Earth ChangesS


Ambulance

Best of the Web: Gulf Coast, Grab Your Gas Masks!

What can go wrong will go wrong. Such is the case for the Gulf Coast and the unending saga of the BP oil spill that's now in its eleventh week. What's wrong now is this: winds from Hurricane Alex are pushing tar balls as large as apples onto Gulf Coast beaches. This has stopped cleanup efforts momentarily and even undone some of the spill control. As one marine scientist put it: "We lost all the progress we made." But the winds picking up are a giant concern for something else.


Bizarro Earth

Gut wrenching video: BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales

This is without a doubt, the most disturbing video I have ever produced.

I saw at least 100 Dolphins dying or struggling to get out of the oil. It was many miles from any water that was not contaminated. In all likelihood, the Dolphins and Sperm Whale seen in this video are dead by now.

The Dolphins were disoriented. Some already dead and others struggling to keep their heads up high enough to see the fires. The Sperm Whale was covered in oil.

We have to spread this around the world! Who will be accountable for their lives?

All involved in this disaster will be held accountable to a higher power than any on Earth. Man should not destroy the gentle creatures God created.

Cloud Lightning

Hurricane Alex Spins Past Oil Rigs Toward Mexico

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© NOAA/ReutersHurricane Alex is seen in a satellite image taken June 29, 2010.
Alex strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday and was due to hit the Mexican coast in a few hours, but it stayed clear of oil fields to the relief of crude markets.

The hurricane hampered efforts to control the massive BP Plc oil spill off the Louisiana coast, and its winds of nearly 100 mph bent over palm trees and lashed the port city of Matamoros across from Brownsville, Texas.

Rain from the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic season swamped beaches, as soaked Mexican marines in towns in Tamaulipas state ushered residents into shelters as 10-foot (3-meter)-high waves slammed into the shore.

"We're getting out of here, this looks really ugly," said a 50-year-old housewife who gave her name as Juana as she packed belongings into a truck in the beach town of Playa Bagdad.

Cloud Lightning

Rain and Severe Floods Kill At Least 20 in Romania

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© Agence France-PresseVillagers protect their homes against flooding in north-eastern Romania
At least 20 people have been killed in a week of torrential rains and flooding in Romania.

Around 7000 people have been evacuated so far and large areas of arable land are under water, officials said.

The Romanian government has asked for aid from the European Union to help repair the damage to roads and farmland.

Interior Minister Vasile Blaga said that the situation was especially bad in the north-east of the country.

Thousand of riot police continue to enforce flood defences and help to evacuate residents, Mr Blaga told parliament.

He warned that the damage caused by the floods would take a heavy toll on the Romanian economy, which is struggling to emerge from a recession.

Propaganda

Circle of Lies: Planet BP Lube Job

Planet BP reporters tell positive oil spill stories made to look like the news so we can feel better.

Heart - Black

Video: The Gulf oil spill

Part 1 - The economic impact

In this video, the first of a series on the Gulf Coast oil spill, the WSWS interviews Dean Blanchard, the owner of a shrimp processing and distribution company located in Grand Isle, Louisiana. Like many others, his business has been ruined by the oil spill that has contaminated the gulf of Mexico and largely destroyed shrimping and fishing in the region.

Fish

Some 70,000 turtle eggs to be whisked far from oil

tagged turtle
© APIn this June 10, 2010 file photo, a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle is lifted back to its temporary tank after being weighed, getting its heartbeat and temperature taken, and getting a shot of antibiotics at the Audubon Nature Institute’s Aquatic C

Pensacola Beach, Florida - An effort to save thousands of sea turtle hatchlings from dying in the oily Gulf of Mexico will begin in the coming weeks in a desperate attempt to keep an entire generation of threatened species from vanishing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will coordinate the plan, which calls for collecting about 70,000 turtle eggs in up to 800 nests buried in the sand across Florida Panhandle and Alabama beaches.

It's never been done on such a massive scale. But doing nothing, experts say, could lead to unprecedented deaths. There are fears the turtles would be coated in oil and poisoned by crude-soaked food.

Bizarro Earth

Arkansas, U.S.: Series of quakes shake Searcy area

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© United State Geological SurveyA United State Geological Survey map shows a series of small earthquakes felt in the Searcy area in recent days.
Little Rock - Geologists are installing a temporary sensor just west of Searcy to record seismic activity after a series of earthquakes that have rattled the area in recent days.

The U.S. Geological Survey lists nine quakes in White County since Saturday, with the strongest occurring that night about 7 miles northwest of Garner. That quake measured 3.3 on the Richter scale.

The quakes have continued each day since, including a 2.2-magnitude earthquake reported just before 10:30 a.m. Tuesday about 6 miles west of Searcy. More than 100 people have reported feeling the stronger tremors.

Scott Ausbrooks, the geohazards supervisor with the Arkansas Geological Survey, said the temporary earthquake sensor should be online by the end of this week and will record better data should more quakes occur in the same White County region.

"You can equate it to tornado-chasing," Ausbrooks said by phone from the White County site. "You hate to say it but you need more earthquakes to get more data."

Better Earth

Antarctic Garbage Patch Coming?

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© Mosaic Antarctica (LIMA) Project
You've heard about the Pacific garbage patch and the Atlantic garbage patch, each a sobering sign of how when we throw things away, they don't go "away" -- they often go into the sea, where they remain for a long, long time.

Much of the global ocean remains uncharted in terms of pollution, but unfortunately the more we look, the more we find. And now even the most remote, pristine waters on the planet -- the coastal seas of Antarctica -- are being invaded by plastic debris.

In a series of surveys conducted during the austral summer of 2007-2008, researchers at the British Antarctic Survey and Greenpeace trawled the region, skimming surface waters and digging into the seabed. Even in the exceedingly remote Davis and Durmont D'Urville seas they found errant fishing buoys and a plastic cup. Plastic packaging was found floating in the Amundsen Sea (see map).

Fish

BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales

This was the most emotionally disturbing video I have ever done!

A flight over the BP Slick Source where I saw at least 100 Dolphins in the oil, some dying. I also photographed a Sperm Whale covered in oil all around it's blow hole.
Please spread this around the world. Send me any links to places it gets posted so I can follow.

I want to piss off the world. Who will answer for these gentle creatures?