Just how overblown is the oil spillage in the Gulf?

[The Backlash Cometh]

We have a reporter in the Orlando Sentinel that thinks everything is overblown. He reminds me of a John Stossel wannabe.

Here's a snip from his article

Reality springs a leak in BP spill coverage

It turns out the Gulf has produced bacteria that work very well in cold, dark, deep water because of all the natural oil that seeps out there. Evolution is a wonderful thing.

Nobody has disputed Hazen's report, including the scientists at Woods Hole.

A humorous result is the whiplash you get reading the coverage in The New York Times.

This is from Aug. 19: "New research confirms the existence of a huge plume of dispersed oil deep in the Gulf of Mexico and suggests that it has not broken down rapidly, raising the possibility that it might pose a threat to wildlife for months or even years.

This was the Times five days later: "The Gulf of Mexico oil plume is no more.''


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-mike-thomas-oil-spill-hype-082610-20100825,0,6710856.column

[zipplewrath]

1. Mike has a conservative bent

He's a major Jeb Bush admirer. This is about the second column of this theme, that the original reporting was overblown.

That's a tough charge to make, or defend. One has to start be defining what "overblown" means. Was there a statement here or there that was more hyperbole than substance? I'm sure you can find some. Were predictions made that didn't pan out? Assuredly, although it isn't clear that there isn't some cause and effect in play here. The prediction is the inspiration for the prevention. And it really is too soon to know the long term consequences. He is also buying the whole "the bugs ate all the oil" explanation. That maybe true. But just as he is talking about overblown descriptions of the disaster, one has to be careful about overblowing the results of early studies. We don't know, yet. We'll need to study for a long while. Will the final results be better than some of the predictions? Almost assuredly. But that's a long way away from "all better".

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. I see more of the typical Republican reasoning.

If there's a cold snap during the winter season they like to chuckle that there's no global warming. If Thomas' article gets traction we are going to throw caution to the wind and find out ten years from now what a diet of dispersant and oil tainted fish can do to a body.

[jdlh8894]

3. Wait til the first Cat 3 or 4 hits the Gulf

And all that crap gets churned up. It won't take 10 years to see the effects.

[Xenotime]

4. There are several coming our way I saw on the map.

[jdlh8894]

6. Best wishes to you

I have friends and family all along the coastline (from TX to south FL). Hopefully it will be a fairly mild season.

[zipplewrath]

7. Yes, I think he is over looking the long term effects

He is focused on the oil, and its immediate presence. No one really knows what that much dispersant, or the longer term effects of the hit the ecosystem took. Breeding has been affected. Insect populations are being affected. Shell fish has been impacted. No one knows yet. It's way too soon to suggesting that "it wasn't so bad". It may not have been some of what was predicted, but it's the old "the most dangersous thing is what you don't know".

[Urban Prairie]

5. People like him also likely don't believe that climate change can be proven

mainly because modern measurement methods and records do not go back far enough in the past. But they are willing to believe that most of the crude has "weathered"...or been "chemically dispersed into bite size pieces" or has been consumed by "evolved" bacteria or microbes in a matter of mere months?

lol...spin spin spin ya hypocrites.

I very much doubt that those microbes have quickly evolved since April to also effectively filter and consume Corexit's composition of toxic chemicals. Only the passage of time will let us know the true extent of the harm that has and may continue to be caused to the environment, ecology, health, and life that is living upon, within, near, or is dependent upon the GOM. But a decade hence, these same people may try to shift the blame onto unrelated events, if there are some or many forms of life affected by the spill and the chemicals used to sweep it under the proverbial rug.

[semillama]

8. wait until the fisheries collapse due to breeding failures

How overblown will that be?

http://birding.typepad.com/gulf/2010/08/louisiana-in-photos-week-13-gulf-oil-spill.html