Forgive me, and allow this old man a cynical chortle and cackle from the depths of his armchair at this story from abcnews via Drudge:
For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there's one problem -- they're having trouble finding it. (My emphasis.)
'It would take a heart of stone not to laugh' - well you try and keep a straight face:
Even the federal government admits that locating the oil has become a problem. "It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find," said National Incident Cmdr. Thad Allen. [...] The numbers don't lie: two weeks ago, skimmers picked up about 25,000 barrels of oily water. Last Thursday, they gathered just 200 barrels.
Now that's enough, please compose yourselves, there are people out there, like little Georgie Monbiot, who think the world is about to end and its cruel to remind them that whatever we do to our environment, 'Mother Nature' has the truly gargantuan 'big battalions' on her side and most of what we do is a mere pinprick:
Still, it doesn't mean that all the oil that gushed for weeks is gone. Thousands of small oil patches remain below the surface, but experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment.
"[It's] mother nature doing her job," said Ed Overton, a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University.
Good man, that Prof. Overton, give him a job at East Anglia University, they could do with some scientific talent!
I'm not surprised - previous episodes of the End of the World by Oil Spill have worked out bearably. But I particularly lenjoyed the argument that flourished for weeks, that there was a veritable lake of spilled oil lurking in the deeps just waiting to emerge. Yet no-one seemed even to attempt to explain how a less-dense-than-water oil was capable of such a feat- either the lurking or the sudden emergence. When hysteria fails at the test of physics known since Archimedes or earlier, I guffaw.
I have to add that this whole schemozzle - the whipped-up, ignorant, xenophobic hysteria and the godawful incompetence of the Federal government - has lowered my esteem for the USA considerably. You can't blame this on an individual like W - this is looking systemic.
Posted by: dearieme | Tuesday, 27 July 2010 at 10:14
Hmmn! As so often, 'DM', you jog me into consideration of ancillary points of great interest. The intellectual (in the best sense of that poor gang-banged word) and moral level of politicians in both Washington and Westminster seems to have sunk into the mire. Is this a modern phenomenon? Were they 'bigger and better' men in the Edwardian period? Or was that crafty little Welsh windbag, Lloyd George, or the equally slippery Asquith, just as typical of their age as ours? I simply don't know.
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 27 July 2010 at 10:33
If they're wondering where the oil is - perhaps they should be looking toward where Louisiana tow-boats go. ("Tow-boat" in the US does not necessarily mean such a boat 'tows' but rather 'pushes').
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100727/ap_on_re_us/us_oil_well_accident
I do wonder if such a fuss will be kicked up since this appears to be the result of one of Louisiana's own?
Posted by: JK | Tuesday, 27 July 2010 at 20:13
Well, Drudge picked it up:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38429966/ns/us_news-environment/
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 27 July 2010 at 21:18
I've been waiting for a place to mention this. But you mentioned East Anglia, so it's only a little off topic. From Paul Krugman:
"You’ve probably heard about the accusations leveled against climate researchers–allegations of fabricated data, the supposedly damning e-mail messages of “Climategate,” and so on. What you may not have heard, because it has received much less publicity, is that every one of these supposed scandals was eventually unmasked as a fraud concocted by opponents of climate action, then bought into by many in the news media."
Where does he get stuff like that?
Posted by: Dom | Wednesday, 28 July 2010 at 19:57
Not sure, Dom, but I can't help wondering what he smokes!
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 28 July 2010 at 21:09