It's worse than we know

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Anthony, you're a nice guy but incredibly naive about business. You think that businesses only get big bc of "regulation" and that use of natural resources will be done "responsibly" without taking into account the inherent GREED that is part and parcel of the profit motive?

But you think THIS is a disaster?? Just wait until global warming catches up with us! The same people who were saying "drill baby, drill" and "human-caused global warming is a hoax" and "population control is a government conspiracy" will be begging... BEGGING.... for someone, anyone, to save them from disaster.

And guess what?? Nobody will be able to. There will be NO savior. The pooch, as they say, will have been screwed. Some disasters are just too big to be fixed, and this is one of them.

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Hello Signy,

The world is gradually rolling towards a bigger share of safe, renewable energy sources. A trundling behemoth, to be sure, but trundling and shuffling slowly in the correct direction.

I have been saying this for nearly a decade, and I'll say it again now. The people who are shouting loudest about global warming are doing themselves and the world a disservice.

The world needs less pollution and more renewable energy. Neither of those things can be accomplished as the result of an argument about the temperature of the planet. Every word spent on talking about the temperature of the planet is a word wasted. Indeed, it's a word misspent and laid at your own feet like sharp tacks.

People like to breathe, they like to eat, and they like to have money. They like to see green things and growing things. They don't like other people hurting them, their families, or their country. The average person is greedy.

These basics of human nature can solve all of the problems involved in global warming. No temperature discussions are required.

I saw a group of people build a house designed to minimize waste and provide all of its own energy needs, and none of them said one word about global warming. That's the road to take.

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I have to comment, and say "right on, Anthony!" :)

Also, every word "wasted" on temperature arguments is also more carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Just sayin'.

We shouldn't make this about climate change; we should make it about growing green and increasing the technology and reaching towards a brighter future.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
People like to breathe, they like to eat, and they like to have money. They like to see green things and growing things. They don't like other people hurting them, their families, or their country. The average person is greedy.

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I've never understood, apart from the money thing, which is an artificial construct...

WHY is ANY of that greedy? It's just... Living. Living doesn't have to be aggressive, or demanding, or make other people suffer.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
Oppyh, of course you're not dumb. You just don't have the facts, that's not about being dumb. If you were serious, please stop that kind of thinking, you don't deserve it!

The oil pocket became oil because of the humongous pressure it's been under for centuries. BP stuck essentially a "straw" in the pocket, which caused the pressure to shoot the oil out. As long as there's no "straw" to capture the shooting oil and put it somewhere, the pressure keeps gushing it out into the water, which of course has a much lower pressure.

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That's the way I understand it. At some point, you bring out enough oil that you'll have to start applying suction and pumping it out, but that's after the pressure is equalized. Ever watch "The Hellfighters" with John Wayne? How they were going around capping oil wells and putting out gushers and fires? It's because that oil is under such immense pressure when it's tapped, so it comes shooting out of the ground.

You can dig a hole and hit a water main, and water definitely WILL shoot up into the air, y'know? :)

And no, I don't think you're dumb; I just think you're not thinking of it in the right terms, or visualizing it correctly.

I grew up in West Texas, so I'm used to seeing the pump-jacks all over the landscape. Those are there to pump out the oil once the pressure falls to a point where the oil isn't just pumping itself out of the ground.

Also, remember Gulf War I, when Saddam knocked the caps off so many wellheads, and just left oil gushing all over the desert and burning so much that it turned the skies black over huge swaths of the landscape? That was oil under pressure, not being pumped out by mechanical means. If it were being pumped out, you could just turn off the pump. Wouldn't that have been sweet?

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Gawd, I hope you're right and it has stopped! That would be a miracle of amazing proportions--and no, we couldn't credit BP if it has stopped, they caused it through their own profit drive and ignoring of warnings in the first place, and I wonder if it's worked why they didn't try it sooner?

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I find that a little bit unfair. If BP has been successful in stopping the flow, all credit goes to them. It doesn't relieve them of responsibility in any way to admit that they were able to stop the flow, if indeed they have done so. Last I saw (last night), they were saying it looked like they'd failed, and it looked like oil was gushing out again. I hope that was wrong, and they have indeed stopped the flow. NOW is the time to pile everything on top of it, not wait around and see if it starts gushing again!



Mike

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions

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Originally posted by pizmobeach:

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

As of this instant, the CNN live feed of the leak is showing clear waters and no leak.

Can anyone verify if this is correct?

--Anthony

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37394541/ns/gulf_oil_spill/

U.S. official: Flow of oil from spill has stopped
But BP says it will be 48 hours before success of 'top kill' will be known

WASHINGTON - The flow of oil from the broken well in the Gulf of Mexico has stopped, the Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen claimed Friday, but BP warned it would be a further 48 hours before it was known whether the "top kill" procedure had been successful.

"They have been able to stop the hydrocarbons from coming up the wellbore," Allen said on ABC's Good Morning America. "I think the real challenge today is going to be sustain the mud on top of the hydrocarbons and reduce the pressure to the point where they could actually put a cement plug in."

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God Bless our friend Cement!

How long before it's safe to eat anything from those waters...

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"Ludicrous as it sounds, someone had to run the studies and find out if building man-made islands was going to have a worse effect on the marshlands than the oil would if it reached shore."

Hello,

I know you are trying to express a risk assessment here, Mike. However, I think this is a risk assessment that can be made in about 3 seconds. Covering the marsh with oil is worse than almost anything. The Fat Man would have been better than this.

But I think you were trying to say that if the oil didn't reach the shore, then man-made islands would have been deleterious to the health of the marshlands. That's reasonable. I'd opine that this is a case where the risk of oil ecologicide was so great that putting up barriers was warranted. If the erection of barriers was blocked, then that's a policy that needs to be changed for the future. Everyone has a right to defend themselves.

I hope we learn from this experience and create better plans for such disasters in the future, with pre-risk assessment and containment resources on ice at all times in case they are needed.

--Anthony


"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad

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Oh, and just for Rappy, so he doesn't think I *always* have to disagree with him:

I'm plenty mad. I'm mad at everybody on this one. I'm mad at BP, Halliburton, TransOcean, the MMS, the federal government, and President Obama himself. Too little was done in preparation for this, too little was done by way of safety and regulation, too little was done by way of inspection and certification, and too little was done by way of reaction.

But I'll be goddamned if I'm going to try to lay the entirety of the disaster at the feet of Obama.

For future reference, let's start figuring out not ONE solution to such cock-ups, but MULTIPLE solutions, all of them multi-pronged. We don't need just a Plan B, we need backups for our backups. When something goes wrong on this magnitude, we don't need to sit around going, "What to do?" - we need to leap into action, one group working on the wellhead to stop the flow, one working on containment, one working on protecting the shoreline, others working on cleanup and animal emergencies, others working on logistics and staging materiel, etc., etc.

As bad as this is, let's not let it be in vain. Let's learn from it, and never forget.

Anyone think we can? We've shown a remarkable ability to forget the lessons of the past; think we'll ever get past that?

Mike

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
"Ludicrous as it sounds, someone had to run the studies and find out if building man-made islands was going to have a worse effect on the marshlands than the oil would if it reached shore."

Hello,

I know you are trying to express a risk assessment here, Mike. However, I think this is a risk assessment that can be made in about 3 seconds. Covering the marsh with oil is worse than almost anything. The Fat Man would have been better than this.

But I think you were trying to say that if the oil didn't reach the shore, then man-made islands would have been deleterious to the health of the marshlands. That's reasonable. I'd opine that this is a case where the risk of oil ecologicide was so great that putting up barriers was warranted. If the erection of barriers was blocked, then that's a policy that needs to be changed for the future. Everyone has a right to defend themselves.

I hope we learn from this experience and create better plans for such disasters in the future, with pre-risk assessment and containment resources on ice at all times in case they are needed.

--Anthony


"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad

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Anthony:

Yes. To all that. :)

We cross-posted; read my post just below yours, and you'll see we're remarkably in agreement.

And I'm with you - if total destruction is the worst-case scenario, anything less would have to rate as a win. It's not a matter of "Do ANYTHING"; it's a matter of "DO EVERYTHING!"

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You know what I just saw that blew my mind? Obama, on the Gulf shore, PICKED UP A TAR BALL!!! Has nobody told him? People are in the hospital for picking up tar IN HAZMAT SUITS! Of course one little tar ball won't put him in the hospital, but it's the height of stupidity...just being there is dangerous enough, breathing in what's floating around, but picking up oil is totally insane!

By the way, MSNBC seems to be backing off what they said earlier, and again, the live feed looks just the same as before. Doesn't mean I'm giving up hope...!

Obama's giving a news conference right now, and from what I hear emanating from the living room, it sounds like he's talking in more concrete terms about PHYSICAL aid from the government. Just for those who say they're doing nothing, it might be worth listening to.


"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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