Deepwater Horizon Keeps On Killing & Drilling

Two Years Ago - Deepwater Horizon

Great addiction takes extraordinary effort, if the addict hopes to recover the ability to refuse to use the crippling drug.

The oil addiction problem for civilization is a great addiction.

The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, which to this day, two years after the explosion shown in the photograph took place, triggered events that are still killing people, and still killing the environment, with the poisonous drug civilization is greatly addicted to.

Today, I will quote from a blog that links to several sources which lay out an ongoing, terrible, and lasting situation.

A situation destructive to our environment, and destructive to our people all along the gulf:

... there are numerous signs that the worst-case scenario may be playing out:

• New York Times: “Gulf Dolphins Exposed to Oil Are Seriously Ill, Agency Says

• MSNBC: Gulf shrimp scarce this season (and see the Herald Tribune‘s report)

• Mother Jones: Eyeless shrimp are being found all over the Gulf

• NYT: Oil Spill Affected Gulf Fish’s Cell Function, Study Finds

• CBS:Expert: BP spill likely cause of sick Gulf fish (and see the Press Register’s report)

• Study confirms oil from Deepwater spill entered food chain

• Pensacola News Journal: “Sick fish” archive

• Agence France Presse: Mystery illnesses plague Louisiana oil spill crews

• MSNBC: Sea turtle deaths up along Gulf, joining dolphin trend

• MSNBC:Exclusive: Submarine Dive Finds Oil, Dead Sea Life at Bottom of Gulf of Mexico

• AP: BP oil spill the culprit for slow death of deep-sea coral, scientists say (and see the Guardian and AFP‘s write ups)

• A recent report also notes that there are flesh-eating bacteria in tar balls of BP oil washing up on Gulf beaches

• And all of that lovely Corexit dispersant sprayed on water, land and air? It inhibits the ability of microbes to break down oil, and allows oil and other chemicals to speed past the normal barriers of human skin. Background here. NYT: Impact of Gulf Spill’s Underwater Dispersants Is Examined Speaking on the chemical ingredients of the dispersants used, “The report finds that “Of the 57 ingredients: 5 chemicals are associated with cancer; 33 are associated with skin irritation from rashes to burns; 33 are linked to eye irritation; 11 are or are suspected of being potential respiratory toxins or irritants; 10 are suspected kidney toxins; 8 are suspected or known to be toxic to aquatic organisms; and 5 are suspected to have a moderate acute toxicity to fish.”

(Washington's Blog). It is an ugly, deadly addiction that requires extraordinary effort to resist, which our government is not taking seriously enough, and an extraordinary addiction that our government is not resisting well at all:

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide - have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region. The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years. In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the 8th joint US-Russia cruise of the East Siberian Arctic seas, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.

(Independent, 12-13-11, emphasis added). Not only that, now methane has been discovered being released from cracks in the arctic ice:

The researchers found significant amounts of methane being released from the ocean into the atmosphere through cracks in the melting sea ice. They said the quantities could be large enough to affect the global climate. Previous observations have pointed to large methane plumes being released from the seabed in the relatively shallow sea off the northern coast of Siberia but the latest findings were made far away from land in the deep, open ocean where the surface is usually capped by ice.

Eric Kort of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said that he and his colleagues were surprised to see methane levels rise so dramatically each time their research aircraft flew over cracks in the sea ice.

"When we flew over completely solid sea ice, we didn't see anything in terms of methane. But when we flew over areas were the sea ice had melted, or where there were cracks in the ice, we saw the methane levels increase," Dr Kort said. "We were surprised to see these enhanced methane levels at these high latitudes. Our observations really point to the ocean surface as the source, which was not what we had expected," he said.

"Other scientists had seen high concentrations of methane in the sea surface but nobody had expected to see it being released into the atmosphere in this way," he added.

(Independent, 4-23-12, emphasis added). Surprises are not very good sometimes, and this is one of those times.

The next post in this series is here.

The Earth Now Has A Toyota Gas Pedal - 2

By now readers have probably forgotten the massive Toyota recall of substantial quantities of their vehicles which had a "runaway gas pedal."

In the first post of this series we discussed that event, but "extrapolated" that phenomenon, comparing it to a runaway global warming induced climate change post.

Subsequent to that, we had a series about the impact that sea rise (more water in oceans = more weight on the Earth's crust in new places) would have on the earth's crust, when weight is redistributed by sea level rise (Is A New Age Of Pressure Upon Us? - 3).

Anyway, here is the text of the first post from this date in 2010:

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Yesterday we linked to the Ecocosmology Blog post about the volcanic eruption which is so prevalent in the news.

If the distinguished scientist quoted in that post is correct (who predicted that if the Eyjafjallajökull ice sheet of Iceland melted down to a certain thinness, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano would erupt) then we have our first "popular" global warming event of the 21st Century.

How does it feel to the global warming deniers among the 7 million travelers, who thought global warming effects were being reserved for your children (ghastly thougThe Earth Now Has A Toyota Gas Pedal ht in itself)?
that
Or those global warming deniers among the business people who are economically endangered because they cannot ship fresh products to Europe via the aircraft that normally carry them?

Or some of you global warming deniers who will hunger again today for your favorite fresh food flown in from somewhere over the flat earth rainbow?

The Eyjafjallajökull eruption is only "popular" in the sense that it is well known to have happened, but it is not popular to acknowledge this event as a confirmation of global warming via of the tests of science.

One main test of a scientific hypothesis is the ability of that hypothesis to predict a future event based upon the assertions within the confines of that hypothesis.

For example, Einstein predicted that a certain star, which in "straight line reality" was actually behind the Sun and (everyone thought) invisible from earth, would actually be visible during an upcoming eclipse of the Sun because space is curved, not "straight line".

When Einstein's prediction was shown to be true, it was considered further evidence in support of his "curved space reality" hypothesis, which helped move Einstein's hypothesis further along toward theory status.

The Eyjafjallajökull prediction by scientist Bill McGuire, over 2.5 years ago, has likewise been shown to be "curved space reality".

His hypothesis indicated that man-made global warming would continue to melt the Eyjafjallajökull ice sheet until a certain thinness was reached, at which time all hell would break loose, in that, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano would erupt.

Senator Inhofe, the earth is not flat, no matter what Beavis & Butthead say!

Scientist Bill McGuire and his fellow scientists know that the ice sheet was like a lid on a boiling pot that would allow the steam, etc. to escape into the air once that lid was removed.

Now Europeans are itching to fly again, so scientist Bill McGuire, along with the mighty roar of Eyjafjallajökull may be ignored.

It is as if recklessness is an obsession which decision makers resist, but don't resist very well.

Ignoring the reality and the risky potentiality for air disasters of the airliner type, Europeans are chomping at the bit to get flying again ... evidently not facing up to the risks to aircraft the fine shards of hard glass (volcanic rock) in the air can mean.

What an exact microcosm for the global warming ideology, environmental policy, and delusions world governments are intoxicated by.

They, like Toyota, will ignore the problem, write a secret internal memo, thinking at first that such policies will make it go away.

They will not recall the earth at first.

But when that denial policy fails, they will placate the populace with propaganda saying they will pass laws which will recall the earth to replace the problem of the runaway accelerator.

When collapses of the global warming kind make it necessary to build an ark for those too big to fail, they will leave the rest of us to a policy of triage ("take your foot off the accelerator and hit something soft").

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Life After People - The Movie - 2

Downtown Ubi Sunt

Once upon a time Dredd Blog did a post that in essence asks "which is more important, the buildings or the people in a city?"

Buildings last longer than people, but when buildings "die" we don't bury them, nor do we put a gravestone at their grave-site, rather, they are "reincarnated."

This type of dynamic infrastructure is a subject relegated to the realm of ubi sunt.

So, on this date in 2009 we wondered, pondered, and contemplated the following:

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I am looking forward to the series that starts on the History Channel Tuesday.

We have been touching upon that theme in articles of the Dredd Blog system for a while.

It is absolutely clear and certain, as things stand now, that humanity will not always inhabit this planet, because a new planet is required.

Life After People in that sense, then, is axiomatic.

However, how it will happen is where the mystery comes into play.

Will we leave for a new home world after having conquered our problems?

That would give one meaning to "Life After People".

Or will we destroy all people here before we develop the futuristic space travel required to move to a new home world?

The latter episode would give an entirely different meaning to "Life After People" wouldn't it?

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Saint Warmonger The Hero

"We're An Empire Now"

Regular readers know that some people don't take it seriously when Dredd Blog discusses the concept of masses of sociopaths or psychopaths.

I have used the term "meme complex", "large group", and even "nation" to describe widespread psychologically impaired behavior, which in an individual would be diagnosed as psychopathic.

Sometimes when the text of a post is undeniable, people will grant a limited acknowledgement that masses of people, or a nation, can become infected with psychosis, then act in concerted, but mad behaviors.

Take for example when we looked at the undeniable words of Karl Rove, mentor to the High Priest In Chief:

''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

(Dumb & Dumber -> Bleak & Bleeker, emphasis added). The people at the helm of the most powerful military on the planet thought they were the center of the universe, ended up killing over a million people, ended up practically destroying the American economy, and embraced something that resembles the third Reich.

That no one could understand what some of those in that regime were saying at times is undeniable, however, it was the Groupspeak mentality of that regime which was most notable:

One professor calls this doublespeak, and has written a book "Why No One Knows What Anyone Is Saying Anymore". He points out:

The Plutocracy Prevails

With doublespeak, banks don't have "bad loans" or "bad debts"; they have "nonperforming assets" or "nonperforming credits" which are "rolled over" or "rescheduled." Corporations never lose money; they just experience "negative cash flow," "deficit enhancement," "net profit revenue deficiencies," or "negative contributions to profits."

(William Lutz, Rutgers University).

(Etiology of Social Dementia). The nation plunges on through the fog of the war on everything, evidently thinking Titanic thoughts of collapsing empire proportions.

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Social Dementia Causes Heated Misunderestimations

The Mythical Red-Blue Amygdala

In the post The Failure of Applied American Epistemology, Dredd Blog pointed out that our educational system is not as much of a problem as our national dementia is.

The essence of that post is that knowledge does us no good at all if we think knowledge is the result of a debate between Dumb and Dumber.

Or that knowledge can result from an argument between Dumbest and competent science.

Never-the-less, that is undoubtedly one of our national characteristics, because we imagine that dishonest political debate, or other forms of intellectually dishonest argument, are the ways of science, or the way to useful "knowledge."

This may be a result of our educational system having been dwarfed by the propaganda system for about a century now.

You may be thinking that I am talking about so called gray areas where valid debate is merited, but that is not the case.

I am talking about not being able to recognize long-settled science, such as global warming induced climate change.

The recent NOAA State of the Climate report is unequivocal on that science, as has been the scientific reality for decades now:

U.S. records warmest March; more than 15,000 warm temperature records broken

First quarter of 2012 also warmest on record; early March tornado outbreak is year's first "billion dollar disaster"

Record and near-record breaking temperatures dominated the eastern two-thirds of the nation and contributed to the warmest March on record for the contiguous United States, a record that dates back to 1895. More than 15,000 warm temperature records were broken during the month.

The average temperature of 51.1°F was 8.6 degrees above the 20^th century average for March and 0.5°F warmer than the previous warmest March in 1910. Of the more than 1,400 months (117+ years) that have passed since the U.S. climate record began, only one month, January 2006, has seen a larger departure from its average temperature than March 2012.

Note: The March 2012 Monthly Climate Report for the United States has several pages of supplemental information and data regarding the unprecedented early 2012 temperatures.
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(State of The Climate, NOAA). The report goes on to point out that every single state in the contiguous U.S. recorded historically high warm temperatures in March.

Nevertheless, there are people, including scientists, who fear that the world will be frozen in an upcoming, ongoing, ice age.

The saying "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not there own facts" comes to mind.

But remember that dementia is a cognitive disease which places either an individual, or a nation, into a vortex of not being able to tell the difference between fact and fiction:

What we see, hear, smell, taste, and experience via other sensory input, goes through our amygdala before it ever reaches the area of our conscious brain (see e.g. The Toxic Bridge To Everywhere, a post with some focus on fear-based damage to the amygdala as one source of social dementia.)

The amygdala can and does sometimes actually become like a PR (public relations) firm within the brain, which "spins" everything to fit our culture's world view, in effect to deceive us, or to render us socially demented (which can be simply defined as "becoming a member of a culture, meme complex, group, or society that is out of touch with reality").

(Etiology of Social Dementia - 5). Dementia is known to be a dangerous condition for individuals, but we seem to think is has no impact on a nation.

Think again.

The following video shows over 15,000 places in the United States that recorded warmest temperatures in history during March 2012.

The next post in this series is here.

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Connect the dots:

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