Now there is a saying that if a butterfly flaps its wings here
thousands of miles away there might be tsunami.
This is only mostly bullshit.
Tsunamis as everyone knows are caused by ritualized dancing of bears… or
by a displacement of water, specifically a vertical displacement. But what is real, is the interconnectedness
of our environment. Some things have
much more direct impact on our well being than others, usually anything related
to our food and food safety we take reasonably seriously. However there are lot of critical species
that affect everything in their microcosm and we don’t feel those effects until
it is often too late.
It has been two years since the enormous BP spill and their
consistent rape our of coastline during the emergency. It is an understatement to say that things
went poorly. Sadly this country will continue
to allow situations to arise where we place our waters in danger. The oil companies are not nice people and
they will do as they please until there is more federal regulation in
place. If that means big oil goes elsewhere
so be it, at least we won’t have to deal with another spill on our shores
(except of course for drunk sea captains).
I can only hope we start heavily investing in hydrogen cells and
reusable energy in the next twenty years.
Oil can be much safer but safety measures cut into profit. And yes, profit is good. Every company deserves to have a good revenue
stream but not at the expense of our planet, people’s lives and the economy as
a whole.
The ‘little’ spill we had in Alaska took about four years to chart
and see some of ill affects to that ecosystem.
We are already seeing the affects to the sea life in the gulf. Not only is that dangerous for our food its
robbing money from all the fisherman as well as tourism in the area. New Orleans which has had reasonably rough
time for the past few years has an extremely important estuary where we catch a
large portion of the seafood for the whole of continental states. Oil getting in there ruins the plant life
which means fishies can’t lay eggs there or hide there or feed there or various
other fishy things. And no fishies means
no other predators and other fishies.
Plus, oh, yeah, they’ve been spotting shrimp with no eyes. That’s probably a good thing right? Well, not so much. And yes I eat shrimp so I’m okay with them
never seeing my face and seeking revenge but the whole mutation thing should be
superpowers or you know a better colon not missing your damn eyes because of
pollutants. This never would have
happened if they hadn’t cancelled Captain Planet. I blame Ma-Ti and his stupid heart
power. No one likes you or your monkey.
Fortunately its only a few of those shrimp that are deformed…
“at least 50 per cent of the shrimp caught in that period in
Barataria Bay, a popular shrimping area that was heavily impacted by BP's oil
and dispersants, were eyeless. Kuhns added: "Disturbingly, not only do the
shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets."”
But it probably just the shrimp.
Or not. We’re seeing affects in
crabs, in their size and shell consistency.
‘Hard shell crabs? Nope,
now you’re soft shell too fuck you having different shells.’ – Kyle (probably)
Or lobsters with black lungs.
Or fish with sores and lesions.
Shit, is God pissed? I thought we
were over that whole ten plagues thing.
Better get my lambs blood out just in case. You guys can crash at my place just don’t
drink Elijah’s wine the man’s a lush and he only hangs out with enablers.
Just to remind you this is what happened: “4.9 million barrels of
oil. BP then used at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic Corexit dispersants to
sink the oil.” To put thigns into
perspective we spilled 250,000 barrels of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska. So exactly 7.6 times more. This is not a small amount. Also think about it this way. Around that time oil was 86 dollars a barrel
which means we wasted $163,400,000.00 of resources.
Corexit dispersant breaks
up the oil into smaller bits which sinks below the surface instead of remaining
floating at the top to wash onto shores or into birds and other wildlife. Don’t take my word for it let’s go to their
website:
COREXIT dispersants are deployed on the spilled oil, the oil is
broken up into tiny bio-degradable droplets that immediately sink below the
surface where they continue to disperse and bio-degrade. This quickly
removes the spilled oil from surface drift…reducing direct exposure to birds,
fish and sea animals in the spill environment. By keeping the oil from
adhering to wildlife COREXIT dispersants effectively protect the environment.
Because if its below the surface no other problems could happen as
it degrades. Screw Atlantis anyway. Aquaman sucks what is he going to do
anyway. I could probably kicks his
ass. If my superpower was talking to
fish and swimming really well I probably just ask to take the cash equivalent
and go home. Superpowers work like game
shows right? Oh and this kind of
dispersant outside of being toxic to us is a mutagenic. And outside of the x-men universe a mutagenic
is generally bad.
Obviously we would think this would cause the government to have
exhausted every measure to have stringent policies in place so that no more
spills happen on our shores. Well that
would be smart and logical. It would also
be hopeful that we would fund more efforts to study the effects and plan a way
to combat and help the shorelines. It’s
not like we can just grab a bunch of shrimp and fish from somewhere else and
dump them in there. If you don’t know
why dumping exogenic animals into an ecosystem is bad maybe you shouldn’t be
reading this blog. But surprisingly we
keep introducing non native wildlife into new habitats and get surprised when
shit runs rampant. Like in Australia
where they have huge problem with the domestic
cats who have gone feral and run amok in the countryside. But that’s the cruel irony of Australia; with
the horrifying nightmare inducing spiders, snakes and other critters in the
outback it is housecats which are messing up the ecosystem.
But there is only so much that can be done in the gulf (more than
what we are doing however). What
concerns me is the colony collapse disorder that has been happening to bumble
bees. That isn’t such a good thing. Bumble bees are those big fat nice guys that
don’t really sting very often and are our primary pollinators. Carpenters bees are secondary pollinators but
they are a bit more aggressive.
If you don’t think bees dying off is scary think about how well
plants will do without those little guys helping all the flora have sex. It should be called plants and the bees
really not birds and the bees. And no
plants is generally frowned upon.
Perhaps almost catastrophic you might say. And lo and behold scientist believe it might
have to do with pesticides specifically ones getting into corn and thus High-fructose
corn syrup. Corn sugar being fed
to kept colonies. This has taken years
to figure out. And these pesticides were
introduced in the nineties. If it took
that long to start taking effect it might take a wee bit to start clearing the
effect. If we actually, you know, get
rid of the pesticides killing our bees.
The colony collapse is slow process where the scent and chemical
wiring of bees gets thrown off and they leave the nest but are unable to get
back then the colony slowly dies off. It
also eliminates the amount of queens, the amount of bees produced and a whole
plethora of not so good things for our favorite flower matchmakers. The only person who can be happy about this
is Nick Cage (shout out for the fourteen people who actually saw the wicker
man).
I can only hope there is action taken before we find ourselves on
a precipice. But its only animals
right? Maybe if this whole evolution
thing were real animals would evolve to be not so tasty and we’d leave them
alone. Maybe we’ll figure out that being
top of the food chain doesn’t mean kicking at the species below us and lighting
them on fire for our amusement. Because it
more of a pyramid or Jenga and we keep taking blocks out and shit will get
real.
Ben
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Thanks for posting. You are awesome!