Comments on: Q&A: Ecologists assess oil spill damage

By: więcej informacji TU

więcej informacji TU — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:47:43 +0000

No no sporo się tu zmieniło. Nowe oblicze szczególnie mi odpowiada. Przyciągająco i niebanalnie. Zacznę częściej zaglądać.

By: Articles

Articles — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:20:12 +0000

Extra top Deutsche geschichten im netz.

By: Ecology meets technology in a mechanized planet | EcoTone

Ecology meets technology in a mechanized planet | EcoTone — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:28:33 +0000

[...] Felicia Coleman mentioned in Monday’s Q&A, we are living in a world of trade-offs. That is, if society is going to continue inventing [...]

By: Neo Martinez

Neo Martinez — Wed, 05 May 2010 01:22:31 +0000

Seems like this Q&A has too little ecological information to be useful to the public and journalists looking for science on the subject. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill) seems much better. Ecologists should *greatly* enhance that widipedia entry with their expertise and then the Q&A can direct readers to such richer sources of ecological information. Rather than talking about the magnitude of the spill, entries could have statements such as “oil covering a wetland will kill virtually all vertebrates and invertebrates that do not leave the wetland as well as much of the microbial life.” “Oil is a toxic chemical that will kill or injure organisms directly in the water column and indirectly oraganisms that eat contaminated organisms…” Biological productivity of fisheries subjected to oil spills have been show to decline by X to XX%” Additional tables of numbers such as LC50 for various organisms, estimates of oil concentrations in the water, population abundances in the wetlands and water column, etc. Seems like journalists and others could use such information very quickly and help both ecologists and journalists do what they do best i.e., providing scientific information and writing compelling stories that communicate that information. I don’t really know how correct any of these statements are but it would be great to get more hard ecological information out there to the public at this tragically teachable moment. ~neo

By: Steven Earl Salmony

Steven Earl Salmony — Tue, 04 May 2010 13:49:38 +0000

Oil spills have been occurring for long time. Look at Australia, Ecuador and Nigeria as other examples. Why is some part of oil industry profits not immediately directed into a One-Hundred Billion Dollar Trust Fund for a GREEN Earth? Such a global superfund will direct capital to the global clean-up of the messes that have already been made as well provide to the development of technologies that reduce the risk of spillage from oil rigs. Given the environmental damage we have seen occur worldwide, such a step appears long overdue.

Let us hope that one day the children do not compare the nuclear holocaust at Chernobyl in the USSR to the fossil fools’ disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population
established 2001

By: Judith Weis

Judith Weis — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:54:14 +0000

And aside from the direct toxicity that the dispersants may have, they make the hydrocarbons in the oil more available to the marine organisms in the offshore water that were previously not exposed to much, since most of the hydrocarbons were concentrated above them at the surface.

By: Hope Woodward

Hope Woodward — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:02:31 +0000

In Ecotone, Josh Schimal responds to a question on long-term ecological effects of the chemicals used during the Exxon Valdez cleanup, noting that dispersants used were relatively short-lived (see below). However, in a recent article by Abrahm Lustgarten (recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant for international reporting), notes that the dispersants used by BP (which bought up a third of the world’s supply) may have long-term effects.

Chemicals Meant To Break Up BP Oil Spill Present New Environmental Concerns
by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica – April 30, 2010 5:44 pm EDT
http://www.propublica.org/article/bp-gulf-oil-spill-dispersants-0430

By: David D. Dow

David D. Dow — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:53:46 +0000

As a former resident of southeast Louisiana, I would urge the scientific community (state/federal government agencies; academic institutions and marine laboratories and NGOs) to develop a regional monitoring program to assess the impacts of the oil spill and to follow the recovery process. This monitoring effort might have to be augmented by some process oriented research on sensitive biota and their habitats to quantify oil spill effects and recovery potential. The monitoring program should build upon existing surveys/programs that have a historical baseline to establish the central tendencies for key parameters and the natural range of variability. This baseline is likely to include good information on fisheries and their essential fish habitats in coastal waters and various intertidal wetlands; subtidal seagrass beds; shellfish populations and bird species in selected localities. Past surveys on marine mammals; benthic organisms; non-target fish and shellfish species in coastal waters; plankton; etc. are likely to be much more limited. The should be a lot of analyzed remote sensing images from satellites to support this endeavor.

I see the major challenge in organizing these diverse research groups and developing a long term program which can achieve funding from the federal government. The near term focus of the federal/sate governments will be on the oil spill cleanup and assessing the natural resource damage assessment resources impacted. Settlement of the NRDA process between British Petroleum (BP) and the state/federal governments is likely to take some time and be contentious in regards to the restoration funds made available. The monitoring and process oriented research funding should be separated from the NRDA process, so that this effort can begin as soon as possible.

By: Wendee Holtcamp

Wendee Holtcamp — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:51:10 +0000

Right on – love this line “If we aren’t willing to trade, then we’ll invest in reducing our individual ecological footprints by either changing our habits or changing the energy sources we use. And if we’re really interested, we’ll let our government representatives know how we feel and that can affect some change.”