Oil Disaster Not Over Yet

We don't hear too much about BP's disastrous oil spill anymore on the news.   The leak has been plugged and most of the oil on the surface is gone.   BP has paid off a few people (and ignored lots of others), and the Republicans are back to demanding deep-water drilling be continued (and even expanded) in the Gulf of Mexico.   It's all over and everything is back to normal -- right?

Wrong!   While the politicians may think the Gulf disaster is over, the scientists know better.   The oil is not on the surface anymore because what wasn't scooped up now rests on the sea floor.   Scientists have discovered a "dead zone" of about 80 square miles, where oil covers the sea floor with a thickness of 3 or 4 inches.   Anything not already dead in this zone is in the process of dying.

And this won't go away quickly.   Scientists believe it may take decades for this area to get back to normal (if it ever does).   This whole thing is just sickening.   Since the devastation is out of sight, the politicians and big oil companies can just go back to business as usual -- poisoning not only the seas, but the air we breathe.   After all, corporate profits are more important than a clean environment or healthy humans.

We already have the technology to wean this country off a significant amount of carbon-based fuels, and with some investment we could probably put these dirty fuels on the shelf for good.   It's hard to believe that we could send a man to the moon, but are incapable of developing cleaner and renewable sources of energy and protecting the enviornment (which humans and other animals need to even exist -- whether they know it or not).

We live in a very sick time -- a time when corporate profits are more important than human life is.