Yesterday I flew with SACE board member Enid Sisskin and former board member Michael O’Donovan, a professional photographer. Both are Gulf coast residents with a long history of fighting offshore drilling. We flew out of Gulf Shores, Alabama over the beautiful Gulf of Mexico to the site of this tragic oil disaster, where BP’s drill rig Deepwater [...]
Since the Gulf oil disaster began on April 20, the ever-increasing damage to local wildlife, ecosystems and local economies confirms just how deadly our addiction to oil and other dirty fossil fuels has become. In March, SACE critiqued President Obama’s short-sighted plan to lift a 20-year old ban on offshore drilling and then in April [...]
In response to public pressure, BP has agreed to live stream BP notes: “Please be aware, this is a live stream and may freeze or be unavailable from time to time. Throughout the extended top kill procedure – which may take up to two days to complete – very significant changes in the appearance of [...]
Dramatic new video of gushing oil was released yesterday after repeated requests by Sens. Boxer and Nelson. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ybE8jZAxdc The four newly-released videos were taken at different dates looking at the two known major leaks gushing from the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. One leak is in the broken riser pipe, a second leak seen for [...]
In 2008, Southeastern utilities spent six times more on coal from Colombia (yes, the country in South America) than they did helping their customers cut energy waste at home. In fact, the Southeast spent over $10 billion in 2008 to import coal from other states and countries to fuel power plants, according to a report [...]
When the Obama Administration announced plans to expand offshore drilling to the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast on March 31, 2010, the Minerals Management Service (a division of the Department of Interior) began conducting a series of public scoping meetings. If you weren’t able to make it to one of the seven [...]
Today marks the 23rd day of the BP Gulf Oil Disaster. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlPPFcy-3Vo As we watch oil gush from a well-head 5,000 feet below the surface of the water because technological fixes have been unsuccessful, residents of the region grow anxious waiting for the full impacts of this environmental catastrophe to be felt. In the coming [...]
If the still-unfolding oil disaster in the Gulf has taught us anything, it’s that we have spent 40 years trying to solve the ‘wrong’ problem. When 3 million gallons of crude oil bubbled to the surface and spread into a 800 square mile slick off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969, the public cried [...]
At first glance, the latest forecast image from NOAA shows that the oil spill is significantly smaller than in previous days. The truth is that the amount of oil spewing out of the seafloor has not changed. Experts say that the oil is sinking and breaking up due to the usage of chemical dispersants; which [...]
This morning coastal residents in Louisiana will wake to uncertainty as ribbons of oily sheen wash into their estuaries and onto their beaches. The ongoing ecological catastrophe in the Gulf is stirring up all-too-familiar feelings of anxiety over future livelihoods; this time not from a natural disaster, but a man-made one. Many are just now [...]
