Gulf Oil Spill & Continuous Outpour

[reddragon]

yes, it tipped the balance between the old oil money and new green industry investors.

[reddragon]

..

Edited May 28, 2010 by reddragon

[sasblamthanb]

 

 

 

This should be viral 'news' NOW!

instead of on 60 minutes 2 years from now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! plus 3 more taoist !!!'s

Edited May 28, 2010 by sasblamthanb

[topflight]

I don't understand why they will not send in supertankers to pump the escaped oil up. The ex-honcho of Shell said that is what they did with a huge undocumented spill and it worked very well; pump it up, take it back to be processed and the water separated. Is BP just too damn cheap?

 

What would be even more effective is to have a vessel with the appropriate submersible pumps and containment structures to pump up from 1 mile deep into an onboard oil and water separator. The oil goes into the supertanker and the water goes back in the ocean. Multiple vessels like this could be held in reserve in case this ever happens again.

[Ya Mu]

What would be even more effective is to have a vessel with the appropriate submersible pumps and containment structures to pump up from 1 mile deep into an onboard oil and water separator. The oil goes into the supertanker and the water goes back in the ocean. Multiple vessels like this could be held in reserve in case this ever happens again.

++++

 

edit: Why do you think they have not implemented such as this?

Edited May 28, 2010 by Ya Mu

[Ya Mu]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052802346.html[url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052802346.html][/url]

Looks like this thing is far worse than many realized.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Ya Mu

[vsaluki]

One of the spiritual philosophers that I respect and admire is Alan Watts. I think it was in the late 60s or early 70s that he declared that mankind would not survive beyond the year 2000. I still read Watts. But I skip over the parts where he gets his eco/political side into an uproar.

 

When I hear people mixing spirituality with ecological alarmism and politics I simply yawn. The world's oceans naturally leek more oil than the BP well in the Gulf. They always have. The BP well incident will come and it will go and nothing will change. Accidents will never stop unless activity stops. Try to live your own life without accidents. You can't unless you live in a straight jacket and a padded cell. These days an accident happens anywhere in the world and everyone is screaming that we have to stop everything and change our evil ways. Nonsense. People seem to think that we need to stop "the big greedy companies" before they destroy us. But we live longer than every before. The romanticized "natural" life styles that some people aspire to were a life style where most people didn't make it to 40. And you can still have that lifestyle if you actually want it. There is nothing to get excited about here unless you love to wallow in disasters and warn of Armageddon. Eventually the Gulf well will be shut down. Then we will implement a system to check out all remote well cut off valves. For example, a government inspector will go to every well once a month and activate the remote shutoff valve. If it works, the well continues operation. If it doesn't it gets shut down until the problem is fixed. Why is it that people so love to tear their hair out about the destruction of mankind. First of all, the very idea is a big yawn. Second of all, the idea is also a big "so what". Why must mankind survive for eternity; or even past next week for that matter? Species have come and gone on the face of the earth for most of it's 4.5 billion years. Life resumed after the earth turned into a giant snowball, after it was hit by comets, after it was hot enough for aligators to live near the north pole. Big changes are the norm. The Sahara desert has a cycle of going green and going barren that is 20 thousand years long. Just live life and stop trying to demonstrate that you are a holier defender of mother nature than the next guy. The tragedy of life is not in the bad things that happen. The tragedy is to waste life being obsessed with worrying about what has and will happen. The tragedy is to divide life into "those people" who are greedy industrialists and "us people" who are spiritual defenders of Gaia. Such narrow minded models of mankind have never accompished anything.

[vsaluki]

I'm not sure their are depletion date estimates for specific resources; too many variables, no? But you're right; when the Himalayan glaciers disappear, it will get ugly.

 

The IPCC originally declared that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Someone finally checked out the references for that claim and found that there were none. Further checking revealed that a Russian scientist, who was never actually referenced, had come up with a figure of 2350 for the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers. The IPCC admitted their error. They were only off by 315 years. Furthermore, the streams that are fed by the glaciers only get about 5% of their water from the Glaciers. The rest is snowmelt and rain run off. Imagine if the glaciers were not shrinking. Then the water that they collected and stored each year would be equal to the water that they lost in break off and run off. In other words, stable glaciers would have a net contribution to downstream water of zero. As Mark Twain said, "The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated." Same applies to the earth and mankind. Relax!

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

 

 

When I hear people mixing spirituality with ecological alarmism and politics I simply yawn. The world's oceans naturally leek more oil than the BP well in the Gulf. They always have. The BP well incident will come and it will go and nothing will change. Accidents will never stop unless activity stops. Try to live your own life without accidents. You can't unless you live in a straight jacket and a padded cell. These days an accident happens anywhere in the world and everyone is screaming that we have to stop everything and change our evil ways. Nonsense. People seem to think that we need to stop "the big greedy companies" before they destroy us. But we live longer than every before. The romanticized "natural" life styles that some people aspire to were a life style where most people didn't make it to 40. And you can still have that lifestyle if you actually want it. There is nothing to get excited about here unless you love to wallow in disasters and warn of Armageddon. Eventually the Gulf well will be shut down. Then we will implement a system to check out all remote well cut off valves. For example, a government inspector will go to every well once a month and activate the remote shutoff valve. If it works, the well continues operation. If it doesn't it gets shut down until the problem is fixed. Why is it that people so love to tear their hair out about the destruction of mankind. First of all, the very idea is a big yawn. Second of all, the idea is also a big "so what". Why must mankind survive for eternity; or even past next week for that matter? Species have come and gone on the face of the earth for most of it's 4.5 billion years. Life resumed after the earth turned into a giant snowball, after it was hit by comets, after it was hot enough for aligators to live near the north pole. Big changes are the norm. The Sahara desert has a cycle of going green and going barren that is 20 thousand years long. Just live life and stop trying to demonstrate that you are a holier defender of mother nature than the next guy. The tragedy of life is not in the bad things that happen. The tragedy is to waste life being obsessed with worrying about what has and will happen. The tragedy is to divide life into "those people" who are greedy industrialists and "us people" who are spiritual defenders of Gaia. Such narrow minded models of mankind have never accompished anything.

 

Speaking of citations, can you supply citations for your statement that "The world's oceans naturally leek [sic] more oil than the BP well in the Gulf"? Also, characterizing the BP disaster as just and "accident" is totally wack-o. This accident is the result of criminal negligence. When the stakes of poor outcome are so high, there are safeguards (i.e., regulations) that exist for very good reason. Would you want a surgeon impaired on drugs or improperly trained doing your brain or heart surgery? What about an inexperienced or drunk pilot flying you over the ocean?

According to your logic, "accidents happen." So therefore, we shouldn't look to see if there was negligence or a correctable cause involved. You seem to shrug it all off as though there's nothing more to be done.

 

Also, your "so what?, a big yawn" approach to the end of mankind is kind of stupid. Yes, from an impersonal perspective separated by lots of time, sure, life will go on. But there will be immense pain and suffering for billions of Earth's beings being part of a massive die-off. You seem to shrug this off as if it doesn't concern you. Well, if this comes to pass, then everything in your life is just about over, including spiritual cultivation. It will then be time to reap what you have sown in your years of cultivation in having equanimity as immense suffering, trauma, disease and death wreaks ultimate annihilation on the flora and fauna of the earth.

Edited May 29, 2010 by TheSongsofDistantEarth

[idquest]

The Sahara desert has a cycle of going green and going barren that is 20 thousand years long.

I'd agree with you if people didn't change the landscape. But they do. African people keep cutting trees and burning out grass the same way and in increasing numbers (as the population explodes). All that changes the environmnet beyond what Nature would do by its own. THe whole Europe was just forest just 2000 years ago, now it is barren agricultural land. Do you remember what Aral sea is? Probably not as it no longer exists because the rivers that feeded it were turned to agricultural needs.

 

The humankind affects the natural cycles and turns the whole planet in a barren desert. Relax?

[vsaluki]

Speaking of citations, can you supply citations for your statement that "The world's oceans naturally leek [sic] more oil than the BP well in the Gulf"?

 

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/cleaning-up-the-environment-one-more-reason-to-develop-the-outer-continental-shelf/

 

Check the pie chart about half way down the article.

 

http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=57272

 

Also, characterizing the BP disaster as just and "accident" is totally wack-o. This accident is the result of criminal negligence.

 

Is that your opinion, or has there been a trial and a verdict.

 

When the stakes of poor outcome are so high, there are safeguards (i.e., regulations) that exist for very good reason.

 

Yes, and as I discussed, there will be more safeguards after this.

 

Would you want a surgeon impaired on drugs or improperly trained doing your brain or heart surgery?

 

No, and despite the fact that surgeons are very highly trained and despite the fact that they work to all kinds of regulations, they still screw up surgeries from time to time. But I wouldn't recommend that we stop doing surgery, or that surgeons are greedy evil people, or that we cover them with so much paperwork and regulation that they will stop working. I understand that most of the things that we use in our lives can have bad outcomes from time to time. I just don't go alarmist about it.

 

According to your logic, "accidents happen." So therefore, we shouldn't look to see if there was negligence or a correctable cause involved.

 

No, I never said that. What I said was that we shouldn't bitch and moan and go off in alarmist hysterics.

 

Also, your "so what?, a big yawn" approach to the end of mankind is kind of stupid. Yes, from an impersonal perspective separated by lots of time, sure, life will go on. But there will be immense pain and suffering for billions of Earth's beings being part of a massive die-off.

 

Yes, the predictions of the demise of man have been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years. But we just seem to live longer and longer. If lifespan is related to pain and suffering, then we seem to be having less and less of it since we are living longer and longer.

 

Of course there have been huge die offs that have happened through the entire history of the earth. They were happening long before there was mankind. Maybe you should scold mother nature for her complete lack of compassion for living things. Of course if pain and suffering is your real concern, then you should be grateful for all that mankind has built to insulate himself from the pain and suffering that nature would inflict on him. Our nice homes insulate us from the pain of cold and the pain of heat. And those greedy evil people from BP make it possible to avoid much of that kind of pain and suffering.

 

You seem to shrug this off as if it doesn't concern you.

 

Certainly I shrug off the kind of irrational alarmism that I see here. And I also understand that most species come and go. If, as individuals, we die tomorrow or if we die in a hundred years, it will involve pain and suffering. If as a species we die off in 500 years or in 5 million years or when our sun dies, it makes no difference unless you believe that there is some ultimate goal that must be achieved by mankind. If you do, I would like to know what it is. Or maybe you believe that spiritual being can only manifest as the naked ape.

 

Well, if this comes to pass, then everything in your life is just about over, including spiritual cultivation. It will then be time to reap what you have sown in your years of cultivation in having equanimity as immense suffering, trauma, disease and death wreaks ultimate annihilation on the flora and fauna of the earth.

 

First of all, what immense suffering, trauma, disease and death? Every indication is that we are going in exactly the opposite direction. Certainly a few oil spills are not going to bring about anything that even remotely resembles your description.

 

Second of all, if everything in my life is over, then so be it. I don't think of my life as limited to a bag of skin, bones and muscle walking the earth. I don't think of "spiritual cultivation" as a goal that I need a long life to achieve. In fact, I believe that all creation is sourced from a creator (Self, God, Tao, Whatever) in every second that it exists. And that process isn't going to interrupted by an oil spill in the Gulf - which is also sourced from that creator.

 

Regarding your comment about reaping what I have sown because I have equanimity while there is suffering, I think you would have to apply that same accusation to Lao Tse, Chung Tzu, and most spiritual sages since there has always been suffering and since they were always striving for equanimity. Regarding the reaping and sowing part, do you think that someone or something will punish me for my equanimity. Who or what would that be?

[Encephalon]

One of the spiritual philosophers that I respect and admire is Alan Watts. I think it was in the late 60s or early 70s that he declared that mankind would not survive beyond the year 2000. I still read Watts. But I skip over the parts where he gets his eco/political side into an uproar.

 

Yep. The practice of picking and choosing specific passages from the works of great philosophers has a rich history. Reconciling seemingly disparate elements of a person's teachings without jettisoning essential points is another matter entirely.

 

When I hear people mixing spirituality with ecological alarmism and politics I simply yawn. The world's oceans naturally leek more oil than the BP well in the Gulf. They always have.

 

That's true. Any oceanography or Earth Science class at your local junior college can make that clear. Since this is your area of expertise, you'll also note that the operative term "seepage" doesn't apply here, since seepage happens throughout the world's ocean floor, not in one spot and not at psi's that are indicated. Seeping oil that doesn't become digested by ocean chemistry becomes part of the sedimentary layer; it doesn't wash up onto a continent's wetlands. We are constantly bombarded by background radiation too, but a piece of plutonium the size of a pin head will still kill you if you drive past it on a motorcycle at 45mph.

 

For chrissakes, if you're old enough to remember Watt's points from 40 years ago then you should have gained enough wisdom by now to recognize the stupidity of this comparison.

 

The BP well incident will come and it will go and nothing will change. Accidents will never stop unless activity stops. Try to live your own life without accidents. You can't unless you live in a straight jacket and a padded cell. These days an accident happens anywhere in the world and everyone is screaming that we have to stop everything and change our evil ways.

 

It's obvious where you're getting your talking points - from the same mainstream noise machine that's been busy for weeks trying to frame this whole incident as an "accident" rather than a fairly predictable outcome of 3 decades of deregulation and collusion between the oil industry and the federal agencies charged with regulating them in the first place. No sensible person I hear is suggesting that all industrial processes be abandoned to avoid "accidents." People are demanding that safeguards be thoroughly enforced.

 

Nonsense. People seem to think that we need to stop "the big greedy companies" before they destroy us. But we live longer than every before. The romanticized "natural" life styles that some people aspire to were a life style where most people didn't make it to 40.

 

These are false associations. The existence of corporate greed doesn't require a great deal of evidence, unless you happen to be so closely identified with corporate interests that you recognize them as your own, but associating this argument with an increase in human life span is just sloppy. The human life span has increased for those lucky enough to have access to modern medicine. For the 50 percent of the world's population that lives on $2/day or less, it's irrelevant.

 

 

And you can still have that lifestyle if you actually want it. There is nothing to get excited about here unless you love to wallow in disasters and warn of Armageddon. Eventually the Gulf well will be shut down. Then we will implement a system to check out all remote well cut off valves. For example, a government inspector will go to every well once a month and activate the remote shutoff valve. If it works, the well continues operation. If it doesn't it gets shut down until the problem is fixed. Why is it that people so love to tear their hair out about the destruction of mankind. First of all, the very idea is a big yawn. Second of all, the idea is also a big "so what". Why must mankind survive for eternity; or even past next week for that matter? Species have come and gone on the face of the earth for most of it's 4.5 billion years. Life resumed after the earth turned into a giant snowball, after it was hit by comets, after it was hot enough for aligators to live near the north pole. Big changes are the norm. The Sahara desert has a cycle of going green and going barren that is 20 thousand years long. Just live life and stop trying to demonstrate that you are a holier defender of mother nature than the next guy. The tragedy of life is not in the bad things that happen. The tragedy is to waste life being obsessed with worrying about what has and will happen. The tragedy is to divide life into "those people" who are greedy industrialists and "us people" who are spiritual defenders of Gaia. Such narrow minded models of mankind have never accompished anything.

 

I think I'd rather take a stab at explicating Sarah Palin's twitterspeak than wade through this. I'd be willing to bet you wouldn't be characterizing this event with such rarefied air if you found yourself one of the millions of Gulf residents whose lives will be irreparably harmed by corporate malfeasance. And don't feed this bullshit about what has or has not been proven in a court of law; the trial date is months away from even being scheduled. You don't have to be a trial lawyer or a history major to grasp the record of corporate crime.

 

I can understand the steady drumbeat of right-wing apologia winding its way into the mainstream. What I can't understand is how this sentiment finds its way into a Taoist forum. If Taoism possesses any singular axiom it is the affirmation of an ecological reality in which the entire web of life is revered, cared for, participated in, and grieved over in instances of deep and unnecessary wounding. Failure to register any empathy for this crisis, for the loss of human and non-human life, is an absolute failure of the imagination, in my opinion. How some can willfully choose instead to participate in this ongoing whitewash is a subject for social scientists.

[idquest]

I think I'd rather take a stab at explicating Sarah Palin's twitterspeak than wade through this. I'd be willing to bet you wouldn't be characterizing this event with such rarefied air if you found yourself one of the millions of Gulf residents whose lives will be irreparably harmed by corporate malfeasance. And don't feed this bullshit about what has or has not been proven in a court of law; the trial date is months away from even being scheduled. You don't have to be a trial lawyer or a history major to grasp the record of corporate crime.

 

I can understand the steady drumbeat of right-wing apologia winding its way into the mainstream. What I can't understand is how this sentiment finds its way into a Taoist forum. If Taoism possesses any singular axiom it is the affirmation of an ecological reality in which the entire web of life is revered, cared for, participated in, and grieved over in instances of deep and unnecessary wounding. Failure to register any empathy for this crisis, for the loss of human and non-human life, is an absolute failure of the imagination, in my opinion. How some can willfully choose instead to participate in this ongoing whitewash is a subject for social scientists.

+1

[Ya Mu]

I think I'd rather take a stab at explicating Sarah Palin's twitterspeak than wade through this. I'd be willing to bet you wouldn't be characterizing this event with such rarefied air if you found yourself one of the millions of Gulf residents whose lives will be irreparably harmed by corporate malfeasance. And don't feed this bullshit about what has or has not been proven in a court of law; the trial date is months away from even being scheduled. You don't have to be a trial lawyer or a history major to grasp the record of corporate crime.

 

I can understand the steady drumbeat of right-wing apologia winding its way into the mainstream. What I can't understand is how this sentiment finds its way into a Taoist forum. If Taoism possesses any singular axiom it is the affirmation of an ecological reality in which the entire web of life is revered, cared for, participated in, and grieved over in instances of deep and unnecessary wounding. Failure to register any empathy for this crisis, for the loss of human and non-human life, is an absolute failure of the imagination, in my opinion. How some can willfully choose instead to participate in this ongoing whitewash is a subject for social scientists.

Well said.

 

edit: "top kill" didn't work either. This will effect the world, not just the region.

Edited May 30, 2010 by Ya Mu

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Bravo, Blasto.

[de_paradise]

Again, Blasto. Thanks for taking the time to deal with that guy. The seemingly "live and let live" arguement of vsaluki is fine, wonderful except that it cloaks the status quo of out of control human greed. As top feeders of the food chain, and the power of reason and foresight, we have the responsibility as care takers of earth, moderating ourselves, otherwise we are merely profligating sewer rats, a virus that blindly seeks to eat its host. Accidents do happen, yes, but they CANNOT happen in such important ways.

 

Also this disaster shows again like Katrina the selfishness, mistrust, dissent and lack of cooperation built into the present degraded American value system. It is extremely foreboding for any future big catastrophe (not just an unplugged hole, but a big disaster)

[topflight]

++++

 

edit: Why do you think they have not implemented such as this?

 

This approach would still let some portion of the oil out. Maybe they were trying the approaches they thought would fully contain the flow first. Even though it has happened in the past in shallower water, it is very obvious that no one had prepared for this worst case scenario in deep water.

[idquest]

Worst case scenario - oil gushing out till Christmas:

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aPfFTgqayIKY

 

And they keep drilling elsewhere aren't they?

[Ya Mu]

Oil Nears Florida as Effort to Contain Well Hits Snag

It just doesn't stop...

[sifusufi]

Oil Nears Florida as Effort to Contain Well Hits Snag

It just doesn't stop...

 

 

We just signed up 2 days ago...

 

http://www.savethemanatee.org/

 

...at the urging of our 7 yo twins!

 

Peace,

Robert

[ralis]

Informative article by a petroleum engineer.

 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8468998

 

 

ralis

[reddragon]

BP is mostly undisclosed foreign interest investors and the rest U.S. investors

including the Bush Family and Binladens. Intentionally killing that rig right before

the busiest gas consumption time (summer) in the worst economic period..

 

BP recently claimed a current loss of 50 billion. This will jack gas prices through the roof of course, but imagine the loss the have projected after another 4 months...????

 

Gold prices would sky rocket next and then food commodities.

 

It looks to me like they are making one last attempt at funneling the rest of the wealth

of AMERICA in to 'World Bank'

 

My question is why kill the oceans?

 

I remember Bush bought a "RETIREMENT PROPERTY" with a huge fresh water supply.

 

and with the shift to a green industry the old oil money families do stand to lose

 

very much

 

It seems insanity to kill the oceans.

 

My take on this is BUSH and his boys committed sabotage

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

This thing is a Biblical event that looks like it has killed the Gulf of Mexico, and we won't see it return to normal during our lifetimes. An emblematic catastrophe that further exposes the Corporate Culture that is shamelessly raping our resources and people all the while telling us how 'Green and Environmentally Conscious' they are. When will the people wake up and regulate our out of control business mentality that supposedly trickles the wealth downhill to all?

Edited June 3, 2010 by TheSongsofDistantEarth

[reddragon]

The Gulf and it's tributary water currents are pathways for many ocean life.

 

I ocean is already critically unstable with many dead areas where no life can grow.

 

I say kill George Bush, the Binladdens and every person on the take in this event.

 

The damage they have caused is a great detriment to every single living being

 

on this earth.

 

It's not just the lives of rig workers murdered for greed, but a very long reaching

 

effect that will in the long run end many lives from illness and in the short run

 

destroy the lives of billions in the sea. I read where BP announced the last attempt

 

increased the amount of oil pouring out.

 

BP is facing investigation by three state attorneys, put your good intent with them.

 

If people don't get mad, nothing will be done..

 

our collective conscience rules this game from above and we all bought the program

 

"what can one person do?" Bull Shit! those bastards in charge have the least

 

internal potential and no conscience in them at all. Feel your conscience. There is

 

no more time to wait in idle. Speak to everyone you meet about your conscience on

 

these matters of great concern. VOICE EVERY SINGLE THOUGHT YOU HAVE.

 

This is where movements begin! The People of earth are unstoppable when we

 

join together in conscience

[Ya Mu]

This thing is a Biblical event that looks like it has killed the Gulf of Mexico, and we won't see it return to normal during our lifetimes. An emblematic catastrophe that further exposes the Corporate Culture that is shamelessly raping our resources and people all the while telling us how 'Green and Environmentally Conscious' they are. When will the people wake up and regulate our out of control business mentality that supposedly trickles the wealth downhill to all?

Yes, I have had a very bad feeling about this. And the fact of them dumping more toxins in to "disperse" the oil was probably the single most stupid as well as atrocious thing done. I still don't think most people understand the enormous far reaching implications of this event.

I agree, it IS a matter of all of us waking up.