The Gulf of Mexico is Dying

[bluescribbler]

Source: Op Ed News

The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) does not exist in isolation and is, in fact, connected to the Seven Seas. Hence, we publish these findings in order that the world community will come together to further contemplate this dire and demanding predicament. We also do so with the hope that an appropriate global response will be formulated, and acted upon, for the sake of future generations. It is the most basic responsibility for every civilization to leave their world in a better condition than that which they inherited from their forbears.

After conducting the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference for over seven months, we can now disseminate the following information with the authority and confidence of those who have thoroughly investigated a crime scene. There are many research articles, investigative reports and penetrating exposes archived at the following website. Particularly those posted from August through November provide a unique body of evidence, many with compelling photo-documentaries, which portray the true state of affairs at the Macondo Prospect in the GOM.

The pictorial evidence tells the whole story.

Especially that the BP narrative is nothing but a corporate-created illusion - a web of fabrication spun in collaboration with the US Federal Government and Mainstream Media. Big Oil, as well as the Military-Industrial Complex, have aided and abetted this whole scheme and info blackout because the very future of the Oil & Gas Industry is at stake, as is the future of the US Empire which sprawls around the world and requires vast amounts of hydrocarbon fuel. Should the truth seep out and into the mass consciousness - that the GOM is slowly but surely filling up with oil and gas - certainly many would rightly question the integrity, and sanity, of the whole venture, as well as the entire industry itself. And then perhaps the process would begin of transitioning the planet away from the hydrocarbon fuel paradigm altogether.

Read more: http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/The-Gulf-of-Mexico-is-Dyin-by-Dr-Tom-Termotto-101204-696.html

---

I was afraid of this. It doesn't look as though there is anything we can do. :mad:

[MellowDem]

1. The Gulf has been dying for a long, long time...

and the oil spill has little to do with it. The amount of pesticides and shit that gets dumped into the Gulf and creates the giant dead zone is a much bigger issue, but no one says shit about it.

[bluescribbler]

3. You may be right

But, if what the author says is accurate, and he had pictures and graphs to back it up and to explain it all, the Deep Water Horizon blowout has hastened its dying by a frightening degree.

[social_critic]

18. I doubt it

Sounds like hype. I've been following it closely, reading the papers being published, and it's not that bad. The dead zone was reported a few days ago to be 9 by 9 miles - and it's located in 5000 feet of water, where sea life isn't exactly that numerous (it's cold, dark, and high pressure).

Dead zones have been seen in the Gulf of Mexico for a long time, caused by excessive fertilizer use - I suggest you read articles such as the one published in Scientific American about nitrogen fertilizer pollution.

This isn't about "corporate greed", this is about farmers who put on too much fertilizer because it's cheap and their crops fetch a lot of money. A similar dead zone is found in the Black Sea, caused by fertilizer use in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and that was done by collectivized agriculture under a communist system. Blaming everything on corporate this or that is silly, it misses the point.

[caseymoz]

30. Read it closer: that 9x9 was just what they surveyed.

Did you look at how much difficulty they had getting the sub "Alvin" into that area? You think surveying the Gulf like that is a fast process? That dead zone is just what they know about so far.

They are also finding out that life exists in cold, dark, high pressure places. So, it probably existed in that dead zone, we'll never know now.

If fertilizers and pesticides are deadly to life in the Gulf, oil is deadly, too. So, yes, it's about corporate greed. And who sold those fertilizers and pesticides to farmers in the first place? Corporations. And how were those chemicals produced? Oil.

Yes, it's due to corporations-- and overpopulation.

Why are you coming down on the side of outrage reduction for corporations, here? One has to really bend and stretch to come to your point of view about it. Or be misinformed by somebody else who did the bending and stretching for you.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[xxqqqzme]

38. Bingo!

Seems to be many here.

[caseymoz]

39. But I thought I covered that, in so many words.

I don't want to say that anybody is a corporate-paid troll, but . . .

[social_critic]

59. I happen to have some expertise in the matter

Let's just assume I have a graduate degree, and I'm very familiar with the issues. Let me address your points:

1. Life exists in cold, dark, high pressure places, including the Gulf of Mexico seafloor. However, the economic significance isn't as much for a small plot in 5000 feet of water versus a much larger area in a marshland. This story was driven by the submarine's exotic appeal and Sami Joye's tendency to seek the limelight. She's a self promoter.

Fertilizers are particularly deadly in the Gulf, because they cause oxygen depletion - everything except for anaerobic bacteria dies.

I happen not to have a particular dislike for corporations. My older sister owns one - she rents stuff for parties and she incorporated to reduce personal liability and make the paperwork to pay her employees easier to handle by one of those accounting outfits. I presume you think that if a state entity (as is done under the communist system) extracts and refines the oil, it'll be better? Experience shows communist regimes are much less inclined to respect the environment. So what do you specifically want to do about it?

It is about corporate greed, and there's nothing wrong with it as such. People are greedy. It's up to society to have laws and people who enforce the laws to make sure the greed is kept within boundaries. In the case of BP, it's evident the law and the enforcers failed miserably. But this doesn't mean there's a better alternative other than to tighten the screws, and make sure oil companies follow the law, and that outfits such as the USGS and EPA take their work seriously. Which they weren't doing.

Let's see what else you have...oil in the water is deadly - that's right. But the dead zone they are discussing may or may not be caused by the oil spill. And a lot of what Joye mentions is plain garbage. If you look at the fluorescence video, you'll see the hydrocarbon fluorescence is spotty. Now, it may be she's too ignorant to realize that tar doesn't fluoresce that much - try shining a fluorescent light bulb at asphalt and see what you get. I discussed with her in the past her comment about the "4 inch layer", and when I asked her to disclose the content, or to speculate as what she REALLY thought it was, she confessed she didn't have lab results and wasn't skilled enough to guess. If you ask her today, she'll still refuse to talk to people who do know how to judge her comments.

So there's more to this story than meets the eye. And there'sa lot of third rate reporting being done by the media. I happen to be a "deep digger" when it comes to information, and have lots of sources outside regular channels. And I can tell you, most of what the media dishes out is pablum, and most of the time it's crap. Didn't you learn by now? These are the same guys who cheered the government on when Bush was invading Iraq.

[caseymoz]

81. First, nothing you say about your person can be verified.

So leave it out. Graduate student, Ph. D. or God, share your superior knowledge with me and make it clear. Impress me here an now; I can't see your degrees, and any effort put into verifying them just distracts from the wonders of your arguments and information.

I know already know how fertilizers are "particularly" deadly. Which is an odd choice of words, since oil poisons aquatic life directly, whereas fertilizers need a bit of processing (by algae) and time to do their damage. And at least some life flourishes beforehand.

Here's what will make your argument for me: was this dead zone there before BP had the accident? If yes, it's from pesticides. If no, it's the accident. Simple as that. Offhand, I tend to believe it's the accident because it was too huge not to have an effect like this somewhere. If you want to prove to me it's fertilizer, I want the report on what this area was like before April. That's what I'll accept as proof of your proposition. Period. Don't confuse the argument with anything else.

You "presume" that I must be for state control? Stupid guess. I'm unimpressed. Or was that an insult? I'm not hurt. Now why didn't you ask me to find out before addressing that straw man? Perhaps because you're trying to manipulate my argument to more familiar ground? The Cold War's so over. Quit fighting it.

Also, how can you guess that I "believe in" state control from whether I think fertilizers or oil created the dead zone? You didn't learn about logical relevance in grad school? How could you even think it when I state the fact that BP's screw up caused more damage than its willing to say or pay for, and that BP with the government's complicity is being less than honest about it? They've been caught in major lies about all of this. It's absolutely, demonstrated realistic that they're lying, due to greed. That's not written in Marx.

If you would have guessed I want transparent, honest corporations as a reform, you would have been right. Much like what you seemed to mean (different on particulars, perhaps): corporations that follow laws and don't make them, and haven't infiltrated and subsumed our government. Only problem is, seeing how corporations and government have behaved in the last thirty years, I have skepticism now over whether that's possible. Maybe what we're seeing is the "natural" course of capitalism, where the wealthy use corporations to corrupt government. I want to try the transparent, honest corporate approach, and I hope it works, because alternatives after that are not good.

It doesn't look to me like the law enforcers failed miserably: they did exactly what BP wanted, and still are. That's not failure. Now you're making them BP and Big Oil's lightning rod. Why? That's likely their corporate function as well.

Also, problem with keeping greed within boundaries, greed is not restricted to corporations. If you say greed is okay, the people in government feel as unrestricted about indulging it as any CEO.

Also, leave your sister out of it. Drop the humanizing anecdotes that are supposed to manipulate my emotions regarding corporations.

I knew a 4-inch layer was an error of some sort or bad information immediately, but that doesn't mean all the rest of it was inaccurate. She was aboard to observe and bring cameras, and let the scientists talk and quote them. Anything she says beyond that is suspect, but the rest of it isn't.

Now, to actually address your straw man because I think people get away at bringing this one out too much: what was discredited as being environmentally sound was a particular form of Communism. Specifically, the Bolshevik branch of it. I myself think that capitalism is well on its way to being at least as discredited as that. What we're going to have afterward, I have no guess. What we should have afterward, I don't know. You better hope for getting transparent corporations instead, and better hope it works.

Finally, if somebody gave you a grad degree, you get a failing grade from me, so far. I won't say you're a paid corporate shill, (despite the fact that you have a grad degree and expertise) but your lapses of critical thinking at strategic times, your subtle redirection of the blame from BP to government, your trotting out of a standard reliable old straw man (cliche) make me want to call Vegas for the odds.

[okieinpain]

73. i agree with both of you, mainly it's human beings that are

causing these problems. I have to tell you I really like mcd fries and burgers. and I comute close to 70 miles a day to get to work. my wife loves to get out of the house and drive to visit friends and family. so we're all to blame.

[The Flaming Red Head]

66. That's exactly the kind of post I'd expect from Stewie

Now, where the hell is Brian?

[AikidoSoul]

79. The author, "Dr." Tom Termotto is a megalomaniac

He freely uses the "Dr." title which is highly misleading. He is not a doctor of science or medicine. He is a "doctor of divinity".... one of those easy to purchase titles through various web enterprises. He claims to have a huge number of titles and affiliations with an incredibly large number of organizations... most all of which are brief flash-in-the pan organizations that tap into a popular environmental topic and the disappears as quickly as it appeared.

Check him out to see the way he presents himself. I know him personally and will tell you unequivocally that he does not take time to check his facts.

He may be right about the Gulf dying, but he cannot be depended upon to present the facts coldly without bias. He us well known in the Tallahassee area for being a blowhard with no talent for accuracy.

[Cetacea]

9. Oh. Maybe we should apologize to BP then.

They did nothing to wipe out untold numbers of dolphins, endangered gulf sperm whales, and other living creatures in the gulf, nor have they hastened the gulf's demise in any great way.

[Lorien]

15. That's not what they meant; they're saying that the Gulf has been under attack by corporate

interests and big polluters for ages. BP was the killing blow to a sickened and poisoned ecosystem-and we STILL can't get anyone in power to care about it!

[Vilis Veritas]

55. Why would anyone in power want to do something to those

who keep them in power?

[ooglymoogly]

32. The corporate operatives are all over this one. nt

[Jeffersons Ghost]

70. so it seems

[Lorien]

14. Trying to get Dems to care about the environment anymore is as easy as trying to get a

teabagger to care about poor minorities; they don't. They don't understand that the health of the planet is directly related to our survival, they don't think that we have any connection to the natural world any more, they think that every other issue matters MORE. Sorry kids; no planet= no other issues. We're playing with fire by ignoring any of it.

[Cetacea]

33. In the late 80's, 87 percent were willing to have taxes raised

if it was for protecting the environment.(I believe it was a CNN/Times poll. And that was after Americans re-elected Reagan in a landslide. The media totally ignored that poll and so did everyone else it seems. Even then what the people wanted mattered not one bit...It's really depressing. I think that the state of the news media is the worst of all of our problems.

[kestrel91316]

35. [phone] 000

[caseymoz]

42. Actually, maybe some of us are just resigned.

How do you stop what's happening much less clean it up? How do you even go about cleaning up the Gulf and stabilizing its geology?

A major thing that oil does is produce food. (Leading to that noted fertilizer and pesticide runoff that was also killing the Gulf). We have a population of well over six billion people now. In other words, we've been using oil to mass produce more people. But now our population is such that we can't stop extracting the oil without inducing starvation, we're so far above what the earth can carry. So, as a result, we're accelerating the environmental wreckage.

Nothing is going to change that dynamic until the population crashes. Otherwise, we could start paying people not to have children and see if we could alleviate it that way.

Meanwhile, I think we need a major rethinking of our economics. If you ask me, productivity is our problem, too much of it. It causes us to extract more resources and do more damage. We already produce more and more with less labor yet, we allow the wealthy, rentier class to constantly drive us harder.

I'm thinking all of this should be rethought. That's not something that's just voted on in the electoral or legislative process. That's not even on the radar of our thinking. And none of that will happen without a major crisis and social restructuring.

[Hydra]

83. Yup

The growth demon is killing us.

We need to stop right now and look at how to live well at 0 growth, and look at serious planned parenthood options(I'm not having children, and neither are a lot of my peers).

Every place where the option of not breeding is given, negative population growth happens.

The funny thing is that nature (and we) know what to do. It takes a lot of propaganda to go the other way.

[caseymoz]

84. I don't think that's enough I'm afraid.

The population is too high already. It has to drop.

Humankind has pulled off several miracles to stop its population from crashing. But as they say, smarts only get you so far, and luck always changes.

And in the meantime, we've done what any other animal would do if given habitat, no predation and resources. We've grown our population. That's not different or worse than any other animal.

Problem is, we put off the crash so long, the one we finally get will be severe. I think human beings will survive, species have what are called "genetic bottlenecks" periods of low population. I just think we'll it a tight genetic bottleneck. Population could drop to twentieth of what it is now in the next five hundred years.

[Hydra]

86. We could be past the tipping point

But I don't think we're past the point of no return yet. There are a LOT of things we aren't doing that we could be that would help us get back from the cliff.

There's an interesting paradox though- in the world I describe, the people who SHOULD breed won't, and the ones who shouldn't will.

Perhaps there's only one way this can end, no matter what we do?

[caseymoz]

87. Human beings don't have the scale of organization required.

The reason why we're not doing "all the things we could" is that we're actually capable of less than we think. There's not another animal, not another living thing, that's adapted to limiting its own population. In nature, animals don't limit their population growth; it's always limited for them. The only model in the animal kingdom that would come close to controlling its population would be ant colonies and hives, where reproduction is limited to a few individuals. But even there, the workers can be seen trying to sneak their own eggs into the queens clutch, and soldiers make regular searches for "illegal" eggs with possession of them being a capital crime. I'm not joking. That's exactly what goes on. These are animals that have the degree of social organization required.

The people who "should be" breeding stopping while the ones that should actually breed is a predictable side effect of voluntary birth control. You get an imbalance on who volunteers. In this case, its the people most heedless of the consequences, and disregarding of facts.

It can only end with the population crashing.

Do you know why we're actually in this predicament? Because the powers that be planned on space travel saving us. Except that space proved to be far more daunting for human life than anyone planned. That was the huge, unacknowledged failure of the 20th century.

[Grinchie]

49. Carl Sagan was right when he speculated that techonologically advanced species destroy themselves

[caseymoz]

88. It's not technology. It's population.

Oil would seem to me to be a very low-tech way to kill the planet. Sagan was thinking about nuclear war.

[Grinchie]

91. Destroying the Ecosystem is just as effective..

[caseymoz]

92. Not my point.

You don't need nuclear weapons as Sagan envisioned in "Cosmos." All you need are technological advances that enable your population to prevent crash after crash. Until one day, that technological trick you counted on (in our case, space travel) doesn't pan out and so the species suffers a catastrophic collapse.

It seems that any technological advance has to be tied to controlling population as well. That was the check we didn't have, and still don't.

[mudplanet]

20. Every toilet that is flushed, evey drip of oil or antifreeze that leaks from a car,

every gallon of chemicals that is dumped/spilled at every chemical plant and refinery, and every drop of RoundUp and pesticide that is sprayed between the Rocky Mountains and the Smokey Mountains runs right down the Mississippi, past New Orleans and out into the Gulf of Mexico.

The only reason the river isn't dead is because it's so large and moves so fast.

When I was a kid I'd walk down the beach and if you saw a dead fish it would be covered in crabs and if you went on a pier the fishing boats and the dock would be covered with boat roaches. Now the dock is still and dead things in the water just sit there and rot.

[molly77]

22. The Gulf of Mexico was poisoned by BP

and the US govt. If it was already sick, so be it. But people are getting very very sick who live close to the ocean.While our govt. tells us to eat the fish.

[ooglymoogly]

31. What a crock. Sure greed has been polluting our oceans for

years and has caused criminal damage; but the Oil spill is beyond catastrophic, killing the seas it pollutes at catastrophic levels. The kaleidoscopic ramification of this is a horror story developing before our eyes.

[caseymoz]

41. I've heard people talk about it before.

And why are you trying to say that either oil OR pesticides did this? The Gulf wasn't this bad in April. What happened since? A massive pesticide spill? No.

And those fissures in the sea floor seeping oil and methane aren't caused by pesticides either.

Try not to change the subject.

[rhett o rick]

45. Let me guess your point here. Let BP and Obama off the hook for the oil spill and lack of

regulations, enforcement and accountability. If I guessed wrong, help me out.

[geardaddy]

65. Bingo.

Ironically, those pesticides and fertilizers are made from petroleum by-products.

[Angry Dragon]

2. Nothing to see, move along now

The government has forgotten all about the Gulf
The media has forgotten about it
The people will pay for this greed for at least a few generations

[RKP5637]

26. Yep, all done, like other things, out of sight, out of mind. Like mold growing inside a wall. n/t

[The Flaming Red Head]

75. Doesn't that piss you off

It makes me want to puke. I thought I hated them (our government) as much as I could for what happened during Katrina, but this pulled up a new level of bile in the back of my throat that i've never experienced before and I want to spew it back at them and it is absolute Hatred.

[sulphurdunn]

4. This is a story no longer covered

by the MSM. Therefore, it is over and no longer newsworthy. It was a profitable news cycle narrative that ran its course and has gone down the memory hole. Otherwise it would be covered harder than Bill Clinton's dick.

[Sal Minella]

8. Can't remember who said, the MSM takes a magnifying glass outside

and focuses the sunlight on an ant, and then rushes back in to stand in front of the cameras, waving its arms, and does a week's worth of stories on the sudden outbreak of flaming ants.

It's not even funny. Not. Even.

The media create, and dis-create, the "news" we pay attention to.

[tavalon]

27. Jon Stewart

At his Restore The Sanity Rally.

[Sal Minella]

28. Yes. Thank you. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

5. Not LBN - posted Friday in GD

Using a different link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=9680862

[Systematic Chaos]

11. I think this is one of those rare cases when the mods should make an exception.

But then, I'm not a mod. :shrug:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

6. K

and sadly recommended.

Tragic and emotionally debilitating information.

[mbperrin]

7. Petroleum is toxic, and it has already lasted for hundreds of millions

of years. It does not evaporate or go away naturally on any human time scale.

Go to Big Lake, Texas, and drive west to see the first oilfield in Texas, from the 1920s. It was drilled and produced before blowout preventers were invented. That's nearly 90 years ago. It's dead. Nothing is growing on top of that ground after all this time.

Why would anyone be surprised? I've lived in the field my entire life, and everybody here knows that.

Didn't need pictures, charts or predictions. As long as we are addicted to petroleum, death will follow.

[Grinchie]

50. I've driven through areas in Texas as you describe

They are malodorous and toxic, and I'm sure that similar qualities are found in the Gulf, only diluted with trillions of gallons of water.

[texastoast]

56. Big Lake is the ugliest place I've ever seen

It is so hard to imagine that people live there. There is a high rate of thyroid cancers in West Texas in the patch.

[undeterred]

10. But how's Tony Hayward? Did he get his life back?

Won any yacht races lately? :sarcasm:

[social_critic]

64. No

He lost his job, and he lost his reputation. I wouldn't mind seeing him on trial, but there's little hope this will happen, he was too far removed. My guess is they'll pin down the criminal action on a couple of the guys who died, and made the tactical decisions which led to the blow out. The higher ups, they usually get away with it. Look at Bush and Cheney, they'll never serve in jail, even though they should.

[Xenotime]

12. typical american policy is to destroy all natural resouces.

[liberation]

25. Savage capitalism is not exclusive to our country...

... esp. given that the company which created this catastrophe is British, you know the B in BP.

[social_critic]

77. Savage Capitalism thrives in China

Under the new policies, savage capitalism sure is flourishing in China. That country has so much environmental contamination, it's going to be like a giant love canal. But it's ruled by "communists".

[caseymoz]

85. If its captialism it can't be communism anymore.

If their authoritarian is wrecking the environment, it means that capitalism is perfectly at home with both, authoritarianism and environmental destruction, and that it has nothing to do with freedom or rights.

Maybe the better conclusion to have drawn, then, when the USSR fell was not that communism was environmentally destructive, maybe authoritarianism in service of the wealthy or the powerful is? Especially accelerated by huge population.

And maybe the US hadn't become sufficiently authoritarian to really get started at killing the environment. Yet, has an actual side-by-side comparison of the environments of the Soviet Union ever been done? You can't count eastern Europe because all of those states existed only to serve the Soviet Union. Why should USSR have especially cared if their orders were destroying the environment in East Germany or Poland?

And please stop with the capitalist communist comparisons, especially with a non-communist China. The Cold War is over, quit fighting it.

[HockeyMom]

13. As long as tourists and snowbirds come

and go to their beaches, hotels, and spend MONEY, nobody will care.

[Lorien]

16. They aren't coming. I live in Florida and businesses along the Gulf are nearly as dead

as the sea life. It's a Big Fucking Deal down here, but the MSM has moved on to more nonsense and forgotten all about us.

[molly77]

23. Lorien

Many many BP employees and US govt reps. should be in jail because of this. Our justice system will give more jail time for a joint than destroying an entire eco system. Read comments on WikiLeaks articles in The Guardian to see what the rest of the world thinks of US. Real eye opener.

[defendandprotect]

68. +1

Thanks molly --

I'll also try to catch up with the WikiLeaks comments --

[sarcasmo]

17. Going down in mid Apirl and will be collecting some samples and doing a self test.

Prior to throwing myself on my board and taking in any salt water.

[social_critic]

21. So this is a sarcastic comment?

What are you going to look for, PCBs? or PAH?

[madrchsod]

19. dead zone .....

[davidthegnome]

24. Could someone elaborate

On what the most likely result of this is? What happens if this remains quietly ignored for the most part? How far will the pollution, the death and destruction spread? I have read the link provided and gathered as much as I could from it, but I think I'm still missing the big picture here.

Does anyone know the time-frame we're looking at and what's expected to happen within it? I'm somewhat confused and uncertain as to what all of this means on a larger scale. I'd really appreciate it if someone could help explain in simpler language. The article kind of made my head spin. I'm not dumb, but I just didn't get it, not really.

[2QT2BSTR8]

43. In response to davidtheknome's question

As I understand it...

The Loop Current is an area of warm water that comes up from the Caribbean, flows north past the Yucatan Peninsula and into the Gulf of Mexico, according to NOAA. From there, the current curves east across the Gulf and then flows south, parallel to the west coast of Florida. As it flows between Florida and Cuba it becomes the Florida Current, which moves through the Florida Straits, where it finally joins the Gulf Stream to travel up the Atlantic Coast.

More reading material here or just Google <The Loop Current>
http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/loop-current.html

[Grinchie]

51. The cancers should start showing up in a decade

Then, after much research, debate, political arm twisting, and after thousands of deaths, the evidence will be too much to obscure, and BP will be forced to pay a few hundred bucks in compensation.

[JDPriestly]

29. Normally, to be admitted in a court of law, an expert opinion

has to be peer reviewed. I do not see any indication that Dr. Tom's article has been peer reviewed. And in his resume, he does not mention that any of his previous work has been peer reviewed.

Dr. Tom's resume also does not mention his academic background or even the name of a university from which he has obtained a degree.

I'm sure he is well meaning and a nice person, but before I accept a scientific opinion, I need to know more about the qualifications of the person rendering it.

[Tansy_Gold]

34. I concur, JD

Whenever I see something posted from Op Ed News, the first thing I check is the author's credentials. Dr. Tom's didn't pass the smell test. . . yet.



Tansy Gold, takin' this one with a large grain of salt

[jobycom]

46. Google him and you'll find out even less. He NEVER mentions where his PhD is from

And notice in the article he doesn't even mention that it's a PhD, not a scientific or medical degree. There are no bios of him even on his own web sites, mostly related to an alternative medical clinic he runs (there is no mention of an MD, either), no mention of any place he's studied, etc.

The only entries for him are articles he's written on conspiracy sites about every sort of environmental hot button you can mention, from super colliders to biomass incinerators.

No expert tries to hide their credentials that thoroughly. You say he means well and is a nice person--maybe, but I'm thinking he's a con-artist trying to cash in on fear and suspicion in a circus craving its PT Barnum.

[Tansy_Gold]

53. ". . . trying to cash in on fear and suspicion. . . "

And he seems to have done so very well, even in places we would expect a little more skepticism.

Thank you, jobycom, for checking this guy out a little further. :yourock:



Tansy Gold, reaching for a larger chunk of salt

[defendandprotect]

37. k/r

[RedCloud]

40. Sulfur loving organisms could rebound and take a stronghold

at the oxygen lover's expense.

You know there are so many abandoned oil wells out there. Some are leaking.

[jobycom]

44. Anyone try to figure out what this guy's a "Dr" of? It's a PhD, but seems to be very secret.

Google his name. The only places it appears are on conspiracy websites, editorials about everything involving any environmental controversy, and summaries of his corporation holdings (LLCs). The latter involve some type of health consultancy where he specializes in all types of unorthodox medicines.

I can't find a thing about him, other than that every time his name is mentioned the title "Dr" precedes it, and that he has a PhD. The PhD means he's not a scientist or medical doctor, in case anyone doesn't know that. His articles are big on technical-sounding phrases, alarmist proclamations, and a list of titles for impressive-sounding organizations that, if one reads closely, are just names.

If he's got more than that, let me know. I read his article, and thought it sounded flim-flammy, so I've been googling for the last forty minutes or so, and can find nothing except what he's written or what he's legally obligated to proclaim for his corporate holdings. No explanations on his degree (and that's interesting, considering how much emphasis he puts on titles like "Vice President/Liaison for Media Relations and Government Affairs for the Bison Resource Development Group" and considering that he is presenting complex scientific findings which beg some sort of credentials to back them up), no biography, no credentials except titles in consulting firms with no indication he's ever been consulted by anybody but other people protesting the same things he is.

I'm sorry, you guys can form opinions however you want, but until I see something other than blurry photos and read something better than "Trust me, I'm a doctor" from him, I'm pretty skeptical. Also, he cites work from "BK Lim, Geohazards Specialist." Google that. Not even a title of "Dr." I did find a dentist in Singapore and an MD in Canada with that name, but nothing to indicate either is the same guy, though I didn't read the whole page. I even found an "About the author" section on Lim, where he basically says "Trust me, I'm a geohazards specialist." No credentials. That's on his own page.

This thread really belongs in the conspiracy subforums, unless someone can find some science to back it up.

[social_critic]

62. BK Lim? A fake

During the oil spill we saw a proliferation of fake stories, some of them very elaborate. Some of them were picked up by well known authors, and of course the media had a feeding frenzy with some of this material. Matt Simmons (the author of "Twilight in the Desert" and a well known Peak Oil writer), went completely nuts at the time, and started making really bizarre statements (one of them: there were TWO wells blowing out, and the video feeds we were seeing were fake). Simmons proposed the government use nuclear weapons to stop the flow - that would have made an incredible mess, leaving the Gulf of Mexico radioactive.

BK Lim emerged at the time with some really weird stories. I concluded this was material prepared so it could be linked back to sites using scams to collect money from people - the Feds have over 1300 cases of scams involving the Gulf of Mexico oil spill being investigated. As for Simmons, I think he was trying to get a lot of face time in the media, because he wanted to write a book about the blow out, so he was setting himself up as "an expert" on the subject. Unfortunately for Simmons, he died during the summer, so he never did get to write his book.

I think we have to understand when something like this happens, and there's a lot of money involved, there are going to be entrepeneurs of all sorts trying to figure out how to make a buck out of it. There have been reports of people spilling oil to make claims, a website set up by people in florida was suposedly trying to collect money to research the oil spill, a fisherman filed a claim for more cash than he had made in his whole life (or at least more than what he filed with the IRS). The American way is to make a fast buck, greed drives people, and things happen.

[Cherchez la Femme]

47. I'm wondering if this will be like The Butterfly Effect

although much, much bigger than a butterfly fluttering its wings that changes major aspects in the world -- these 'blowback' effects could be HUGE.
Maybe 2012 & the Religious Armageddon freaks could be right. :cry:


I just cannot believe Pres O thought that he could actually avoid 'making the Gulf problem his problem'
--it's in American waters, borders and has tributaries in many American states, is part of the economy of those states, not to mention being a cog in our environmental wheel

to say nothing about all the different nationalities/islands in the Caribbean which will most probably be impacted.


Personally, I do believe that was the last straw -- it wasn't the distaste towards LGBTQI's, it wasn't even the wars... but when he, sitting at the desk where the buck stops, thought he could NOT make it his problem
and then to top it off aid & abet the "Clean Up" :puke: conducted by BP; done in a style that truly, Stalin would be proud of.


Yep, that I believe was it for me...

[Shining Jack]

48. Kicking again.

:cry:

[Hubert Flottz]

52. The planet is dying just like the Gulf...

I keep thinking of this sad song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d0L_zztxw8

[The Box]

54. While the Gulf dies!

 While the gulf dies BP continues to wiggle out of their
responsibilities with the governments help. People can either
take a one time payment and drop the option to file suit at a
later date or collect quarterly payments which are proving way
too difficult to collect, and the Government is complicit in
this practice. I think someone should pick this story up again
and follow it but the Media has moved past it and people
continue to suffer.

[texastoast]

58. BP is certainly spinning it well

With ads like "I've lived and fished the Gulf for 40 years and BP is making it right."

They can't ever make it right.

Welcome to DU!

[fatbuckel]

57. I stopped eating seafood completely. Thanx BP.

[social_critic]

60. You'll die faster if you don't eat seafood

Maybe you need to reconsider, for several reasons:

1. Most of the seafood in the US doesn't come from the Gulf of Mexico
2. Seafood is tested for contamination
3. The oil spill couldn't possibly reach inland - this means catfish and tilapia raised in ponds is safe no matter what.
4. The government is continuosly testing fish and shrimp for contamination. There was a recent report of contaminated red shrimp, and the area was closed to shrimping until further lab tests were carried out.
5. Eating fish is good for you.

So, in balance, if you eat fish it'll be a lot better for your health. If you're worried, eat tilapia, salmon, catfish, and halibut, they don't get caught in the Gulf of Mexico.

[TBF]

61. I've switched to salmon and good to know about halibut (salmon was the easy pick) -

just avoiding shrimp right now. I live down here (Houston) and you hope they are testing everything, but who knows. But I agree that avoiding all seafood is not a good move.

[social_critic]

63. Well, you are saving money if you don't eat shrimp, I guess

I have a food budget, and I find shrimp too expensive if I have to factor in the peeling bit, and getting those little veins out of the shrimp (the veins are the gut, and are full of shrimp poop).

They ARE testing everything. Think about it, the Obama administration was voted into office by Democrats. They know they goofed when the President called for an opening of more continental shelf areas to drilling without checking out whether their regulatory agency was working - which it wasn't. This was the real failure - which the media didn't really pick up. How could he say he would open new areas when the regulatory system was bulls_t? The incident took place because SEVERAL things went wrong, and personnel from SEVERAL companies didn't do their jobs properly. So this is what we call a systemic failure, BP screwed up, Halliburton screwed up, Transocean screwed up, the government screwed up, and so on.

But if I were you, and you do like shrimp, then by all means eat it. Just make sure you clean the gut and don't eat poop.

[The Flaming Red Head]

72. You don't know how to peel and deveine shrimp with a fork

and yet you offer opinions on the GOM. Baby, you ain't from there. If you were you'd know we should all be in the streets protesting what BP and our government colluded to hide from US. By the time they figure the extent of the damage it'll be too late for all of US! Obama's gonna go down like Bush, as a corporate patsy, kinda like you.

[defendandprotect]

69. Farm raised fish? -- And, 1/3 of the fish used to come from the Gulf ... are they fishing now?

Remember when the EPA told New Yorkers and rescue workers that

the air quality was safe?

Our government agencies have all been corrupted by corporate influence.

[defendandprotect]

67. Thanks for staying after this BP/Bush/Obama tragedy ....

and all the info which seems necessary to prove to many that what has happened

puts the planet and humanity in great danger.

Capitalism's exploitation of nature has been going on so long that humans seem

rarely to question it --

Obama has lifted the 6 month ban -- and we're going to be off and running again!!

More tragedy to follow, obviously -- !!



Thanks :)

[TBF]

71. "Capitalism's exploitation of nature" - can't point that out too many times.

Capitalism is not only killing us (at least 98% of us), but it is killing the planet as well. And now we are going to give our elites a continuation of the tax cut. *sigh*

[social_critic]

76. But communism also killed nature

So maybe it's homo sapiens of all stripes doing the damage. Don't forget Chernobyl and the Sea of Azov.

[TBF]

82. Maybe it's time to consider socialism? Sweden certainly isn't known

for too many environmental disasters.

[defendandprotect]

90. Amazing how we've been taught to accept this war on nature as something normal....!!

There's an old Russian joke based on that -- goes like this ....

Q: What's the difference between capitalism and communism -- ?

A: Under Capitalism, man exploits man --

Under Communism, it's just the reverse --



Most of the world respects socialism -- which is something entirely different

from totalitarian communism.




Patriarchy -- and its underpinning =

Orgnaized Patriarchal Religion -- and its economic system =

Capitalism =

The Unholy Trinity

[defendandprotect]

89. Both systems exploited nature -- both totalitarian communism and capitalism ... same thing ....

There's an old Russian joke based on that -- goes like this ....

Q: What's the difference between capitalism and communism -- ?

A: Under Capitalism, man exploits man --

Under Communism, it's just the reverse --



Most of the world respects socialism -- which is something entirely different

from totalitarian communism.

[Uncle Joe]

74. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, bluescribbler.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

78. and it will spread...WikiLeaks has them all shit scared

[Mimosa]

80. Heartbreaking. And TPTB want this to be kept secret. n/t