Is it really possible that this oil volcano could kill most life on the planet?

[ThomThom]

And how long will it take?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. It already happened, turned out we're programs in a Matrix.

Just like that movie- Dark City.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I don't think the science is there to back up that claim.

[alfredo]

3. I hope not, I was hoping to buy an iPad later this year.

[HughMoran]

4. lol

[phantom power]

5. No, I don't think so.

But it's catastrophic by any measure.

[The_Commonist]

6. Kill most life on the planet?

Where are you getting that from?

[ThomThom]

13. Here on DU

There are people saying that if the oceans die we are done and that this oil could go all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

[BeFree]

16. It will go into the Atlantic

Will it kill the Atlantic? Who claims that?

It may effectively kill the Gulf of Mexico. Or it may not.
But the flow out of the gulf into the Atlantic is a given.

[A HERETIC I AM]

17. ONLY on DU...

"There are people saying that if the oceans die we are done and that this oil could go all the way to the Atlantic Ocean."

Sure, if the oceans die the human race is fairly screwed. But that is not likely to happen from this one incident.

The ocean is a pretty big place.


One poster remarked the other day that just because a few tar balls were found in the Keys, the Keys were now "destroyed". That kind of over the top nonsense is what makes us look ridiculous.

Is the spill serious? Yes.

Will it get worse? Yup.

Will it be like this forever?

Fuck no.

[JuniperLea]

7. Have we ever seen this situation before?

Has man ever been able to impact something of this magnitude before?

I think there are a lot more questions that require asking/answered before we can consider yours. I'm hearing scientists say they don't know enough... clearly the rest of us don't. We're arguing the color of socks while blindfolded.

[zipplewrath]

23. Depends upon definition

We've have big oil spills before, just not quite this big. Is there anything significant in the extrapolation?

We've deforested whole countries. Is that the same?

The dust bowl of the midwest in the '30s might be considered on this order. Is that an equivalent?

Cherynoble was pretty bad. Is it as bad/big as this?

There have been earthquakes that moved rivers, cut whole bodies of water off from their outflows. Is that even technically "bad"?

This is "unprecedented" in that it has never specifically happened before. It is a stretch to suggest that this is so much worse than anything else that it will be significantly worse. And as with Prudhoe Bay, at some point, the damage just becomes the "new normal".

[ieoeja]

28. Wasn't the '79 leak still a little bigger? And wasn't the Gulf War spill a LOT bigger? nt

[Statistical]

8. No.

[flamingdem]

9. No, no. Only about 60%, relax. nt

[opihimoimoi]

10. Not ALL life.....but if thisw leads to food production reduction...we Humans will be impacted to

large famines to reduce populations

[closeupready]

11. I don't think that's even remotely possible, but it WILL kill many millions of

organisms, from lowest forms to highest forms of life.

[leftofcool]

12. Nostradamus thought so.

[valerief]

14. The elite will survive. They always do. nt

[alfredo]

24. We could harvest them for food.

[valerief]

26. If only they'd stop recruiting our soldiers to protect them and shoot us. nt

[alfredo]

29. Remember, the soldiers they hire are from our social strata.

Can they be relied upon to be loyal to the prince?

[valerief]

31. They have been so far, unfortunately. I wish they were insubordinate soldiers!!!! nt

[alfredo]

32. There is always doubt as to which side they will support.

The more authoritarian will support the rich and powerful. That is why the all volunteer army is bad, it attracts the militaristic authoritarian types. It tilts the scale away from the citizen soldier to the mercenary.

[CrispyQ]

15. Oil is killing our planet whether it spills into the Gulf or whether we burn it for energy.

It's just not as quick & dramatic when we burn it. Also, it allows us to go on with our lives without the bother of seeing oil soaked birds & dead dolphins on the beach, deluding ourselves that everything is fine.

[hobbit709]

27. It will take far more than that to kill the planet

The planet has had bigger ecological disasters than this in its 4.5 billion year history.

Now we may be the first species to kill ourselves off but the planet will not care.

[melm00se]

18. to gain some perspective

there are an estimated 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons (326 million trillion) of water on the planet.

to change the concentration of the planet's water to 0.1% crude oil would require ~7,761,904,761,904,760 barrels of oil (that's 7.7 quadrillion barrels) or ~1,000,000 years of current US oil consumption.

I am not discounting the impact of this situation in anyway but the Earth is massive and to have any significant impact requires an event of equally huge proportions.

[snooper2]

22. Oh you with those numbers and things

:P

[MineralMan]

19. No. Not possible. It will do a lot of damage, of course, but

that damage will be localized. The earth is a big place.

[harkadog]

20. We are in our last 48 hours. Party hard!

[Scurrilous]

21. Planet Harkonnen.

:o

[alfredo]

25. We have natural oil volcanos.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100426-asphalt-volcanoes-domes-california-underwater/

[Javaman]

30. No, but if there is a massive Methane Hydrate release as a result.

:nuke:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event

[Blue_In_AK]

33. No, that's not going to happen

Life on earth has survived cataclysms far greater than this oil spill. Things may be dicey for a while in some places, and there will be die-off, for sure (maybe even us), but life seems inevitable on this planet as long as we maintain our present orbit around the sun.

[BeHereNow]

34. We're on our own, no matter what happens-

Personally, I'm fairly concerned about the solar storms that are
coming in 2013 and the impact they could potentially have on
civilization as we know it.
Apparently the folks who study such things are fairly
worried too- they are meeting for a discussion forum on it.
http://www.nswp.gov/swef/swef_2010.html

Can you imagine the chaos that could errupt if a solar
storm wiped out every thing we depend on to function
as a civilization?
ZAP- no satellites working- every thing crashing.

BHN

[stuntcat]

35. maybe kill lots of animal life, I suppose

It will effect a big area of the oceans, lots of which is already dying.
If a big enough hurricane makes it start raining oil on this continent then that could kill many forests and the animals who live in them.

Humans will make it though, so none o' y'all need worry!! :D :sarcasm: