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by Mike Adams
the Health Ranger
May 17, 2010
from
NaturalNews Website
Over a week ago, I published an article
here on NaturalNews questioning the media spin on the massive oil
spill in the Gulf.
That story, entitled
Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we're
being told?,
stated the following:
"It's hard to say exactly what's going on in the Gulf right now,
especially because there are so many conflicting reports and
unanswered questions. But one thing's for sure: if the situation is
actually much worse than we're being led to believe, there could be
worldwide catastrophic consequences.
If it's true that millions upon
millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end
in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way
into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up
the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely
destroy the global fishing industries."
Now, barely one week later, it turns out that the oil slick is FAR
worse than what we were being told.
USA Today now reports:
Researchers warned Sunday that miles-long underwater plumes of oil
from the spill could poison and suffocate sea life across the food
chain, with damage that could endure for a decade or more.
That same article also explained:
"Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they can
count from the blown-out well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of
marine sciences at the University of Georgia. She said careful
measurements taken of one plume showed it stretching for 10 miles,
with a 3-mile width."
The
Christian Science Monitor also reports now that as much as 3.4
million gallons of oil may be leaking into the Gulf every day!
"The oil that can be seen from the surface is apparently just a
fraction of the oil that has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since
April 20, according to an assessment the National Institute for
Undersea Science and Technology. Significant amounts of oil are
spreading at various levels throughout the water column...
Scientists looking at video of the leak, suggest that as many as 3.4
million gallons of oil could be leaking into the Gulf every day – 16
times more than the current 210,000-gallon-a-day estimate, according
to the Times."
The New York Times also chimed in on the topic over the weekend with
some absolutely shocking (and disturbing) revelations:
"Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of
the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles
wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence
that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially
worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively
calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000
barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons
a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the
ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a
day."
In other words, while the government has been telling us the leak is
only 5,000 barrels a day, the true volume could be more like 80,000
barrels a day.
Wiping out the Gulf
It hardly needs to be stated that 80,000 barrels of oil a day
leaking into the Gulf of Mexico could destroy virtually all marine
life in the region.
Oxygen levels have already fallen by 30 percent in waters near the
oil. When water loses its oxygen content, it quickly becomes a
so-called "dead zone" because marine species simply can't live there
anymore. (Fish and other aquatic creatures need oxygen to live,
obviously.)
With this volcano of oil still erupting through the ocean floor, we
could be witnessing the mass-murder of virtually all marine life in
the Gulf of Mexico.
And yet we're faced with a virtual blackout of truly accurate news
on the event. Both the oil industry and the
Obama administration are
desperately trying to limit the videos, photos and stories about the
spill, spinning everything to make it seem like it's not really much
of a problem at all.
It's much like the media coverage of the War in Iraq, where all
video footage had to be vetted by the Pentagon before being released
to the public. Remember the uproar over the leaked photos of coffins
draped in American flags? That's what the Obama administration no
doubt hopes to avoid by suppressing photos of dead dolphins and sea
birds in the Gulf of Mexico.
The truth, as usual, is being suppressed. It's just too ugly for the
public to see.
Of course, the truth has always been suppressed in the oil industry.
Even the inspections on this particular oil rig were, well, rigged.
It turns out
the rig wasn't even inspected on schedule.
It also turns out that the Obama administration actually gave the
Deepwater Horizon an award for its history of safety!
That was
before the whole thing literally blew up in their faces...
Corruption in Washington leads to catastrophe
The oil industry, you see, is just like every other industry that's
regulated by the federal government: It has a cozy relationship with
regulators.
It's the same story with
Big Pharma and the FDA, or the meat
industry and the USDA. Wall Street and the SEC. Every industry
that's regulated eventually turns the tables on its regulators and
ends up rewriting the rules for its own benefit.
The oil industry has been able to get away with so many exemptions
and loopholes that the regulatory environment is now lenient at
best. The Deepwater Horizon, for example, was given all sorts of
exemptions to engage in risky drilling operations without following
proper safety procedures. And who granted it these exemptions? The
U.S. federal government, of course!
So now the U.S. government is just as guilty as the oil industry in
this mass-murder of life in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the government
that allowed the series of events that led to catastrophe in the
first place. And now, this catastrophe could lead to a near-total
wipeout of marine life throughout the Gulf (and possibly beyond).
In a worst-case scenario, this could destroy some percentage of life
in oceans all around the world. It could be the one final wound to
Mother Earth who bleeds her black blood into the oceans for ten
thousand years, destroying life as we know it on this planet.
All for profit, of course...
Let nothing stand in the way of another
billion dollars in oil company profits! (Regulators? Bah!)
Collusion between government and industry always leads to disaster
I hope BP can find a way to suction some of that oil out of the
ocean.
If they can manage such a solution, they should then turn
around and dump the entire slick across the landscape of Washington
D.C. to coat all the bureaucrats in the black slimy shame they no
doubt deserve. This isn't about some random accident, you see: It's
about a failure of federal regulators to enforce safe drilling
practices.
The fishing industries in and around the Gulf of Mexico could be
devastated for decades. The diversity of life in the marine
ecosystems there may soon find itself on the verge of collapse. And
still there is no real solution for stopping the volcano of oil that
continues to gush out of this gaping wound in the Earth herself.
I can only wonder what kind of hare-brained ideas these oil men are
coming up with now to stop the flow. A nuke bomb expert has
reportedly been sent to the area by the Obama administration as part
of some sort of "dream team" of super smart people to find a
solution.
But it begs the question: If we were so smart, why are we still
running the world on fossil fuels in the first place? There's enough
sunlight energy striking the deserts of Arizona to power the entire
nation indefinitely!
Free energy technology continues to be
suppressed in large part by oil company interests (and the arrogant
scientific community), and renewable energy technology has received
virtually no government support whatsoever.
If we were really smart, we wouldn't be drilling holes in the ocean
floor and hoping we can cope with whatever comes gushing out. We'd
be installing Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) installations across
the deserts of America or building more wind power generators. We've
be investing in electric cars and alternative fuels rather than
burning up our future with fossil fuels.
The smartest thing we could do right now - after capping the
volcano of oil, of course - would be to make a commitment to end
our world's dependence on fossils fuels forever. But that goes
against the financial interests of the oil companies who all want to
keep us trapped in their system of fossil fuel dependence no matter
what the cost to the environment.
And so we plug along, handcuffed to an outdated fuel source and
still running our ridiculously historical internal combustion
engines which should have been phased out decades ago and replaced
with electric motors.
Humans are slow learners, it turns out. Our modern civilization
isn't really that "modern," and it only seems to learn from
catastrophe rather than intelligent planning.
The question remains:
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How much more damage can our planet handle
from Man's arrogant pollution?
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At what point does all the chemical
contamination, fertilizer runoff, carbon emissions and runaway oil
pollution of the ocean add up to a global extinction event?
We're playing a global game of Russian Roulette right now with the
future of human civilization... and the oil companies just can't
stop pulling the trigger.
There's little question where we're all
going to end up if we don't change our ways and find a cleaner way
to power our infantile civilization.
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