It’s 13 days until the beginning of hurricane season now, and no one knows quite how the massive, ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will affect or be affected by the hurricanes that will certainly cross Gulf waters before the year is over. Perhaps it’s not really a Gulf problem, as the oil may be carried away by currents… to America’s Atlantic coasts.
Several islands in the Florida Keys, including the Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge, have been hit by tar balls that are likely from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oil has been seen in the Gulf current that leads past the Keys and into the Atlantic Ocean. Dispersants can’t be tracked so easily, but it’s only a matter of time until they join the trip.
What happens then? Will the easy going attitude on Key West accept some petroleum mixing in with the island’s white sand beaches? Will the synergistic toxicity of oil combined with dispersants be regarded as just another fun cocktail, even when it marinates the island’s coral reefs?
Take action: Call your member of the House of Representatives today (202-224-3121) and request a cosponsorship of H.R. 5248, the No New Drilling Act.
Just means you will need to vacation somewhere else….how about Daytona or Hilton Head?
So, who cares if the Florida Keys are destroyed, so long as there’s a place to have fun somewhere else, right? Gotta fill your leaf blower with gasoline, after all, so we’ll expand offshore drilling off of Georgia and South Carolina too. Who cares about those beaches? We can just go somewhere else, when they get oiled. Like McDonald’s. We can always go to McDonald’s.
You have the Chicken Little mentality…..”….death and destruction on a mass scale…..” Oh, please…….
Wait a minute, Tomas. Chicken little was silly, because Chicken Little said the whole sky was falling, when in fact, it was only a little walnut that clipped her on the head.
Are you actually saying that only a little walnut’s worth of oil has been leaked in the Gulf of Mexico?
Or, are you saying, metaphorically, that though the amount of oil leaking out into the Gulf of Mexico, still something on the order of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of gallons per day, even with the BP siphon, is too tiny to have more impact than a walnut the ground?
The Gulf Coast fishermen who can’t fish any more, the hotel owners who aren’t seeing the occupancy rate they need, the landowners along Gulf shores, and now in the Keys, are all just Chicken Little?
Gosh. If that’s the case, if it’s really no big deal, then why is the government working so hard to contain the spill? Why not just let it go, right?
We can all just vacation somewhere else. And the fishermen, as you imply, they can just take their boats from Louisiana on over to Hilton Head every morning.
Thanks for clearing that up, Tomas.
If you are so twisted by this, so upset and angry about this spill…stop posting rants on this blog, pack a back and head down there to lend a hand. Most of us that live away from the coast have other issues to deal with. And I bet you do too. Otherwise, just look in the mirror and preach to the fool looking back…
By this you mean to suggest a convenient dichotomy: either everybody needs to drop their entire lives and families and all go clean up BP’s mess, or they need to shut up entirely on the subject.
We’ll not shut up on the subject. In the meantime, we’re donating to bird rescue efforts in the region.
Coming soon to the East Coast via the “loop current” which flows into the Gulf Stream.