When a company tells you they’re going “carbon-neutral,” with “carbon offsets,” it’s a signal they’re about to make the world worse. “We cannot offset our way out of climate change,” explains John Oliver.
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“Some Days There Just Ain’t No Fish.” Produced and directed by Miki Cash and Tom Gasek of Wonky Films. Song written by Carl Sigman and Bob Russell; sung by Hoagy Carmichael.
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On April 20, 2010, a well blowout a mile under the Deepwater Horizon exploration ship sent a surge of oil and gas up to the rig, setting it on fire and killing 11 crew members. The well leaked for 87 days, and 3.19 million barrels of crude oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico. BP just totaled up the amount of legal bills, damage settlements, restoration costs, and fines it has paid to hundreds of lawyers, 400 local governments, thousands of claimants and the federal government, and the tab comes to $61.6 billion.
More:
“BP’s big bill for the world’s largest oil spill reaches $61.6 billion,” Steven Mufson, Washington Post
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On Thursday September 4, 2014 U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Barbier, Louisiana born and bred, found BP to be “grossly negligent” in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, attributing 67% of the blame to the company, 30% to contractor Transocean, and 3% to submarine cement subcontractor Halliburton. BP may be liable for as much as $18 billion in fines under the Clean Water Act. BP had tried to claim its two partners in the drilling venture were equally responsible, so the ruling essentially doubles that. BP says it will appeal.
With this fine on top of other Deepwater fines, costs, and damage expenses, BP’s total bill for the disaster could reach $50 billion.
A fifth of China’s farmland is polluted by industrial effluent, sewage, excessive farm chemicals, or mining runoff. There’s carcinogenic cadmium in the rice. Heavy nitrogen fertilizer use is turning the soil acidic and less productive.
Tom Philpott summarizes recent reports:
“6 Mind-Boggling Facts About Farms in China, Tom Philpott, Mother Jones
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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com. Attention young people: The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl Buck.
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Attention space travelers: That new space capsule may smell good, but that aroma isn’t good for you. NASA’s Goddard Laboratory is on the case:
“For some people, the best part about buying a new car is its factory-fresh new car smell, a distinctive aroma created when the chemicals and residual solvents used to manufacture dashboards, car seats, carpeting and other vehicle appointments that outgas and fill the cabin. While the scent may be alluring to some, many researchers believe exposure to these gases isn’t particularly healthy — so unhealthy, in fact, that some recommend that drivers keep their new cars ventilated while driving.
Outgassed solvents, epoxies, lubricants, and other materials aren’t especially wholesome for contamination-sensitive telescope mirrors, thermal-control units, high-voltage electronic boxes, cryogenic instruments, detectors and solar arrays, either. As a result, NASA engineers are always looking for new techniques to prevent these gases from adhering to instrument and spacecraft surfaces and potentially shortening their lives.
Summer’s here, and microbes are cavorting in the waves at beaches across the country. If you like to body-surf with bacteria and paddle through pathogens, the Natural Resources Defense Council has your itinerary ready. It’s their annual Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches.
Call the local visitor’s bureau before you pack the car, though. At a time when great white sharks terrorize bathers on both coasts, some spoil-sport health agencies close down beaches just because some teeny critters might cause stomach flu, skin rashes, pinkeye, respiratory infections, meningitis, and hepatitis. Wimps.
More:
“America’s Dirtiest Beaches,” Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones
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Image (“The Great Wipeout Off Kanagawa, after Hokusai”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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The Environmental Protection Agency is using killer drone aircraft to spy on innocent farmers in America’s Heartland, according to the Daily Caller, Fox News, and Tea Party congressmen. “Send In The Drones: Obama Spies On America” screamed an Investor’s Business Daily editorial.
Just one thing. It isn’t true.
Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R, TN-7) has performed a remarkable scientific feat, eliminating the polluting and climatic effects of carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. She did so at a single stroke by introducing H.R. 97, the “Free Industry Act.”
The act would deny the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to enforce control of those harmful substances by declaring the overwhelming body of scientific evidence to be erroneous. The Republican justification for H.R. 97 is the claim that EPA regulation of the aforesaid substances would be “job-killing.” As Dean Baker puts it, “Republicans call … policies ‘Job Killers’ because the media might ask for evidence if they called them ‘Baby Killers.’”
Contractor Halliburton knew the cement it used to seal the BP Deepwater oil rig was faulty but used it anyway, according to a report released by a federal commision. “Halliburton and BP both had results in March showing that a very similar foam slurry design to the one actually pumped at the Macondo well would be unstable, but neither acted upon that data,” according to investigators.
Thomas Roth, Halliburton’s vice-president of cementing, recently stated that his company’s tests showed the materials had “good stability,” a claim contradicted by BP officials.
Just who is to blame for the disaster?
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