Category Archives: Causes
Is a little-seen academic paper the smoking gun that blows the lid off the growing Corexit scandal in the Gulf of Mexico? You’ll recall that Corexit is the brand name of the oil dispersant manufactured by Illinois-based Nalco and deployed heavily by BP in the first couple of months of 2010′s Deepwater Horizon spill. In fact, with the acquiesence of the federal government, the oil giant used an unheard-of amount [...]
Read More »It’s hard to keep secret. But it’s really hard to keep a secret when hundreds, if not thousands, of American citizens have been sickened from exposure to a highly toxic chemical — even when it’s one of the world’s richest oil companies and people inside the U.S. government that are trying to pull off the cover-up. That’s the sad situation that is unfolding here in the Gulf of Mexico, as [...]
Read More »Today is the three-year-anniversary of the event that changed life for so many of us here on the Gulf of Mexico: The explosion at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig off Louisiana, which killed 11 people and triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history. I was in a private plane flying over the Gulf just hours after the blast and saw the thick plume of black smoke, and I still remember [...]
Read More »There’ve been multiple reports over the last couple of days about officials in Arkansas restricting access — apparently upon orders from top officials at ExxonMobil — to news helicopters and other media photographers seeking to capture the full extent of the Pegasus pipeline spill in Arkansas. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made it clear why the oil giant didn’t want you to see what was going on, as it [...]
Read More »This would not be the week that you’d want to begin work in the ExxonMobil PR department. Indeed, this seems to be the time when the oil giant — in fact, the world’s most profitable company, let us never forget — and its proverbial chickens are finally coming home to roost. Just in time for Earth Day, ExxonMobil’s environment-be-damned efforts to feed America’s addiction to oil are spoiling the earth, [...]
Read More »At the start of the BP civil trial now underway in New Orleans, I expressed my pleasure that more of the facts of what happened on the Deepwater Horizon rig on, and leading up to, the night of April 10, 2010, would finally be aired for the public to see, in an open court of law. Sure enough, the first couple weeks of the case — with billions of dollars [...]
Read More »In Louisiana, we are blessed to have a one-woman environmental protection agency by the name of Bonny Schumaker. A retired NASA physicist and pilot, Schumaker has found a way to merge her love of all creatures and her passion for flying to create an amazing operation called On Wings Of Care. She flies animal rescue missions but since 2010 has also devoted a lot of her energy toward helping her fellow [...]
Read More »Now that we’re more than two years out from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, a good bit of scientific research is starting to come in. Most of the findings — unfortunately, but predictably — are not good news for the Gulf Coast. Many of these studies are showing that oil has been more damaging to fish or other marine creatures, or to the region’s fragile wetlands, than originally feared. It’s why [...]
Read More »On this Thanksgiving eve, let us not forget about the poor residents of Bayou Corne, La. It’s coming up on four months since 150 families in this rural bayou community about 70 miles west of New Orleans were forced from their homes with the appearance of an ever-widening sinkhole — the culmination of weeks of bubbling gases in local waters, earth tremors and noxious smells. Unfortunately, efforts to resolve the [...]
Read More »National Oceanic and Atmospheric Information, Greenpeace: Dead sperm whale discovered by the NOAA research vessel Pisces on June 15, 2010. This is becoming a somewhat old — and tragic — story by now. Yet again, there’s proof that BP — and perhaps more importantly, the federal government — went to great lengths to keep the American people from seeing, let alone knowing about, the worst wildlife devastation from the [...]
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