BP oil spill aftermath - fish with tumors, deformities

This reminds me of the time Texaco started dumping the crude oil excrement onto the roads in Ecuador.

They weren't trying to cause all that pollution, it's just that all the roads were so dusty they felt it was unsafe for the drivers...

 in the rainforest. 

You realize that this argument isn't nearly as one sided as you make it out?  Without all those industrial and mining corporations that you demonize we're not having this conversation on the internet.  You're not playing any Elemental game.  You'd be lucky to have electricity and a car (and likely neither of those).  You certainly don't have a cell phone.  Hell, you don't have phone lines.

There are certainly example of companies that have been awful.  They need to be responsible for their decisions and they need to be held accountable, but it helps when people don't pretend there is some magic pixie dust solution.  If people want the quality of life we, as a species, have started to achieved, it comes with costs.  

It's not the oil drilling I have a problem with. It's the excessive greed that leads to shoddy standards and blatant disregard for the environment. There is only one side that.

That is a valid point you make Kantok.

I will say though that these energy companies don't have to behave like "Greedy Bastards"  and not care about the environment, health of employees/people living nearby all for the sake of the almighty dollar.  They could produce energy and not be like that, but they don't.  They're right to be demonized cause they earned it and the product they do produce is needed.  

We could also learn to make energy other ways, but so far it hasn't panned out to where we can produce the safer/greener stuff and not depend on fossil fuels.  

- New York Times: “Gulf Dolphins Exposed to Oil Are Seriously Ill, Agency Says

- MSNBC: Gulf shrimp scarce this season (and see the Herald Tribune‘s report)

- Mother Jones: Eyeless shrimp are being found all over the Gulf

- NYT: Oil Spill Affected Gulf Fish’s Cell Function, Study Finds

- CBS:Expert: BP spill likely cause of sick Gulf fish (and see the Press Register’s report)

- “Study confirms oil from Deepwater spill entered food chain|

-Pensacola News Journal: “Sick fish” archive

- Agence France Presse: Mystery illnesses plague Louisiana oil spill crews

- MSNBC: Sea turtle deaths up along Gulf, joining dolphin trend

- MSNBC:Exclusive: Submarine Dive Finds Oil, Dead Sea Life at Bottom of Gulf of Mexico

- AP: BP oil spill the culprit for slow death of deep-sea coral, scientists say (and see the Guardian and AFP‘s write ups)

- A recent report also notes that there are flesh-eating bacteria in tar balls of BP oil washing up on Gulf beaches {bacterium is Vibrio vulnificans, not really 'flesh eating', but will kill if they get into a wound}.

I seriously dislike the OP's source, so I researched further. BP and its partners were extremely careless, and with as much at stake as was, our government should have had supervisors on those rigs inspecting and testing equipment function.

Now it really looks like fishing will take decades to return, if at all. BP changed CEO's. Wow. I am seriously less than impressed. That company needs to be supporting the economies of the affected states until their economies recover. That's what liability and responsibility mean.

I personally went deep-deep water fishing in the gulf 3 times since last may and several the year before and while I caught quite a bit of fish, I can't remember catching any with sores, lesions or missing any body parts.....tasted good too....but hey, I'm not trying to get a government funded grant to study all the damage BP caused.

Don't get me wrong, I believe BP's responsible for what happened and should be held accountable but my PERSONAL experience and that of all my fisherman friends doesn't quite match up to the government funded specialists dire predictions.

I suggest you all book vacations along the gulf and see for yourselves.

I certainly wasn't making the point that reckless companies should skate on responsibility.  BP should be, and will be, paying for this for years.  And they didn't just change CEOs.  They also created a $20 Billion spill response fund (which they are adding $1.25B per quarter to until it reaches the $20B).  They posted their US assets as against the $20B as collateral.  The did that voluntarily and without any cap or legal restriction of future lawsuits in regards to the spills.  I'm not defending them, merely pointing out that they are taking some measure of responsibility for the disaster beyond "just changing CEOs".  

However, none of what you quoted changes the fact that we have to find balance between vitriol like "They won't stop until everything around us is pure poison." and the fact that without the output of those industries our societies don't exist.  Certainly historically without those industries we, as a species, don't begin to approach the quality of life we have reached in some parts of the world.  And going forward we can talk about alternative energy all day, but the fact remains that we're stuck with fossil fuels for decades regardless.  The alternative energy sources aren't ready for prime time, not at the level countries like the US, China, or the EU members need.  

The way to go is prevention of disasters and punishment and reparations when they do occur.  

I was over in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War and when Kuwait's oil pipeline and storage facilities along the coast were sabotaged by Saddam Hussein. The BP oil spill was a drop in the bucket compared to what oil was let into the Gulf waters in Kuwait and Saudi.

Fishing and shrimp resumed a year later and with no decrease in catches.

It doesn't take decades for it to recover.

I agree that BP's lack of following safety rules was irresponsible and should pay dearly for their choices.

I worked for 30+ years in the petro-chemical industry and BP's attitude for not following safety and environmental rules is not the norm for other companies who do care about our environment.

Sorry but this is the way it has to be as of right now and until we find out how to get energy another way :/

"...We may not survive the change from a Type 0 planet to a Type 1 planet."

                                                                                                        -Michio Kaku

I'm glad I live in Canada where we distill our oil from sand instead.

I was gonna add something about how modern society simply couldn't exist without cheap oil but others beat me to it.

The icing on the cake would be if all those mutagens created a killer shrimp monster that started to eat fisherman.

Government supervisors actually do go around testing and inspecting stuff all the time, to no positive effect.  Jumping on the commie bandwagon for more oversight and regulation is just the knee-jerk reaction these liberal trash mongers are hoping for.

It's minor, the expected outcome everyone paying attention knew was coming from day one.  The marshes are fucked(who'd a thunk?), the gulf proper largely didn't give a shit.  Minor mutations in bottom feeders and some of the more sensitive species, particularly ones that visit the coast line and thus got more contamination, are having issues.  This is pure media hype, economic impact is negligible, environmental impact isn't even as bad as the Exxon Valdez spill was.

It would be nice if they bothered to investigate it though.  They should have followed the paper trail, starting with the inspector that found and reported the problem, to whatever asshole manager it was along the chain that buried it to make his quota look better.  That particular POS needs to be in jail for manslaughter at the least, and it's all just sitting there in old work logs waiting to be used.  Unfortunately, prosecuting people responsible for criminal activities doesn't get them anywhere on the big government agenda, so they don't bother.

http://www.theworld.org/2010/05/lessons-learned-from-gulf-war-oil-spill/

Depends how one defines "quality". Poisoned food doesn't rank highly on mine.

The life in the Gulf is bred in the marshes. As for poisonous political aspersions, keep them to yourself. Polite discourse or none.

There were regulatory failures, and corporate decisionmaking that looked at short-term profit over long-term societal benefits.

Public corporations will never think of long-term societal benefits in any terms outside of their own short-term benefit.  This is why governments need to force corporations to care. (and why corporation spend millions to try and keep the government out, it's often a better investment then trying to be more competitive)

Note: private corporations such as Stardock are a different beast.

Because food isnt a much better quality nowdays than it was 100 years, 1000 years ago.

ya, we really fucked that food thing up. Dam our technology for totally ruining all the quality of our food supply.

BS report

 I was there and there was a significant cleanup along the Saudi coast
 there were several european and american companies and equipment there to remove the oil
 and what I stated about fishing and shrimping returning the next year is true.
 

I don't believe these reports from self-serving authors.

I think I was pretty clear in how I define quality in my original post.  Things like electricity, electronics, cars, and home heating.  My point is that the overall quality of life, and the hopes for a better quality of life for those who haven't reached it yet, depend largely upon these industries.  Without them, many of the things that have lifted a significant amount of the world out of poverty and towards 80 years of life expectancy would not exist.  

Even without incompetence disasters would happen.  And we're human so there's plenty of incompetence too.  The argument that we're not willing to accept even the chance of disaster is the argument for sticks and the cave.  We do what we can for disaster prevention, and we can certainly do better here, and we hold those who cause disasters responsible.  

I stand by my original point:  Statements like "They won't stop until everything around us is pure poison." do nothing to advance the discussion about how to find the right balance and completely ignore the amazing benefits we've reaped from these "evil" industries.  

Agreed.

I find it very hard to believe that there are no consequences to such incredible levels of hydrocarbon pollution. That just doesn't make sense to me. That we don't hear 'the truth' about it does... and I'm sure there's exaggeration/minimization.

The industries aren't 'evil' or 'good'. They have consequences, both beneficial and harmful. I can find no evidence that oil spills are beneficial.

The pollution produced isn't 'just atmospheric'. It would be nice if there weren't consequences, but it just doesn't make sense to believe that pouring hydrocarbons into the sea won't have consequences anymore than pouring raw sewage into a river would have no consequences. I can't find research that concludes there are no short or long term effects of such spills.

We'll certainly see, one way or the other.

Relocated to 'Politics-the environment' .... the correct forum....;)

Fish vote now?  I guess if the dead do......

The movie Gasland is total bullshit. If you didn't have your head buried in the LSM sand you would know that by now.

I recommend seeing the movie FrackNation.