Eyjafjallajokul erupted this month, for the first time in over a hundred years, halting commercial air traffic over Europe as it's ash cloud spread. It is a natural occurrence, not caused by, or accelerated by, man's puny efforts to control his environment. Force Majeure.Looking at the photos below of the lightening in the ash cloud, it is easy to see how the Norse believed Gods lived within the Earth, and were angry when roused and brought out into the wider world. Fascinating, frightening, stunning, beautiful.
These ash clouds extended upwards of 50,000 feet at times. Amazing. It's nature.
Contrast this with the complete incompetence British Petroleum has exhibited this week in deep water oil rig safety, floating platform fire suppression, automatic well head emergency shut off at depths of greater than 5000 feet, humility to not brag about how they are spending $3 million a day (and would have been MAKING how much?) in trying to clean up the mess they own and created. BP, who purchased the mega conglomerate of Amoco 12 years ago, will now be the largest polluter of the Gulf of Mexico. They're going to be "setting fire to parts of the slick with flares" later today - some of the 3% of the millions of gallons of sweet crude that are near the surface and not yet dispersed.
Completely avoidable, but that would eat into profits.
And it will take weeks, or months, to drill relief wells that will reduce the pressure of the broken spaghetti mess of pipes that are currently spewing crude oil into the gulf.One massive emission into the environment again, Completely Natural and unavoidable. The other, completely man made, and totally avoidable. Yes, accidents happen, but this is a colossal screw up that killed 11 petroleum workers so far, and will kill untold numbers of birds, fish, turtles, plants... wiping out entire ecosystems, all in the name of "drill baby drill!"
Spill, baby, spill!
ReplyDeleteThat's a good one =)
ReplyDeleteJust as I know the lightening is caused by the hot, dry, coarse particulate being tossed in the cold dry Icelandic air, devoid of almost any ambient moisture, generating MASSIVE static discharges that result in repeated bolts of lightening to discharge that energy back "to ground", my analytical mind can make this connection, based on scientific theory, and understand it's causes, not attribute it to "God's dominion over all of creation" - sure, maybe a God somewhere, some time ago, set some events into motion, but She's busy elsewhere now.
When I see the relatively calm Gulf of Mexico filling with massive amounts of long buried decomposed prehistoric life, as it oozes from a highly profitable, highly unstable, very expensive, man-made drilling apparatus, I don't and can't think about Manifest Destiny, or Genesis 1:28 (http://bible.cc/genesis/1-28.htm), or "America's Energy Independence" ... I just see a giant f*ck up, driven by big oil corporate greed, which has devastated another eco-system, and untold numbers of working people's lives - Bubba Gump et al.
What do you mean... Gods don't live inside mountains? That's silly! Where do they live then?
ReplyDeleteDr Z, they reside in Houston, London, Frankfurt, Shanghai, Dubai, Riyad, and NYC, in fortresses equipped with safe rooms, body guards, and in some cases, private militias.
ReplyDelete"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty," - Bill Maher.
ReplyDelete