Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Every Day... Links!

Every day more proof rolls in like the tide of BP's malfeasance in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Not just their unwillingness to give accurate assessments of how much oil is spewing into the Gulf, or their desire to prevent the press from showing the true picture of the extent of the mess and take photographs that break people's hearts, but criminal negligence and stupidity which led directly to the catastrophe.

McClatchy reports today that, BP knew its Macondo well was troublesome in the days leading up to a fatal April 20 blowout, congressional investigators found, but the company "appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure."


From the company's uncommon well design to its fatal decision not to circulate drilling mud, which could have cleared out pockets of gas, and the lack of critical testing, which could have pinpointed problems with its cementing, the company had many points at which it could have prevented an explosion, investigators with the House Energy and Commerce Committee have found. This and more was all in the name of cutting costs and saving a few bucks.

Just six days before the well exploded a BP drilling engineer warned in an e-mail that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was a “nightmare well” that had caused the company problems in the past.

Even the main contractor for the clean-up operations understand that their efforts have been less than adequate.
Scientists locate a 23 mile long oil plume off Florida's Gulf coast.

The Obama administration has to bear it's share of the blame - they did not act quickly enough to change the culture at the MMS and he should have been more skeptical of claims from those who claimed off-shore drilling was safe.

On the climate change front Science Daily reports, Unique Arctic habitats for flora and fauna, including sea ice, tundra, lakes, and peatlands have been disappearing over recent decades, and some characteristic Arctic species have shown a decline. The right-wing media think it's funny that a Democratic Senator makes a connection between national security and global warming. A connection even former Bush security advisers made - somehow they've forgotten that.

Over at Joe Romm's blog there's an interview with Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who dares to make the connection between AGW and some of the extreme weather we've witnessed of late.

Remember yesterday's announcement of a trillion dollars worth of mineral riches in Afghanistan? Turns out they knew a while ago - this first report says a bit more than two years ago. It'll end up being more, wait and see.

What day's blogging would be complete without some sort of extreme language from the right - this one includes talk of impeaching Obama, a gun, a chat with men in costumes and a call to "gather your armies!"

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