For Those @ the Top of the Food Chain

…who think that your position doesn’t depend on all the flora and fauna beneath, take notice.

For the Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Sarah Palins of the world, who think that offshore drilling is a good idea, with stupid chants such as ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ read this through.

From Yahoo! News, a story about an offshore well in the land down under tells of a leaking well that is probably going to leak into the Timor Sea, for approximately two months before it can be stopped.

The oil company, PTTEP Australasia, is going to plug the problem by drilling another well, and using mud to stop the leak, that started last Friday.

Are these people inhaling too much of the fumes from the drilling process? Have they seen how mud refuses to cohere in water, becoming more and more spread as it is disturbed by the water’s motion?

First, it will take about 20 days to drill the new well. And those involved state that about two months is the estimate they make, which of course is sugar coating the situation, and it’s more likely to take longer than that.

The World Wildlife Fund Australia is very concerned, and the Australian Marine Safety Authority is spraying dispersant from the air, so that the slick will not form a giant dead zone, where the water cannot renew the oxygen that is usually dissolved in it. By the way, the oil slick is already 8 nautical miles long.

The company that was doing the drilling was clearly not attempting to do this, but it happened, due to unforeseen circumstances. The problem is that the chances of this happening are too high, when the ability to effect repair takes so long, and affects such a large area, since the sea cannot be frozen in time, to benefit the cleanup efforts.

As the studies in Alaska have shown, the damage to wildlife are widespread and long, with effects from the Exxon Valdez being felt even today. Those who use the bounty of the sea to feed themselves directly are most affected. The number of chemicals ingested by the fish are delivered through their flesh to people quite readily, causing all manner of problems – things we see in the many warnings of today to not eat too much fish; something that, when I was a child, was something that scientists and health officials believed we could not get enough of.

If we continue with the stupidity of allowing the world population to increase unchecked, we should at least discontinue  the stupidity of destroying the environment that sustains that population.

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I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei

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