This movie is hilariously sad. Someone video tapes oil washing up onto the beaches in the form of tar balls.
I love how the kid starts screaming because there’s oil stuck on her feet and how her mom (in futility) tries to scrape it off and fails. And yet…they just continue playing in it?
Beaches are notoriously full of crap (and that’s beside the pollution we’ve contributed; sandy beaches are basically the ocean’s litter box – think about that for a while) and maybe we’ve just gotten so used to these kinds of things that playing in the sand and having your kids come back to the beach blanket covered in tar [...]
American apathy – kids playing in oily beaches
Nigeria’s oil problem
This article about Nigeria’s oil spill problems, on top of the BP oil spill, is just completely, utterly, thoroughly depressing.
Really. I feel I’m pretty committed to telling the truth and discovering unsavory things about our world because when the truth comes out we can actually do something about it rather than try to sweep the problem away (which never works) but really, even though I truly believe in this ideal, today I wish I never knew this kind of stuff happened. It’s just too depressing to handle sometimes.
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Gulf oil disaster worse than previously reported
Corporate oil giant BP has once again underestimated the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from its severely damaged Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
According to a new report in the Wasington Post, approximately 53.6 million to 64.3 million gallons of oil have emerged from the well since April 20th.
The figures – soon to be officially announced by the US Geological Survey – indicate that the federal government’s and BP;s early estimatesof the flow rate weren’t even close.
Try as they might, BP can’t seem to spin it right, can they? Too bad, since the amount of damages they’ll have to fork over are tied to how many oil barrels worth of oil have leaked into [...]
Gulf Oil Disaster: The Worst Environmental Disaster Ever
I haven’t heard anyone chant, “Drill Baby Drill,” lately, have you? In the South at least and around the Gulf Coast, that would be political suicide. The fears, anger, and plain disgust is raging here and grows worse each day.
As the spill continues gushing thousands to millions (according to whose figures you look at, BP’s or other experts/scientists) of barrels of oil each day, an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness also builds. Questions are asked that go unanswered because no one really knows the answers. How long will it keep gushing out into the Gulf, poisoning every living creature in its path? So far the quick fixes have not worked. The [...]
Apples to Apples: Solar and Wind less costly than Coal and Oil
The following is a guest blog by Tom Rooney of SPGsolar.
Everyone knows solar and wind power are more expensive than oil and coal.
Everyone except the National Academy of Sciences.
So they put it to the test: They found coal and oil and natural gas are artificially cheap because they impose health and financial and environmental costs that all of us pay for — above and beyond the price. Whether we know it or not.
Whether we like it or not.
Sounds kind of like a subsidy, doesn’t it? It’s exactly like a subsidy.
Apples to apples? Solar and wind are often less expensive than coal and oil.
The Academy estimates that coal and oil drain [...]
Offshore Wind, Not Offshore Oil
By Janet Larsen
The enormously devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is just one reminder that stretching out an addiction to a polluting and planet-warming fossil fuel poses risks to our health, our environment, and our economy.
U.S. oil production peaked in 1970 at 9.6 million barrels per day. Since then production has dropped by almost half and now supplies less than 30 percent of domestic consumption. In 2009, the United States spent nearly $200 billion on oil imports to make up the difference.
With oil wells on land getting tapped out, U.S. oil production would have fallen off even more precipitously than it did if not for offshore oil. Offshore [...]
UK company promotes sustainability through “green oil”
As the current environmental disaster of unchecked oil spewing from a wrecked oil rig unfolds in the Gulf of Mexico, the importance of non-fossil fuel is growing exponentially.
UK-based Carbon Credited Farming PLC (CCF PLC), a green energy company, has been making headway with their worldwide focus on developing “green oil” from jatropha (juh tro’ fa) plants.
“Our goal and vision is to provide alternative renewable energy sources through a sustainable commercial framework that benefits everyone – from farmers to governments to end users – and benefits our environment with conservation and sustainable practices,” said Gregg Fryett, CEO of Carbon Credited Farming PLC.
To achieve this, CCF has been operating jatropha plantations in Thailand, Cambodia and Africa. [...]
Top Ten Ways to Cook Eco-Healthy
Get you and your family involved with the cooking and give your lives an eco-overhaul. Watch those lbs drop off whilst reducing your carbon footprint – and having fun (what more could you want?!)
1. Get your Five a Day – If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times, but getting your five a day is good for you (and the environment!). Filling up on un-processed fruit and veg helps your digestion, clears your skin, rids your body of toxins and keeps your blood-sugar level consistent – stopping you from snacking! The benefits of this are obvious. Un-processed food uses fewer chemicals, machinery, oil, energy [...]
A Venezuelan Town Emerges Due to Drought, Geopolitical Intrigue Abounds!
Like a ghost returning from the grave, the town Potosi in Venezuela has emerged from the waters of lake. In a strange turn of events, a town that was abandoned so that a hydroelectric dam could be built has resurfaced due to an ongoing drought in Venezuela.
Venezuela relies on hydroelectricity for 2/3 of its power needs. Thus, the low reservoir levels aren’t worrisome to just former town residents, who are being forced to confront lives they’ve left behind, but also to the national energy sector. The dry season which has been more intense than usual in part due to El Nino is to blame. Forecasters are predicting a strong enough rainy [...]
The Politic of Fertilizers
Grist recently published an interesting article on the US’ addiction to nitrogen fertilizers. The production of nitrogen fertilizers is dependent on a supply of natural gas. There are currently four US companies that dominate the US fertilizer market however, as natural gas prices increase foreign import of nitrogen fertilizers are also increasing. Accounting for the largest imports are Trinidad and Tobago, Russia, the Ukraine and Canada. These non-US markets often have more lax environmental laws which lowers the cost of production. These reliances on foreign imports begs the question: are nitrogen fertilizers going to follow a similar path as foreign oil imports?
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