the largest lobby in Washington? Not oil, not credit card companies, not insurance. Agriculture. I think there are some questions worth asking here, like why do we grow so much corn? and rice? for food? if we used it all, maybe- but there was so much corn surplus they had to create high fructose corn syrup to make more uses for it. Corn is in just about everything on the grocery store shelves....and yet the taxpayers still subsidize corn and tobacco. Why? We give away tons and tons of corn every year in aid to foreign countries. This is noble and well intentioned, but it means we simply grow too much food. Somehow an abundance of food being grown is not translating to Americans eating better or healthier. Maybe it's time to stop lining the pockets of corporate farming conglomerations and the chemical companies that own them and start supporting real American small scale farmers. I dunno- I me, I could be wrong....but seems like a better path. :lol: