Tag Archives: Blog
An unassuming warehouse on the banks of the Hudson River provides cover for the most absurd – not to mention irresponsible – use of BP tourism funds to date. Inside is a 1,600-square-foot artificial swamp, just like the kind you’d find down on the bayou in Louisiana (except fake) – complete with live alligators, turtles and 15-foot cypress trees draped in Spanish moss. Why, you ask? What purpose could this [...]
Read More »The French Quarter in New Orleans is the heart and soul of the southern party scene. All the essential ingredients are here, in abundance: great drinks, even better food, revelers of every stripe and music – live, loud music deep into the night. From Jazz Fest to Mardi Gras and all the gumbo and crawfish festivals in between, the French Quarter knows how to throw a party. Although the Quarter [...]
Read More »When Hurricane Ivan blew across the Gulf of Mexico in 2004, it severely damaged an offshore platform and 28 associated oil wells owned by Taylor Energy Company. The site has been leaking oil ever since, without any discernible spill response from Taylor or the U.S. Coast Guard. Environmental groups monitoring the site – at the surface and via satellite – estimate that “hundreds of gallons have leaked from the site [...]
Read More »On April 22, 2010, top BP officials knew that the crippled Macondo Well would release roughly 82,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico if the leak was unobstructed. An oil spill expert with impeccable credentials had told them so. Yet, two days later, as the federal government was scrambling to mobilize an effective response to the unfolding disaster, BP announced publicly that the well was leaking [...]
Read More »Warning: You may want to hold off on booking that Gulf Coast vacation – because the beaches aren’t as clean or safe as official reports indicate. According to a whistleblower lawsuit filed in New Orleans, BP cleanup crews intentionally left oil debris on Mississippi beaches while company officials falsely reported that the areas were adequately cleaned. (So much for public safety.) The lawsuit alleges that BP fired August Walter Jr. [...]
Read More »It’s official: The White House engaged in an aggressive campaign to pressure scientists into drastically underestimating the initial size of the BP oil spill – a campaign that impacted the scope, speed and overall effectiveness of the response. There are also legal ramifications, as fines are to be levied against BP based on how much oil is estimated to have been released into the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s how Mother [...]
Read More »Children on the Gulf Coast are falling ill in record numbers. Children who never had health problems before the BP oil spill are suffering from an array of debilitating ailments from chronic bronchitis to staph infections to acute sinusitis to mysterious “stomach viruses.” The ranks of the sick continue to climb, overwhelming doctors and clinics up and down the Gulf Coast. And to make matters worse, few treatments and medications [...]
Read More »BP’s business prospects are soaring. In fact, 2011 was the British oil giant’s best “business development” year in three decades. It’s inconceivable, infuriating, repugnant – but true, nonetheless. While parts of the Gulf Coast remain soaked in BP’s oil, the British petroleum giant has been rewarded with scores of new drilling contracts – 80 to be exact, in 11 countries. And get this, the majority of the “exploration prospects” are [...]
Read More »It’s been called the worst environmental crime ever perpetrated, anywhere in the world. Billions of gallons of toxic oil-drilling waste indiscriminately dumped into pristine Amazon waterways used for drinking, fishing and bathing by tens of thousands of Ecuadorians. Three decades of “deliberate” contamination laid waste to an expanse of lush rainforest comparable to the size of Rhode Island. Today, noxious pools of oily sludge still drain into local rivers and [...]
Read More »The damage the BP oil spill caused to fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico may be even more devastating than previously thought – and the recovery may be much longer and more difficult than expected. New groundbreaking research from the University of California Davis reveals that fish embryos that absorbed oil and were then exposed to sunlight “physically disintegrated” in a phenomenon known as phototoxicity. The alarming study, and its [...]
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