Blogging the End of the World™
PORT FOURCHON, LA.—British energy giant BP declined to say Saturday whether its latest effort to contain the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill worked, as BP’s chief executive appeared to dismiss the disaster as “tiny.” The accident is threatening an ecological and environmental calamity along the U.S. Gulf Coast. With crude oil gushing unchecked from […]
By RUSSELL GOLD About 11 hours before the Deepwater Horizon exploded, a disagreement took place between the top manager for oil giant BP PLC on the drilling rig and his counterpart for the rig’s owner, Transocean Ltd., concerning the final steps in shutting down the nearly completed well, according to a worker’s sworn statement. Michael […]
SANAA (Reuters) – Two people died in a southern Yemeni village where the military intervened to end a dispute over water rights, underscoring tensions sparked by a looming water crisis in the impoverished Arabian peninsular state. Twenty homes were damaged and unarmed residents were forced to flee Shara’ab, in the southern province of Taiz, during […]
By Mohammad Saber HERAT, Afghanistan, May 13, 2010 (ENS) – Mullah Samandar finds it hard to control his emotions as he swings his axe at the trunk of the pistachio tree. “When I cut down pistachio trees, I cry and my tears don’t stop,” the 55-year-old said, explaining that he has no other way to […]
By ALEX P. KELLOGG DETROIT—Wrecking crews are preparing to tear down a landmark 5,000-square-foot house in the posh neighborhood of Palmer Woods in the coming weeks, a sign that Detroit is finally getting serious about razing thousands of vacant and abandoned structures across the city. In leveling 1860 Balmoral Drive, the boyhood home of one-time […]
By Bob Marshall, The Times-PicayuneMay 14, 2010, 7:00PM To the watching world the environmental threat that BP’s oil disaster poses to the nature-rich Louisiana coast is captured in images of beautiful birds or furry creatures crippled by thick black goo. But scientists who know these estuaries best are more concerned about a less photogenic community. […]
NASA/MODIS images have been too cloudy to be much use for May 12 and 13 (see the most recent image we processed, for May 11). But a radar image taken by the Italian COSMO-SkyMed system clearly shows most of the slick in stark detail. The slick covers 4,922 square miles (12,748 km2) on the radar […]
NOAA continues to provide scientific support including: modeling the trajectory and location of the oil, getting pre-impact shoreline samples surveys and baseline measurements, and planning for open water and shoreline remediation. NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and NOAA Fisheries Southeast Fisheries Science Center are conducting bottlenose dolphin studies in Mississippi and Louisiana. The […]
By Gregory Mone, Contributor (May 14) — Since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began three weeks ago, most eyes and cameras have been focused on the widening, orange slick. But now, as experts argue that the flow rate could far exceed the government’s estimate of 210,000 gallons a day, a team of independent scientists […]
Tue May 11, 12:08 pm ET OTTAWA (AFP) – The government extended its Atlantic coast seal hunt on Tuesday to the end of May as hunters shy away from the sea over a lack of sea ice and a European boycott of seal products. Canada’s Fisheries Minister Gail Shea announced the seal harvest in Newfoundland […]
