This is really the bottom line. We have an event in the Gulf which has now stretched on for more than 5 weeks which is emptying toxins into the ocean and the atmosphere at a cataclysmic rate. In looking at the problem I am trying to anticipate its likely effects and consequences. Looking at the Gulf Oil catastrophe how does that affect the planetary system? Our oceans have been called the cradle of life and much of life on earth remains dependent on those oceans. If you disrupt the ocean system you disrupt, indirectly, life everywhere. The gushers have not yet been stoppered and there is currently no realistic prospect that they will be anytime soon.
Obama is obviously bought and paid for and the Feral Government's incompetent and even obeisant response to BP's actions and inactions is clearly obvious to anyone who cares to look honestly.
The environmental damage is at this point hard to calculate. Most people seem to be thinking too small - just in terms of its affect on the Gulf. This is not going to be contained to the Gulf. Yes, the Gulf is going to become a massive "Dead Zone" but as the oil spreads out on the Gulf stream it is going to begin to have an impact on larger and larger areas.
As is frequently the case people are reluctant, and even blind, to looking at a very large problem on the correct scale. The volume of oil and gas coming out of those holes is beyond the normal scale of human catastrophes. If not contained relatively soon this is potentially an Extinction Level Event. The one unknown variable is the volume of oil in the pool that has been ruptured. Based on the evidence and speculations I have read it is most likely to be measured in the TRILLIONS of gallons.
The best expert estimates I have seen are that minimally we have 2.9 MILLION GALLONS of Oil escaping into the Gulf each day. The volume of methane is about treble that. BP, in an effort to camouflage its true scale is pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of even more toxic oil dispersant into the volcano. To get an idea of the scale think of the largest stadium you know, fill it with oil every day, dump it on the surrounding landscape, and then refill it TWICE each day. Then you begin to get an approximation of the volume of oil escaping.
Most people are aware of the toxic nature of petroleum, but are not used to thinking in terms of gases. Methane, in the ocean, replaces oxygen and carbon dioxide in the water. Fish and Mammals require oxygen and the plant life requires carbon dioxide for normal metabolism. Remove that by replacing it with a toxic gas, and methane is a poison, and you have a result that is a toxic cloud unseen creeping through the Gulf killing both plant and animal life. And it is growing at a catastrophic rate each day.
Most people are aware of the Amazon Rain Forest and what that plant life means to the production of breathable Oxygen. However, most people are unaware that the oceans produce 50 to 70 percent of the available free oxygen. This is done by ocean plant life mostly in the form of what is known as Phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are small, often single cell, micro plants that form the base of the ocean food chain. Phytoplankton takes dissolved carbon dioxide and minerals from the sea water, and with the input of energy in the form of sunlight, through photosynthesis they create cellular matter which is then consumed by the next higher level of the food chain and on and on with the larger consuming the smaller until you reach the top of the food chain.
So, why the lecture on the ocean ecosystem? Because the Gulf produces as much or more oxygen than the entire Amazon Rain Forest. Let that sink in for a moment. Try to wrap your mind around that scale, and then realize that the Gulf is only part of the picture - more on that in a moment. As the cloud of death in the form of toxic petroleum and methane permeates the gulf things are going to begin to die. And the cloud of petroleum also reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the phytoplankton thus inhibiting photosynthesis. So, even before it dies from the toxins in the water its metabolism is going to be slowed by the unnatural shade and its consumption of carbon dioxide and output of free oxygen will be inhibited.
Under the surface the heavier oil is suspended as a large black cloud. Oceanographers have already noticed it in photos and in sampling from 2,000 feet down. As this heavier oil reaches coastal inclines it will be forced upward into shallower waters and befouling everything in its path. This cloud is so heavy that no life whatsoever can exist within it - saving perhaps a few bacteria.
Now think on a larger scale. The Gulf is not an isolated pond of water - it is part of the larger ocean that is simply a back pool but is connected to the larger ocean by the inwelling and outwelling of currents and tides. So, what happens in the Gulf will eventually spread into the larger open ocean - with the same effects.
As the growing cloud of petroleum and methane begins to move into the Atlantic, in addition to fouling beaches and killing wildlife, it will be a cloud of death to ocean life large and small. The last major event in the Gulf went unplugged for about 9 months, but it was about one third or less the size of this oil volcano. At the current minimum rate of flow the amount of petroleum that will have entered Gulf waters will, in just one year, exceed one BILLION gallons. Again pause to take that in as I know that these numbers are so large that most people are going to have difficulty with the scale. And the volume of methane will be treble that. And this is just based on the estimated flow rate which could be even greater than what we currently know. The government and BP are fighting furiously to keep the real numbers from the public.
At that rate the entire Gulf will become a Dead Zone in about a year. All the while the cloud creeps out into surrounding waters moving up and down coast lines killing virtually everything in its path.
Extrapolating outward the cloud begins to affect coastal fisheries and marine life of all kinds up and down the shorelines of two continents, and still it spreads. Since many third world communities rely upon fisheries for food and subsistence disease and death will follow in its wake. This is of course the “worst case scenario”, but at this point in time the actions taken to staunch the ruptured seabed from leaking devastating amounts of toxins into are incompetent and ineffective.
Carried out to its cataclysmic extreme, with no effective action to stop the flow of oil and gas, the potential exists to inhibit the greater ocean’s carbon dioxide absorbtion, and oxygen production, to the point that the atmosphere of the planet itself tips over into toxic.
May God Have Mercy on Our Souls.