The brown pelican in this clip is very hard to watch.
I grew up spending a week or two of the summer on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. I used to spend a lot of time walking on the beach looking for things.
Brown pelicans are kind of like the flying galleons of the seabird world. They glide through the air with a kind of graceful majesty one would not expect from such strange looking birds.
But what brown pelicans are best known for is their unusual predatory behavior.
Unlike any other species of pelican, they dive.
I have no idea what the full effects of the BP oil well disaster are going to be.
All I know is that it won’t be good for just about every living thing that relies upon the Gulf’s waters for survival. In fact, it’s going to very bad for just about everything that relies upon the North Atlantic.
The birds are going to suffer, just as the shrimp, oysters, and fish are.
People’s livelihoods are simply gone.
I don’t know how much this disaster will affect the numbers of brown pelicans living along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, but my guess is that I will see fewer of these birds diving into the surf after fish when I see the Outer Banks again.
And I can’t help but feel a little remorse at the loss.
Why couldn’t we have a different energy policy?
Why couldn’t we be smart about something?
We can blame Obama, Bush and Cheney, BP, and everyone else.
But maybe we should look at ourselves for just a moment.
Why did we allow ourselves to become so dependent upon oil?
Oil feeds and sustains us.
But it also can kill us.
We have made a bargain with the devil, but just as Faust found out, those bargains never turn out as we expected.
Maybe we’ll grow up.
Maybe we’ll expect more.
If we feel sad or angry about this, we should let it inform our actions.
Things must be changed.
But they won’t change unless we do something.
Don’t look for leadership. Leadership can never solve this problem.
This change must come from us.
That’s what’s going to be so hard.
I don’t think we have even scratched the surface of the destruction yet, both economic and environmental.
The ecological damage is likely to be extensive and so is the economic. And yes, we need to push research into alternate systems of energy. But it’s also true that some of those alternate systems aren’t as “pure” as people would have them. Wind turbines off the East Coast? Apparently not in “their” back yard. The ones in Tehachapi CA kill thousands of birds because they are in a major “flyway” — which is where the wind IS. Solar in the desert? Yes, but it also takes up large tracts of land that are prime desert tortoise areas and it uses water that’s in short supply. Electric cars — still need help with the battery. I’ll note that using a overhead power system (ala the old eletric trolley) might work but it does put lots of wires in the streets.
The internal combustion engine replaced the horse. Mostly, no one is keen on returning to a completely biodegradable, replicating self propelled transport like a horse. Do we want to get rid of all synthetic clothes? Back to glass for food storage?
(glass is at least inert if left around as trash). Probably not.
Pretty much the easiest fastest answer is to have fewer people. Fewer people have less demand for oil and other resources.
The BP debacle is a case study of complacency, bad management, bad oversight and failure to think ahead (as in working on better “spill” technology) as well as simple plain bad luck. When dealing with technology, one should always presume that Murphy’s law WILL apply and plan accordingly. But it’s also important to respond with what is going to be best for those affected (humans, wildlife, environment) rather than applying anger and frustration or using a disaster for political purposes.
VR,
Peggy Richter (who hopes the research into polywell fusion might be an answer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
(or see Energy Matter Conversion Corporation or Talk Polywell)
Remember the Eagles’ song “Lyin’ Eyes.”
“Every form of refuge has its price.”
Civilization requires a certain level of pollution and environmental degradation.
But just because it does doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be looking at ways to mitigate some of these damages.
We’ve been here before Scotty. I was just a kid when it happened the first time and even then I was horrified. My Uncle lived down there at the time and the stories he told were never brought to light in the media. Times were different back then. The media was told to keep it quiete by the government… and they did. Today the media does have some merit in making us more aware of such things, but there is still no reminder that this has happened before and that we never learned from our stupidity back then. Read the following excerpt and the striking similarity to what is unfolding now.
“” This newest disaster most closely mirrors that of the Ixtoc I well, lost by Pemex 31 years ago, almost 12,000 feet down in the Gulf’s Bay of Campeche.
The drilling rig Sedco 135-F lost drilling mud circulation. The already abnormally high well pressure allowed oil to fill the drill column, which in turn led to a fire and the sinking of the Sedco platform. The leak was originally believed to be spilling 30,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico; mud [drilling fluid) was pumped into the open well to stabilize the pressure, reducing the flow of oil by a third. The second step, pumping steel and lead balls into the well, reduced the flow by half again. [BP took similar steps to control the current gusher, but unsuccessfully.]
Chemical dispersants were sprayed onto the Ixtoc I oil slick, and over the next nine months many experts were brought in to attempt to cap the well. In the end it was the successful drilling of the relief wells that reduced the oil pressure at the original wellhead. Only then was it successfully capped.
It took nine months to finish that operation, and oil still leaked from the well for another three. Today it is listed as the second-largest accidental oil spill in history, putting close to 1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.
Of course, “nine months” — or that this accident could have been completely avoidable — is an answer that the American public simply does not want to hear.””
Here’s the Source on page 2.
Risk is always present in oil drilling, nuclear energy, even electric power generation. Should a permit have been issued at all? If not, then one has to look at why onshore and shallow water wells are being banned — they are safer technologically, but people don’t want to have all that on their beaches. CA has banned drilling after a spill decades ago — but you used to find tarballs on the beach at Carpenteria and elsewhere — because the oil bubbled up on it’s own. The La Brea Tar pits are a natural oil seep. Having GIVEN the permit, how much oversight? Should it have been given to BP who has more violations than many of their competitors? How much money should the Govt put into spill technology? How much should the govt REQUIRED of the industry? For example, should the Govt require booms on “standby” at any drill site, “just in case?”
What is clear is that we need to have experts other than those of the company, even if we have to hire them from time to time from their competitors. Neither Bush NOR Obama was “minding the store” — it’s fine to have ‘cash for clunkers” but this snafu is the main value of a Federal Government — having a coordinated, swift response that individuals, and even states can’t do — but it’s been clear that bureaucracy has been in play — contradictory and uncoordinted responses. One of the suggestions was letting the river “flush” the oil back to sea — which would have gained several months worth of time to deal with the spill before it got on land (thru August, apparently). There are several research studies on bacteria that eat oil — but these are still “in the lab” — unfunded. And so forth. In the interium, people are focusing on the CEO who goes yachting (bad PR, but he’s not the tech guy and we really don’t NEED him “on site”). The moratorium sounds good, but it’s putting many locals out of work in an already devistated region.
The trick is to keep it simple (stupid) without being oversimplistic. I’d rather Obama be spending time on this than posturing over Arizona.
Peggy Richter.