More on the oil "spill"

FUCK BP

It seems that about 20 gallons every second (rough guesstimate) are spewing out of that pipe on the ocean bed. Think about that.

20 gallons/second.

1,200 gallons/minute.

72,000 gallons/hour.

1,728,000 gallons/day.

12,096,000 gallons/week.

52,560,000 gallons/month.

630,720,000 gallons/year.

The larger the number gets, the less comprehensible it becomes. If I were to increase my guessestimate to, say, 23 gallons/second, then we're looking at 725,328,000 gallons/year - a difference of 94,608,000 - closing in on 100 million more - gallons!!! And that's the problem: It is really difficult for us mere mortals to get a handle on the enormity of the problem. So, after that prelude, on with the show...

Unfortunately, I have this burning desire to rant and rave some more about the oil spill. (See earlier post.) Here, I am providing some links that will allow you to easily keep up to date - thereby alleviating the need for me to keep blathering, babbling, and bafflegabbing on!

Spraying oil dispersant

EarthJustice.org is providing objective, well-written reports in their blog - you can infer by their name that they are primarily interested in maintaining a healthy environment for all of us, probably the most important issue in our lives today. Remember that this blue orb, spinning around the sun, floating in space, is an extremely delicate and complex mechanism, and that us human beings seem to be doing everything in our power to destroy that - along with ourselves in the process!

Oil on the beach

Then we have our old friends, Greenpeace - while they generally tend to be a little too militant for me, and most definitely biased in their mission, this is one occasion where I applaud their efforts. They are doing everything in their power to make people aware of the magnitude of the disaster.

Of course, we can always count on Wikipedia to give us the latest news on this. While the article is long, it's worth a skim (pun intended). They also have timelines - one from the beginning to May 30 and one for June (it looks like they're now doing a separate page for each month).

And one more - in the interest of fairness, and if you really want to see the other side of the story, here is the link to the official BP propaganda site. (They've been clever - recognizing that people don't read any more, they are instead relying heavily on YouTube videos to, erm, document the story.)