OT: Oil spill. Interesting

 Rather pleased to have, on early impressions, called it right.

http://www.economist.com/node/18587367?story_id 587367&fsrc=rss

Always concerned about the bias of the reporting media, but the
Economist is about as good as it gets. Nice to see things on the mend
over there.


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 On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:00:50 +0100, totallydeadmailbox@yahoo.co.uk
(The Older Gentleman) wrote:


I assume that none of your sympathy is due to the fact that your
countrymen at British Petroleum caused it.

I'm sure you've heard of white guilt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_guilt

Is this British guilt?

: )

DFC

 

Get yer facts right:

1. It hasn't been called British Petroleum for some years.
2. Think of the US involvement.


Not really. It was a monumental fuck-up. But a year ago, I predicted
that the recovery would be far, far quicker than the tree-huggers wailed
that it would.


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Nope, right. It's not there yet, but it's happening fast.


seafood-water-remain-one-year-lat.html

I took this link at random and clicked on it. How interesting.

The story actually says that the seafood has been declared fit to eat.
But the killer lines are these:

"The fear of contaminated seafood is also having still having an effect
on local businesses......

....others agree with government officials who have deemed seafood from
the Gulf safe to eat."

In other words, the government says the seafood is OK, but people are
worrying about it.

Rather backs up what I posted, doesn't it?

Tell me, did you actually *read* the stories whose links you posted?
I'll have a look at the others some time today.

Sure, there are still problems, but it's on the mend.


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 On Apr 21, 2:21 am, totallydeadmail...@yahoo.co.uk (The Older
Gentleman) wrote:

Justifiably?:

A study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical
Association suggests that there may be good reason to be concerned
about the long-term impacts, even if the seafood is safe for most
people to eat right now. The biggest issue, the authors write, is with
shrimp, oysters, crabs and other invertebrates that have a harder time
clearing out polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are
carcenogenic chemical compounds found in oil and other fossil fuels,
from their systems. "Although vertebrate marine life can clear PAHs
from their system, these chemicals accumulate for years in
invertebrates," they write.

There are also longer-term worries for larger fish like tuna,
swordfish and mackerel, which over time may accumulate dangerous
levels of heavy metals found in crude oil, like cadmium, mercury, and
lead, "potentially increasing future health hazards from consumption,"
the report concludes. It was authored by Gina Solomon, a senior
scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council and a medical
doctor who teaches in the Department of Medicine at University of
California-San Francisco, and Sarah Janssen, also an MD and public
health expert with NRDC.

Solomon says the standards for evaluating the safety of the seafood
are not as thorough or transparent as they could be to assure
consumers that the seafood is safe for them to eat. "The government
numbers and protocols are probably fine to protect the occasional fish
consumer but not not necessarily good enough to protect vulnerable
populations," says Solomon.

Solomon also points out that in determining what's safe, government
agencies should look at how exposure to the toxic chemicals in oil
affects vulnerable populations—pregnant women, children, the sick or
elderly—and not just the impacts on generally healthy adults. As it
stands, the Food and Drug Administration's evaluation of safe levels
for contamination in shrimp is based on what's safe for a healthy, 176-
pound person, with the expectation that this person is only eating one
dish of four shrimp per week. What about people who eat far more than
that? And the NOAA standards for evaluating whether a region is safe
to reopen for fishing require as few as six fish of a particular
species be evaluated from that area—and it's unclear how big that area
can actually be. NOAA has also been criticized for withholding much of
the data the agency has gathered on seafood from the region.

"The issues isn't so much what's on people's dinner plates over the
next few days or weeks, but that this problem is going to last for
years, and we want to make sure that there is a robust safety system
that will be protecting people for months and years to come," said
Solomon. "We just want to see this done right, see it done carefully,
and we want to make sure all the science is there and available for
public scrutiny before years go by and people go back to consuming
Gulf fish without a second thought."