UPDATE: The video of Redford on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann is at the end.
Robert Redford calls on the President to get off his butt and start leading America away from dirty fossil fuels toward a clean energy future — in a video and blog post:
Read more
Tony Hayward, CEO of oil giant BP, is betting that the environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be “very, very modest.” Even though a million gallons of crude have flooded into the Gulf of Mexico every day since the exploratory rig exploded nearly a month ago, Hayward told Fox News sister network Sky News on Tuesday that he is largely unconcerned:
I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest. It is impossible to say and we will mount, as part of the aftermath, a very detailed environmental assessment as we go forward. We’re going to do that with some of the science institutions in the U.S. But everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest.
Watch it:
“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean,” Hayward told the Guardian last week. “The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
Independent experts estimate that about 32 million gallons of toxic oil have spewed from the broken well, partially broken up into invisible plumes by more than 600,000 gallons of toxic chemical dispersants, produced by a company with close ties to BP.
Already, toxic sludge has started to ooze onto Louisiana’s fragile wetlands, and oil globs and tar balls have been found on barrier islands and beaches along the northeastern Gulf Coast. The federal government closed 19 percent of the Gulf to fishing on Monday when the slick doubled in size, caught by the Loop Current that is now dragging oil to the Florida Keys. Dozens of endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles have washed up dead.
It will be years before the toxic legacy of this disaster is known to a region defined by its coasts. According to scientists, this is “the worst time” of year that this disaster could have begun, as this is the peak of the spawning and nesting season for marine wildlife in the Gulf, from fish to turtles to dolphins. BP officials say they will be able to shut down the well blowout by July, well after the start of the hurricane season.
(H/T Climate Progress)
Although Hayward said “everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest,” also on Tuesday Rowan W. Gould, the acting director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, told reporters:
What concerns us most is what we can’t see. We are preparing for the likelihood that it will exist in the gulf ecosystem in years to come.”
A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems….
Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.
The National Academy released three reports today on “America’s Climate Choices.”
Climate Progress has been following the impacts of the BP oil disaster closely with the help of leading experts in toxicology and public health:
Now we look at the question: How do we protect public health in the aftermath of major disasters?
Memo to U.S. House: It ain’t a “spill,” it’s an undersea volcano spewing 3 million gallons a day “” two Exxon Valdezes a week. That’s the point of this hearing.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to watch the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, but you can today 2 pm edt– click here.
I definitely think it worth watching given who the witnesses are:
Is this the near-future of aviation, since peak oil production is coming sooner than expected?
MIT-Designed Futuristic Airplanes Use 70% Less Fuel Than Current Models
What will the airplanes of the future be like? This is the question that the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT tried to answer for NASA. The goal was to look 3 generations ahead of the current planes (that’s around the 2035 timeframe) and improve substantially on current tech in the areas of fuel-efficiency, noise, NOx emissions, safety, etc. Two plane designs came out of the research project; one to replace the current Boeing 737, and the other to replace the 777. Read on for more details.
Since retiring from Congress, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has devoted much of his time leading a pro-drilling front group with “resources” from the oil industry (see “Gingrich’s ‘drill here, drill now’ campaign continues as BP oil disaster grows“).
Now, he is promoting his new anti-regulation, pro-drilling book, To Save America, which argues repeatedly that the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are a “secular-socialist machine” that “represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.” TP has the story of Gingrich’s defense of that hate speech — and how even people in his own party are attacking his extremist views.
BP’s disastrous uncontrolled oil eruption continues beneath the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the health and livelihood of fishermen, ecosystems, and communities from the Mexican coast to the Florida Keys. It’s more important than ever for U.S. voters to have a serious debate about fixing our unsustainable energy path. CAP’s Tina Ramos and Bracken Hendricks have the story.
Edited by Joe Romm, we cover climate science, solutions and politics. Columnist Tom Friedman calls us "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named us one of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010." Newcomers, start here.
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga.
Joe Romm has pulled together the secrets of the greatest communicators in history to show how you can apply these tools to your writing, speaking, blogging — even your Tweeting.
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