Archive for May, 2010

Gulf oil spill threat widens

Reuters: Oil from BP's out-of-control Gulf of Mexico oil spill could threaten the Mississippi and Alabama coasts this week, U.S. forecasters said on Monday, as public anger surged over the country's worst environmental disaster. Government and BP officials are warning that the blown-out deepwater well feeding the catastrophic spill may not be shut off until August as the company begins preparations on a new but uncertain attempt to contain the leaking crude. On Tuesday, President Barack ...

Summer Of Oil Looms For Beleaguered Gulf Coast

Associated Press: The best hope for stopping the flow of oil from the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico has been compared to hitting a target the size of a dinner plate more than two miles into the earth, and is anything but a sure bet on the first attempt. Bid after bid has failed to staunch what has already become the nation's worst-ever spill, and BP is readying another attempt as early as Wednesday, this one a cut-and-cap process to put a lid on the leaking wellhead so oil can be ...

After fix fail, a dispiriting summer of oil, anger

Associated Press: There is still a hole in the Earth, crude oil is still spewing from it and there is still, excruciatingly, no end in sight. After trying and trying again, one of the world's largest corporations, backed and pushed by the world's most powerful government, can't stop the runaway gusher. As desperation grows and ecological misery spreads, the operative word on the ground now is, incredibly, August -- the earliest moment that a real resolution could be at hand. And even then, there's no ...

Cameras to monitor melting Everest

Himalayan News Service: Five special time-lapse cameras have been installed for the first time in the Mount Everest region to monitor the melting of the glaciers. The cameras were installed last week by the technical team of an organisation -Extreme Ice Survey - a world-renowned American organisation. Confirming the installation of cameras, an EIS source said, "Our technicians have just returned to USA after the successful installation of five cameras to monitor the melting of the glaciers.'According to EIS, ...

BP unsure how much oil in reservoir in Gulf spill

Associated Press: BP spokesman John Curry says the company does not know how much oil is contained the vast reservoir nearly three miles beneath the seafloor. Curry said Sunday that the company didn't have time to properly analyze how much was in the discovery well. He says if the oil rig had not exploded, BP PLC ultimately would have drilled another well to complete that analysis. Curry says the uncertainty over how much oil is in the reservoir does not change BP's response. The company has ...

BP, White House Oil Spill Blame Game Heats Up

CBS News: In the wake of the failure of the "Top Kill" experiment to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the White House and BP are showing deep divisions over accountability and responsibility five weeks after the explosion that started the oil spill. On CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, BP's Managing Director Bob Dudley and Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change, clashed over the initial estimates of the spill which showed flow rates much below what we ...

Oil complicates forecasts on hurricane season eve

Associated Press: As hurricane season approaches, the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is taking weather forecasters into nearly uncharted waters. The Gulf is a superhighway for hurricanes that form or explode over pools of hot water, then usually move north or west toward the coast. It's now the site of the worst oil spill in U.S. history and along the general path of some of the worst storms ever recorded, including Hurricane Camille, which wiped out the Mississippi coast in 1969, and Hurricane ...

Small Scale Farmers Vulnerable to New Wheat Fungus

Inter Press Service: Mutant fungus is stalking wheat through East Africa. Aston Kirui lost most of his crop in 2009, though the Kenyan farmer's field escaped this year. Others in Katakala village in Narok, west of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, is not so lucky. "I have a neighbour who is going to lose everything this year. His farm looks like a field in an arid area during drought." Wheat stem rust is a fungus that enters the stem of a wheat plant and destroys the vascular tissue, which conducts water ...

Environmental disasters, seen and unseen

Daily News Tribune: There's one good thing about the environmental disaster in the Gulf: At least we aren't arguing about whether it's a problem or a hoax. There are no oil spill deniers keeping government from acting. No one's arguing that stopping the flow from BP's busted pipe would cost too much or hurt the economy. A certain clarity comes from being able to watch 12,000 barrels a day spew into the Gulf on a live video feed. The conversation starts with "what do we do about it?" instead of "is it ...

La. Coast Darkens As BP Turns To Plan B Again

National Public Radio: Saturday, oil giant BP gave up on its latest attempt stop the leak spewing millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was just the most recent in a series of disappointments for southern Louisiana as residents watch mushrooming and shifting columns of oil march against their coastline.