The fire is out on the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon. But since the rig sank last Thursday, Coast Guard officials believe about 13,000 gallons (7,400 bbl) of crude oil per day is coming out of the exploratory hole drilled by the rig, about
41 miles offshore from Plaquemines Parish, LA. "An early suggestion that damage would be minimal because the fire was consuming most of the fuel 'does have the potential to change,' BP official David Rainey told the
New York Times."
[more inside]
posted by toodleydoodley
on Apr 26, 2010 -
99 comments
Pond scum saves the planet? In the beginning, there were algae, but there was no oil. Then, from algae came oil. Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting. In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae. ^ Power your ride with pond scum. In some
iterations you don't even need l
ight. (we have talked about this
before and the fact that CO2 powers the algae production is not insignificant) More
details here.
posted by caddis
on Apr 17, 2008 -
28 comments
"The vast tar sands of Alberta in Canada hold oil reserves six times the size of Saudi Arabia's. But this 'black gold' is proving a mixed blessing for the frontier town of Fort McMurray, fuelling both prosperity and misery. As the social and environmental toll mounts, Aida Edemariam reports on the dark side of a boom town" -
Mud, Sweat and Tears.
posted by chunking express
on Oct 31, 2007 -
45 comments
Last Chance. "It took the Mississippi River 6,000 years to build the Louisiana coast. It took man (and natural disasters) 75 years to destroy it. Experts agree we have 10 years to act before the problem is too big to solve."
[Via First Draft.]
posted by homunculus
on Mar 5, 2007 -
19 comments
the new urban jungle . . . is a growing movement led by cities like
San Francisco,
New York, and
Leiden to restore active and vibrant natural systems in urban areas. Far from the eden-like depictions of nature of yesteryear, i.e.
the garden of earthly delights (nonetheless, still attracting some dynamic
new christian converts), the movement has morphed into today's backyard and grassroots environmental movement which is more and more a picture of hybridity, compromise, mixed-use, and ultimately, taking nature out of the walled islands of zoos, aquaria, national parks and other thick-walled institutions and offering a different kind of everyday
"unmediated" community experience with the new
urban wilderness.
VIDEO LINK
posted by huckhound
on Jul 6, 2006 -
1 comment
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's 19 million acres comprise one of the last places on earth where an intact expanse of arctic and sub arctic lands remains protected. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge can't make even a small dent in meeting America's energy needs. U.S. Geological Survey scientists estimate that there is very likely only enough oil to supply America's needs for six months. And oil companies admit that, even that, won't be available for at least 10 years.
An irreplaceable natural treasure, the Arctic Refuge is home to caribou, polar bears, grizzly bears, wolves, golden eagles, snow geese and more. Millions of other birds use the Arctic Refuge to nest and as a critical staging area on their migratory journeys.
The Arctic Refuge supports more than wildlife. For a thousand generations, the Gwich'in people of Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada have depended on it and lived in harmony with it. To them, the Arctic Coastal Plain is sacred ground.
Yet where God
sees life,
Republicans see
black profit by adding
Alaskan drilling to
upcoming legislation.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket
on Mar 15, 2005 -
91 comments
Pederasts of the
mind: Of
kids, lies and Oil. The American Petroleum Institute
partners (in 2004)
with The
National Science Teacher's
Association (NSTA) and
Scholastic
(see: Scholastic's
creedo) to
provide K-12 lesson plans, on energy and oil, which resemble the
API's own "Teacher Lesson
Plans" and snappy
flash presentations such as
Progress
Through Petroleum! which are bundled with
fun stuff and
cool facts. The NSTA/API lessons teach all about energy and oil except the
global environmental impacts. Didactic bonus from
NSTA's oil-friendly curriculum :
a surrealistic gallery of oil industry
imagery for kids to download.
Recent glacial melt speedup in
Greenland and
Antarctica shocks researchers, while the Pentagon games
scenarios of
Abrupt
Climate Change : Don't worry, says the DOE's
Energy Ant - oil's
good, like cows,
m'kay
? . Extra credit : Play the
Oil and natural Gas
Crossword Puzzle, or the "Industry Lesson Plan Game" (that, and more, inside)
posted by troutfishing
on Oct 5, 2004 -
21 comments
Greenfleet is an Australian environmental organisation who aim to help citizens offset their own greenhouse gas emmissions. Their
Tree Totaller (Australian-based, but I'm sure conversions are easy) works out how many trees you need to offset your annual emmissions, based on private car, home energy use and flights. It's a very neat little flash-app, and at the end it lets you chose to "subscribe" to Greenfleet so they'll plant the necessary number of trees for you. I owe 44 trees, for only AU$103 a year.
posted by Jimbob
on Jun 4, 2004 -
7 comments
mother earth fights back "Global warming, which most climate experts blame mainly on large-scale burning of oil and other fossil fuels, is interfering with efforts in Alaska to discover yet more oil."
via dangerousmeta and " It’s so hot
windshields are shattering or falling out, dogs are burning their paws on the pavement, and candles are melting indoors."
- are the naysayers ready to get on board? and start acting like
good global citizens?
posted by specialk420
on Jul 30, 2003 -
24 comments
Canadian Prime Minister surprises with pledge to put Kyoto accord to Parliament. Until now, with resistance from the oil-rich western provinces, Canada has been luke-warm on Kyoto. PM Jean Chretien surprised all of us (a pleasant surprise, for many) by making the announcement today at the Summit in South Africa. The PM recently announced that he'll be leaving office in 18 months - leaving him with a lot of power and little accountability - possibly working on his own legacy rather than for the good of his country. So far so good.
posted by stevengarrity
on Sep 2, 2002 -
15 comments
"The myth of oil prosperity runs wide and deep". "Petroleum-led development strategies have delivered nation after nation into a spiral of debt and dependency. And yet, governments, corporations, and international financial institutions continue to reinvest in the growing, global oil economy". Consider
Nigeria, the point of focus of attention of environmentalists, human rights activists and fair trade advocates around the world. With its
annual debt service obligation at over $4 bn, more than a third of its export income, Nigeria has in recent years pegged its annual budget allocation for actual debt servicing at $2 bn. Lower export earnings forced it to cut this to $1.5 bn in the 1999 budget. Who's to blame? Theftocracies, the IMF, World Bank, oil companies, foreign governments? Since it is clear that debt restructuring harms more than helps, will there be more
debt relief, and finally, who ends up paying the banks when loans are written off?
posted by Mack Twain
on Aug 13, 2002 -
6 comments
"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly
partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources.
We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing":
"We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'"
Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
posted by holgate
on Apr 14, 2001 -
7 comments
