Gulf of Mexico
gregladen | April 4, 2016Photographer Jesse Cancelmo was struck by the general lack of understanding of the sea life and ecology of the Gulf of Mexico that became apparent with the big oil spill in 2010, and this inspired him to carry out a major photographic project in the Gulf.
He felt many had written off the Gulf as a post-environmental disaster dead zone. While environmental effects in the Gulf are certainly very important, it is still a living, thriving ecosystem, the product of Candelmo's work, Glorious Gulf of Mexico: Life Below the Blue, attests to this.
This is a stunning coffee table type book (but…
grrlscientist | July 15, 2010tags: BP Executives Deeply Affected by OilSpill Parody, oilspill, petroleum, Gulf of Mexico, television, Ray Suarez, NewsHour, Bob Dudley, parody, streaming video
As part of an hour-long live online interview with the NewsHour's Ray Suarez, BP executive Bob Dudley responds to questions from the public, including a video parodying the BP response effort.
I do feel sympathetic towards the BP peons -- you know, those people whom the executives depend upon but who are constantly trying not to be screwed out of pay raises, or their health insurance or retirement benefits as the result of the…
grrlscientist | July 14, 2010tags: The Oil Spill's Unseen Culprits, Victims, health, environment, ecology, pollution, oilspill, BP, acidification, Gulf of Mexico, dispersants, Carl Safina, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video
The Gulf oil spill dwarfs comprehension, but we know this much: it's bad. Carl Safina scrapes out the facts in this blood-boiling cross-examination, arguing that the consequences will stretch far beyond the Gulf -- and many so-called solutions are making the situation worse.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading…
egrossman | July 8, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
"I've never seen anything like it," says David Willman, who has nearly 15 years' experience captaining supply boats that support oil rigs and drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. "We're seeing pods of whales and dolphins out in the oil and lots of dead things," he tells me. "Things I've never seen before coming up from the deep that look like sea cucumbers floating dead. Man o' wars floating dead with shriveled tentacles." Willman is captain of the Noonie G., an 111-foot supply boat owned by Guilbeau Marine, a company based in Cut Off, LA. He's been working out of…
grrlscientist | July 6, 2010tags: Close Encounter with a Whale Shark in the Gulf of Mexico, marine biology, field research, research, technology, whale shark, Rhincodon typus, satellite tags, Gulf of Mexico, BP, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, University of Southern Mississippi, streaming video
Whale Shark, Rhincodon typus, feeding in the Gulf of Mexico.
Image: Gulf Coast Research Laboratory Whale Shark Research.
Despite being the largest fish species in the world, measuring over 40 feet in length and 35 tons in weight, whale sharks are quite mysterious. We know they are plankton filter feeders, and we recently…
grrlscientist | July 3, 2010tags: Federal Officials Suspend First Amendment Rights for Coverage of Gulf of Mexico Disaster, First Amendment Rights, Gulf of Mexico, BP, oil spill, oil spill clean-up efforts, relief efforts, disaster relief, US Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, mainstream media, streaming video
What. The. FUCK. As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, mainstream news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials -- working with BP -- who are blocking access to the sites where…
dblum | June 15, 2010Recently, I wrote a cranky little post about NOAA's behavior regarding the Gulf of Mexico. The agency's approach seemed to me to be timid and deferential at a time when I wanted a strong voice and and steady sense of purpose.
What had set me off was the agency's reluctance to use the word "plume" in describing the underwater mists of oil drifting away from the BP disaster site. Why not, I asked, call a plume a plume?
To my surprise, I almost immediately got a call from NOAA. For some reason, people at the agency didn't agree with my analyses. I thought they were being wusses. They thought…
lborkowski | June 14, 2010It's been good to see OSHA adding more Gulf sampling data to its website, but the presentation of the information there isn't quite as detailed as we were expecting to see. We asked an industrial hygienist colleague for a reaction to the web pages, and got an in-depth response. Here are one industrial hygienist's recommendations for how OSHA can make its online sampling data more useful:
After reviewing OSHA's "Keeping Workers Safe During Oil Spill Response and Cleanup Operations" series of websites, I recommend that OSHA improve the information technology capacity of the sites and add…
grrlscientist | June 11, 2010tags: BP Spills Coffee, Upright Citizen's Brigade Comedy Team, BP, British Petroleum, oil spill, disaster, environment, social commentary, Gulf of Mexico, comedy, humor, satire, funny, fucking hilarious, streaming video
What would happen if BP spilled a bunch of coffee on their conference room table? Pretty much the same thing if they spilled a whole bunch of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. This Upright Citizen's Brigade theater sketch spoof explores the delicate mapping between the two scenarios, and the delightful comedy that ensues. Kevin Costner's voice, or a reasonable facsimile, guest stars…
grrlscientist | June 8, 2010tags: Care for Some Crude With Your Sushi?, toro sushi, maguro sushi, Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, Gulf of Mexico, pollution, oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, BP, British Petroleum, overfishing, endangered species, conservation, marine biology, streaming video
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the worst environmental disaster the US has faced. Toxic oil from the Deepwater Horizon well threatens the region's sensitive shorelines and the nesting birds along the Louisiana coast. But there's another species at serious risk: the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus. This disturbing video…
grrlscientist | June 7, 2010tags: BP Fails Booming School 101, Gulf oil spill, political commentary, humor, outrage, political commentary, teaching, oil spill boom, Gulf of Mexico, BP oil spill, British Petroleum, streaming video
BP Fails Booming School 101, creating an environmental disaster and is failing to take the lead in cleanup. BP claims they "are prepared" to deal with such things as an oil spill -- if they are so prepared, then why is this happening? This video shows that, contrary to BP's lies about their preparedness, they actually are NOT prepared AT ALL. Unfortunately, our federal government is also…
grrlscientist | June 6, 2010tags: Dawn dishwashing liquid, television commercial, advertising, oil spill, Gulf of Mexico, BP oil spill, British Petroleum, streaming video
Experiments have shown that Dawn dishwashing liquid works best to save oiled wildlife and doesn't burn their tender skin and eyes. According to the information I've found, Dawn is donating all the detergent used to clean oiled Gulf of Mexico birds, and is also raising funds to help with the clean up effort.
Learn more about Dawn and their efforts to help save oiled wildlife [facebook group].
lborkowski | June 4, 2010As a group, scientists generally grasp the importance of good data collection systems - but federal-agency budgets rarely let scientists collect as much data as they'd like. Trimming funds for monitoring or surveillance programs may seem like the least painful budget choice when money's tight, but then sometimes it turns out that relatively small savings from such cuts have huge costs further down the line. That seems to be the case when it comes to data on currents in the Gulf of Mexico, as Paul Voosen reports for Greenwire:
For more than a decade, scientists have called for federal funding…
grrlscientist | June 4, 2010tags: Laughing Gull, Larus atricilla, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Laughing Gull, Larus atricilla, photographed at East Grand Terre Island, Louisiana.
Image: Charlie Riedel, 3 June 2010 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Here's what this bird would look like without its lovely coating of oil:
Laughing Gull, Larus atricilla, photographed at Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary, Texas.
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 7 April 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/1250s f/8.0 at 1000.…
grrlscientist | June 4, 2010tags: BP's Spilling Fields, oil spill, Gulf of Mexico, humor, comedy, social commentary, BP oil spill, British Petroleum, Jon Stewart, Wyatt Cenac, streaming video
"BP gave up on getting the oil out of the water a LONG time ago. Now the challenge is to get the water and dead shrimp and stuff out of the oil."
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Cenac - The Spilling Fields - Oil Leak Containment Ideas
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Tea Party
Watch the entire episode.
grrlscientist | June 3, 2010tags: Deja Vu (All Over Again), oil spill, Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, Gulf of Mexico, Trans-Ocean, Ixtac oil well blowout, BP oil spill, British Petroleum, Rachel Maddow, streaming video
There was another oilspill in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979 -- and the same corporate players involved with that spill are there now! This 1979 oilspill WAS the worst oilspill in history, until now, of course. Despite corporate lies .. erm, claims that the technology has advanced since 1979, the same identical strategies are being used now to stop this oilspill. How long did it take to stop this oil leak? NINE…
dblum | May 29, 2010 In a recent discussion on this blog, an interesting thread appeared: the idea that BP's heavy use of chemical dispersants to break up the Gulf oil spill was as much damage cover up as damage control.
Here are a few examples:
My suspicion is that the main reason they used these dispersants was to hide the oil from view.... Anything that will keep the oil out of site below the surface allows them a certain measure of plausible deniability regarding their knowledge of the spills true magnitude.
I think there is a big effort on the part of BP to minimize the aesthetic and…
dblum | May 27, 2010 The latest news from the Gulf of Mexico offers both relief (the "top kill" approach to ending the oil spill may be working) and dismay (the amount of oil pouring into the water is now thought to be closer to 20,000 barrels a day rather than the 5,000 barrels that BP has insisted on for weeks.)
In other words - at worst case - the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the spill amount may be closer to 39 million gallons of oil so far, rather than the 11 million previously suspected. Now, I've spent the last week or so focusing on the chemical dispersants used to break down the oil,…
grrlscientist | May 26, 2010tags: Hazmat Dive into the Middle of the Gulf Oil Spill, Corexit, environment, Gulf oil spill, BP, British Petroleum, chemical dispersants, Philippe Cousteau Jr., Sam Champion, television, streaming video
What is the chemical dispersant, Corexit, doing to the oil in the Gulf? This video follows Philippe Cousteau Jr. and Sam Champion as they dive into Gulf's oily waters wearing hazmat uniforms. Their video shows that the oil is being broken up into tiny droplets that coat everything in their path ... birds, fish, whales, boats, the bottom of the sea and people in hazmat suits ... these small…
dblum | May 20, 2010 Today, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would require BP to use a less toxic (and more effective) chemical dispersant than the brand used so far. I wish, I wish, I'm always wishing for these actions to sparkle with government intelligence and initiative.
But it's obvious that the EPA was responding to pressure created by media reports, starting with a first class piece of research from Greenwire and by resulting Congressional inquiries. In fact, the EPA appears to have stood passively by while BP dumped more than half a million gallons of the chemical dispersant…