http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/earth-day-what-bp-and-tepco-don-t-want-you-to-know
[links in on-line article]
Wednesday, 22 April 2015 07:22
Earth Day: What BP and TEPCO Don't Want You to Know
JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
The Tragic Consequences: BP Five Years Later...
On my way home from the market, I happened to tune in to an interview on
a program that airs on our NPR station called Making Contact. The topic
of discussion was titled BP Five Years Later: Deepwater Horizon and the
Cost of Oil...
Journalists, scientists and residents were interviewed about how BP’s
Deep Horizon, (“Deep” is a reference to offshore deepwater drilling)
that exploded into raging flames on April 20th 2010, the largest and
most devastating oil catastrophe in history, created a crisis of
Biblical proportions. Beneath the Gulf’s seafloor is one of the most
dangerous places to drill. BP has done more to establish that fact than
any other oil company.
The blowout literally transformed an ocean that was teeming with life
into a toxic, dead zone. BP is not the only oil company to blame. The
oil industry, with the help of their paid-off political officials, has
committed egregious crimes of pollution, and irreparable damage with
their oil pipes and spills to rich habitats, pelican and turtle
sanctuaries, marshes, wetlands and coastal ecosystems since the 1930s.
But BP’s blowout was by far the last deadly nail to the Gulf’s coffin.
Layers of oil, like a huge bathtub ring, have settled on the seafloor,
the size of Rhode Island, with no signs of recovery. This thick blanket
of oil has prevented regeneration of life that begins at the most basic
level of the Gulf’s ecology, such as plankton—minute plants and animals
that are the foundation of the ocean’s food chain. The plankton cannot
survive as waters become hypoxic i.e. depleted of oxygen due to microbes
digesting oil and methane gas. Once the foundation of the food chain is
contaminated, nothing can survive.
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Truthout’s investigative reporter, Dahr Jamail, has been reporting on
the “widespread human crisis” after BP’s explosion, beginning with the
financial ripple effects its had on the fishing, shrimp and tourist
industries, as well as follow-up reports on the large amounts of
chemical dispersant that BP has been dumping in the Gulf called Corexit
since 2010 to hide massive oil plumes. It’s no coincidence that chronic
illnesses, cancer, birth defects, skin diseases have multiplied in the
region since BP’s oil disaster occurred.
Corexit does not dissolve the oil; it merely breaks it up into tiny
invisible particles. The Gulf might have had a chance to recover had it
not been for Corexit. Corexit is illegal to use in many countries
because it is absolutely lethal to all forms of life, especially when
combined with toxic crude oil.
Contrary to BP’s happy-go-lucky advertisements, BP’s Macondo well
exploded beneath the earth’s crust. This raises the infamous but
plausible question of whether or not the Macondo well was actually
sealed. It’s a question that should be investigated.
Does anyone with a brain in our corrupt government realize how insane it
is to be puncturing holes deep inside the earth’s crust known as
“deepwater drilling,” and whether or not oil is still escaping from BP’s
Macondo well?
In the name of oil profits, the Gulf of Mexico will never be the same again.
Five years later, we’re learning that the eleven men who died in that
explosion were not the only individuals whose lives were destroyed from
the worst oil catastrophe in world. The Gulf is much worse now than it
was after the explosion for the reasons I just explained: it smothered
the food chain. And when the food chain is gone, the fishing and tourist
industries, worth billions of dollars, go down with it. Once upon a
time, the Gulf of Mexico was a beautiful clear blue tropical ocean. Now
it’s a dark brown oily cesspool.
A Perpetual Crisis: Fukushima Four Years Later…
Meanwhile, off the Pacific coast, a strange phenomenon is occurring that
I wrote about in my last Buzzflash-Truthout commentary. Scientists are
mystified by the growing warm water called the “blob” that has radically
altered the jet-stream, resulting in erratic weather patterns that could
explain why Californians are facing the worst drought in history.
The obvious question that has been completely omitted from the research
and reports is: Could the tons of radioactive water that TEPCO has been
releasing into the Pacific Ocean since 2011 be the primary reason why
this so-called mysterious “blob” was recently formed?
What I find astonishing is that there were three, possibly four, nuclear
cataclysmic meltdowns that happened after Japan was hit by a massive
earthquake and tsunami, and we’re all supposed to pretend that it’s
over, no big deal. Just as corporate network weather reporters never
talk about climate change in relation to extreme weather disasters, so
too, no one remembers the terrifying fear about relying on nuclear power
for energy:
Remember when everyone used to ask the question: Oh-my-gosh: What if
there’s a meltdown?! (Listen to this video on Fukushima’s “China
Syndrome”). We did not learn the answer to that question from Chernobyl
and Three Mile Island (watch this NY Times video when the sirens went off).
Shockingly, even during the Fukushima meltdowns, as the power plants
were exploding simultaneously, President Obama was still telling us that
nuclear power plants are safe!
This is perhaps the biggest environmental crisis of our century, and
yet, it is astonishing how Fukushima’s meltdowns and radioactive water
that is being dumped into the Pacific have been hushed up, censored, and
reduced to “confidential business information”. As Truthout editor,
William Rivers Pitt, put it in his essay, Sick of Secrets, the public is
not allowed to know how the industrial oligarchs are threatening our
lives with their polluting forms of energy.
Whales and dolphins are dying by the hundreds, the radiation in tuna has
tripled off the Pacific US coast, but we’re supposed to pretend that
it’s a big mystery, right? No causal explanations. Dump tons of
radioactive water into the Pacific—and pretend that nothing will happen.
Well here’s a flash: The public has the right to know if there is a
causal link between the radioactive water and the creation of the
“blob”. And if so, that radioactive “blob” that keeps growing off the
Pacific is a “clear and present danger” to the United States, indeed to
the entire continent.
According to a recent RT report, “The ‘Blob' in Pacific Ocean Might be
to Blame for California Drought, Erratic US Weather – Studies. Japan has
been and is still releasing tons of radioactive water into the Pacific.
So while BP’s oil catastrophe has been poisoning sea-life at all levels
in the Gulf, Fukushima’s radiation is being detected up and down the
western coasts from Juneau, Alaska to Baja, California.
Tuna tested in labs caught off the Pacific coasts, for example, are
tainted with cancerous Cesium-134 and Cesium-137. According to several
reports last year, radiation levels in tuna off Oregon’s coast tripled.
Experts claim that the tuna are still safe to eat, but without further
testing, how can they be sure?
As for California’s drought, in addition to the abnormal warming of sea
temperatures, we’ve seen dramatic changes in the jet-stream climate
patterns in the last few years that global warming, alone, cannot
explain: for example, the rapid severity of these irregular changes in
the Pacific atmosphere, and the timing of the “blob’s” development
occurred after Japan began dumping tons of radioactive water into the
Pacific Ocean:
An unusual threat is looming off the Pacific coast of North America from
Juneau in Alaska to Baja California. Now roughly 2000 kilometres wide
and 100 metres deep, a mass of warm water that scientists are calling
"the blob" has lingered off the coast for a year and a half and has set
temperature records, with waters between 1 °C and 4 °C warmer than
normal. Fresh research published in Geophysical Research Letters has
examined the causes and impacts of this area of water, which has grown
more recently.
The blob has changed water-circulation patterns, affected inland weather
and reshuffled ecosystems at sea. Although scientists say the planet's
warming oceans may not be responsible for the mysterious and long-lived
anomaly, some see it as an early warning of changes that might be coming
to the Pacific in the next few decades.
Why is this question so important for investigative scientists and
journalists? If the “blob” is being caused from Fukushima’s radioactive
water, what’s going to happen to that “blob” if Japan continues to
release large amounts of radioactive water into the Pacific? Obviously,
the warm water is going to grow hotter and bigger: If it keeps
expanding, then will California’s drought expand to its neighboring
western states? This is why it is a “clear and present danger” to the
United States.
But let’s just turn a blind eye and pretend that it’s all just one big
mystery, right? And I suppose that over 160 dolphins and about 50
melon-headed whales that washed ashore 50 miles from Fukushima’s border
— is all a big mystery, too. In fact, here’s a whopper for you: one of
Japan’s so-called experts said that the dolphins may be experiencing
“psychological problems…”
Of course, there’s no causal link between boiling red hot toxic
radioactive water and 150 dolphins that just suddenly washed ashore at
various locations near Fukushima. They all decided to commit suicide.
This absurd explanation is not only offensive, it’s immoral and
criminal. The public has a right to know why the international community
is allowing Japan to poison the entire Pacific Ocean with tons of
radioactive water.
Conclusion: Are We Facing Extinction?
For Earth Day, I’ve been thinking about how I was fortunate to be raised
by parents that had a deep reverence for nature. When I was about six or
seven years old, I remember watching my mother save a robin’s babies
from dying by putting the babies in a box that she hung from the clothes
line so that mother robin could easily swoop down and feed her little
ones that lost their nest. That small act of empathy left an indelible
impression on my heart and soul.
I wonder how different George W. Bush would have been had he been raised
in the Kennedy family. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the author of Crimes
Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering
the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy.
Both George W. Bush and Robert F. Kennedy came from powerful and wealthy
families, but both were raised with entirely opposite viewpoints
regarding the sanctity of nature. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was taught by
his parents that nature has intrinsic value, that our majestic forests,
our rivers and oceans are all reflections of God’s Divinity, God’s
“signature of all things”.
By contrast, George W. Bush was taught by his parents that nature has
only extrinsic value to be exploited for self interest; the natural
world is seen as “property” as a means to a profitable ends.
Certainly there is something to be said about the lessons parents pass
down to their children. Children that were raised by nature-loving
parents usually grow up to be lovers of nature as well.
On this Earth Day, I’m thinking about all those courageous volunteers
who painstakingly worked day and night for years, cleaning oil-soaked
pelicans and mammals, whales and dolphins suffocating from BP’s toxic,
black-gooey oil.
For those of us who share Robert F. Kennedy’s view of our wildlife, it
is emotionally painful, agonizing and heartbreaking to see these poor
animals, birds and mammals that are suffering and dying horrible deaths
because industrial profiteers and sold out politicians care only about
lining their own pockets with fossil fuel money; money that is made from
destructive, antiquated forms of energy that should have been outlawed
decades ago: oil, coal, gas and nuclear. These animals have a
God-given right to life as much as anyone. But they are not the only
ones that are facing extinction.
We are at the top of that food chain. However, as the nuclear radiation
and waste spreads, as the oil spills and greenhouse emissions and
pollution continue to wreck havoc on this tiny planet called Earth—we,
too, will be joining our animal friends in the funeral procession unless
we dramatically and quickly change our ways. Time is running out.
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