As citizens of the world, we all should be concerned — if not alarmed — about climate change and the impact it will have on our way of life. But when you are a citizen of New Orleans, as I am, the issue looms even larger. It’s no secret that my native city is on the front line of global warming; sitting below sea level and separated from the Gulf of Mexico and its ferocious...
Outside of the Gulf region, there hasn’t been a ton of publicity about Shell’s pipeline leak and oil spill off the coast of Louisiana that was revealed late last week. Maybe that’s the Deepwater Horizon Effect, since just six years after more than 4 million barrels of crude spewed into the Gulf, 88,000 gallons may sound like the proverbial drop in the bucket. The reality is very...
It was just last week that BP published its self-love letter on the electronic pages of Politico, in an effort to convince the world that, in its own laughable words, that, “No, BP Did Not Ruin the Gulf.” One of the more ridiculous claims in the op-ed penned by BP’s own spin-doctor-in-chief Geoff Morrell — especially to those of us who regularly track reports of large...
Sometimes, the environmental issues surrounding the Gulf of Mexico feel a little like that old board game, Clue — the one with Col. Mustard in the kitchen with his lead pipe. Who is killing the Gulf this time? Is it BP, off Louisiana, with the crude oil? Or is the farmer, up the Mississippi River, with his fertilizer? The only thing we know is that life has gotten a lot harder in recent...
The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in 2010 did little to slow the growth of oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, even as more bad news continues to come out about how that spill and the botched use of dispersant hammered the coastal environment. Nor were safety measures greatly enhanced — so it’s not surprising to see new, alarming reports of spills and mishaps. Today, a...
Like most people, I try to stay optimistic in life, but I have to say that the latest flurry of news out of the Gulf region — which coincided with the three-year anniversary of BP’s massive oil spill — has been discouraging. Every day for the last week or two, it seems, my contacts in the environmental community send me a new news report, or a scientific study, bearing bad news...
