25 Comments

1. 1. RDH 09:46 AM 6/13/10

   A few people die here and there. But billions more live because of John Deere. Which would you rather have?

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2. 2. candide in reply to RDH 12:21 PM 6/13/10

   You are right, death does not matter. Humans are doomed to be extinct, its just a matter of time.

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3. 3. Dolmance 12:31 PM 6/13/10

   Why can't we just build small nuclear reactors the size of those found on military vessels and use them to make endless supplies of hydrogen to power every engine currently using fossil fuel on earth?

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4. 4. BJ Bonobo 12:32 PM 6/13/10

   Death relly does not matter, certainly to those reaping profits
   from this destruction of the environment. The earth is hopelessly over populated and life is expendable !!

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5. 5. Dolmance in reply to RDH 12:35 PM 6/13/10

   "Here and there?" You need to do your homework. Hundreds of millions are a far cry from "here and there."
   
   Maybe you should change the channel on your TV, because you're obviously listening to Fox News to the exclusion of all else.
   
   I swear, dealing with Fox News viewers is like a sci/fi flick where people are taken over by disgusting, giant amoeba like creatures attached to the back of their necks sucking their spinal fluid and controlling their minds.

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6. 6. Zzoni 01:40 PM 6/13/10

   Remember that while Nuclear Power looks enticing, we don't have a good method (not in my backyard) of dealing with the waste. Right now, there are huge cooling pools next to all the power plants to "store" the spent fuel cells in until a solution is found. They'll stay hot for many, many years. Consider the complete cycle, and it doesn't look as favorable. Just like no-one considering the real cost of oil and our dependence on it (add in the cost of WAR and the price goes up, no? How much are your children worth?)...

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7. 7. Sustainingaaron in reply to RDH 02:09 PM 6/13/10

   The whole idea of human progress is to improve upon the past and present. To resign onesself to the idea that "it has worked for billions" and therefore needs no improvement is to be blind to human progress, which is what we really owe a debt of gratitude toward...no one motorized invention. Improvements powered by innovation in the next "great unknown" field of industry propels economies and societies. By the way, the beloved John Deere was an improvement over the way things had been done for centuries. Innovators saw an opportunity to advance a system that was feeding billions already, drawing upon human desire to move to the next stage, and improve their societies and "benefit" more people. All I have seen in this article is a suggestion that we would be better off with an energy source that had a smaller detrimental impact on people and planet...not cutting production of crops, nor cutting energy consumption.
   Replacing one energy source with another has been done for centuries, by the way.

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8. 8. Soccerdad 05:02 PM 6/13/10

   Is David Biello going to abstain from using any fossil fuels in transportation, heating and cooling, plastics and electrical power? Or is he going to continue braying at the moon for the problems caused by fossil fuel production being done on his behalf?
   
   He's probably of the same mold as AlGore. Preaches to everyone else, then uses 1 or 2 orders of magnitude more fossil fuels than the average person.

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9. 9. perspicio 05:48 PM 6/13/10

   ** Waste of time alert **
   
   Soccerdad, the article is informational, not an editorial. By contrast, your comments reveal nothing but your own fact-free judgmentalism.
   
   I suggest you stick your head back in the sand & abstain from learning about the negative side of the technologies and resources we use, so that others will not have to listen to you bray about the audacity of others' efforts to share information that is of interest to responsible world citizens.
   
   And don't ask why the sand you stick your head in tastes funny.

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10. 10. hawkeye in reply to Dolmance 08:18 PM 6/13/10

    What minds? They give new meaning to the term "mindless".

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11. 11. bangmather 11:05 PM 6/13/10

    I am so sorry for oil leak which is a kind of disaster to human.

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12. 12. bangmather 11:10 PM 6/13/10

    I am so sorry to the oil slick in the mexico gulf which is disaster to human.

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13. 13. Soccerdad in reply to perspicio 08:13 AM 6/14/10

    perspicio
    
    "...informational, not an editorial."??
    
    From the article: "Cleaning up our energy habits is indeed the moral equivalent of war . " That's informational?
    
    If it were informational it would contain some information about the wealth of benefits brought by oil and other fossil fuels. This spill will soon be fixed and will fade from memory and from the environment. It does not diminish the great benefits we all reap from the exploitation of oil.
    
    And when has natural gas "sickened" or killed anyone besides in isolated industrial accidents? People get killed installing windmills too.
    
    Sorry, this is nearly pure editorial, so I responded in kind.

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14. 14. witsend 08:45 AM 6/14/10

    I fully agree, Mr. Biello, that there has not been a full accounting of the costs of burning fuel. Although you mentioned the impacts on human health, you left out animals and plants.
    
    There are many toxic byproducts from burning fuels but one that is an enormous, existential threat is ozone, a potent greenhouse gas and pollutant. It is well-documented in research and even on the EPA website that ozone damages the stomata of foliage, inhibiting the ability to photosynthesize and produce essential chlorophyll.
    
    With the inexorably rising level of tropospheric ozone, we are heading full-tilt towards worldwide ecosystem collapse. Trees are dying from long-term, cumulative exposure, and the leaves of even annual crops now exhibit the characteristic stipplying, singeing, and chlorosis from ozone poisoning.
    
    Keep in mind that ozone weakens plants and trees leaving them susceptible to naturally occurring pests, diseases, and fungus.
    
    If we don't switch to clean energy on an emergency basis, mass famine will soon result. People rationed all sorts of products in WWII for the greater good and did just fine. We should ration energy. Everyone gets a basic allotment and too bad about energy-gobbling, non-essential toys for the rich. Consider the alternatives...ration? starve? ration? resource wars? ration? an uninhabitable climate... It's really not that hard, is it?
    
    www.witsendnj.blogspot.com has photographs and many links to scientific research.

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15. 15. witsend in reply to Soccerdad 08:53 AM 6/14/10

    "This spill will soon be fixed and will fade from memory and from the environment. "
    
    This comment is dangerous should be removed by the moderator. It is so laughable it made me spew coffee all over my monitor.

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16. 16. Bluv in reply to RDH 09:30 AM 6/14/10

    RDH, you offer the classic fallacy of false dilemma.
    Zzoni, I agree. My personal opinion is that nuclear power is the principle "alternative" under investigation because it requires large inputs of infrastructure and expertise. Similar to biofuels -- which we know have a minimal impact, if any, for carbon mitigation -- nuclear is centralized and specialized, therefore only offers energy independence in the limited, geopolitical sense.
    Sustainingaaron, exactly. That would be an appeal to tradition, thus logically invalid.
    I'm sure the author is talking And walking. He could drive a highly fuel efficient vehicle, use CFLs, maybe even have a couple solar panels on his roof. Maybe he writes his congressman or petitions his utility company to expand its renewable portfolio. Unfortunately our economy is built on an antiquated and destructive energy source, leaving the general public few options. Drawing attention to the out-of-sight/mind cases that further illustrate petrol's destructive potential is not overtly persuasive. It is simply another tool with which to forge a new future -- if only we can move beyond the ad hominem attacks on Al Gore.

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17. 17. chupuk 10:40 AM 6/14/10

    Well to be honest, its really the human race that is polluting the earth. Get rid of the humans, get rid of the problem. Agent Smith was right-on in his diatribe to Morpheus in the Matrix. Has anybody actually figured out what the frig we humans have contributed to the planet in any objective way? Most everything we celebrate has to do with us as some sort of glorification of all the wonderful things we have done with that enlarged brain of ours for our own benefit. hoorah.

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18. 18. agenthucky in reply to witsend 11:12 AM 6/14/10

    Agreed, seems like soccerdad doesn't like to learn his lessons. mistakes are only regrettable if you learn nothing from them.
    
    maybe he was the kid that kept on touching the hot burner on the stove.

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19. 19. Soccerdad 04:28 PM 6/14/10

    My point is that there are spills all the time. Some larger than the current spill. The area of the damage is limited. The damaged areas recover. Oil from natural seeps has leaked into the oceans for millions of years. Nature has mechanisms to handle it. It's not the end of the world.

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20. 20. ennui 12:20 AM 6/15/10

    When Nasa's Propulsion Engineers flubbed the use of the technology of the Flying Saucer they were given, Nasa listened to them and decided that rockets were the one and only way to go.
    Thanks to Nasa's flubbing, a litlle spin-off that could have helped everybody will now go to another country.
    What Spin-off?
    A Flying Saucer does not used oil or nuclear power. It "taps" energy out of the aether, like Tesla (I suspect) did for his Pierce Arrow Car in 1931.
    That system can also be used to power a Shuttle or home or..
    Our dependence on oil could have been heavily reduced.
    Who cares? Not me anymore. Russia and India probably.
    

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21. 21. sofistek 05:58 AM 6/15/10

    I think the lesson of this spill is being completely overlooked. Here is an operation drilling for oil a mile down into the sea, then a further 3 miles to the oil. The reservoir holds a few tens of millions of barrels - a few days US consumption and a few hours global consumption. Why are they drilling for oil in places such as this? Because all, or almost all, of the easy stuff has been found and is in decline. Tiny fields are profitable because oil is rising in price due to the difficulties in keeping up with demand.
    
    Oil production is reaching its limits, folks. Overall decline is due to set in very soon. The same will happen to natural gas and coal because they are finite resources. It's impossible to keep growing finite resources.
    
    But don't worry, someone will think of something and we can defy nature for ever and not ever worry about physical limits.

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22. 22. Elderlybloke in reply to witsend 04:32 AM 6/17/10

    To witsend- The statement "This spill will soon be fixed and will fade from memory and from the environment. "
    Is correct , Look at Exxon Valdez, Love Canal, and maybe an even bigger disaster not so well remembered , because it happened in another country at a place called Bhopal .
    
    However if the Bhopal event had happened in America more justice would have been granted to the thousands of victims.
    
    

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23. 23. Elderlybloke in reply to ennui 05:52 AM 6/17/10

    ennui,
    Re NASA and being given Flying Saucer technology - That's news to me,
    If it happened I am sure I would have heard about it.
    
    Energy out of "aether" . Aether was an imaginary substance that was supposed to permit the passage of electro-magnetic waves.
    Long since discarded as illusionary.

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24. 24. jerryd 04:14 PM 6/20/10

    Don't be so hard on Soccerdad as he obviously a deluded, right wing person who has little grasp on reality.
    
    He doesn't even realize 25% of his, OUR taXES GOES TO SUBSIDIZE FOSSIL FUELS LIKE OIL FOR WHICH WE ARE IN 2 WARS NOW AND HOW MANY IN THE FUTURE IF WE GO HIS WAY.
    
    And that is just the beginning of their costs from health care, poison air, water, land to corroding buildings, ect. But Soccordad doesn't even have enough sense to figure out he is getting screwed by them as are most of the rest of you.
    
    I drive my EV's at 25% of the cost of a similar ICE. And they use 40+ yr old forklift EV drive tech.
    
    There is no reason one needs oil as there is plenty of present tech to replace it. The more soon we get to it the faster we stop wars and become a strong nation again instead of paying for both sides of the oil wars.
    
    

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25. 25. natalie lawrence 09:09 PM 9/9/10

    wow the screw top captures 600,000 gallons of oil a day! what would happen when it exploded again?

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