Gulf Coast now a BP police state as law enforcement conspires with BP to intimidate journalists

by Mike Adams, NaturalNews.com July 7, 2010

(NaturalNews) Normally I would open this article by explaining this is the story the mainstream media won't dare report. Except in this case, they are reporting it. It's right on CNN, on the Anderson Cooper "360" report.

What happened is that Lance Rosenfield, a photographer working for ProPublica (http://www.propublica.org), was standing on a public road, taking photos of a BP refinery in full public view. After taking his photos, he was tailed by local law enforcement officials to a gas station, where they demanded to look at the photos he had just taken. A private BP security goon then showed up at the scene, and an official from the Department of Homeland Security soon arrived and began to intimidate Lance.

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'Climategate' Inquiry Mostly Vindicates Scientists

by Raphael G. Satter

LONDON - An independent report into the leak of hundreds of e-mails from one of the world's leading climate research centers on Wednesday largely vindicated the scientists involved, saying they acted honestly and that their research was reliable.

But the panel of inquiry, led by former U.K. civil servant Muir Russell, did chide scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit for failing to share their data with critics.

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Why 'Green' Building Standards May Actually Threaten Sustainable Forestry

The Tyee / By Monte Paulsen

Canada has more eco-friendly forest than any other country. More than 155 million hectares of Canadian forestland are certified to varying environmental standards set by three distinct certification programs. That's a woodlot the size of Alberta and British Columbia combined.

But three out of every four certified trees in Canada are locked out of North America's booming green building market. That's because the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) influential LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program only accepts wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and only 23 per cent of Canada's "green" forest is FSC-certified.

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Deep-Sea Mining Adds to Fears of Marine Pollution

by Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/deepsea-mining-adds-to-fears-of-marine-pollution-2016292.html

Concerns about large-scale marine pollution, fuelled by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, are set to be heightened by a new development in exploitation of the oceans: deep-sea mining.

The Chinese government has just lodged the first application to mine for minerals under the seabed in international waters, in this case on a ridge in the Indian Ocean 1,700 metres (more than 5,000ft) below the surface.

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US Could Learn Plenty from European Energy Policy

by Steven Hill

With toxic black ooze spreading throughout the Gulf of Mexico, it is time for the Obama administration to think seriously about national energy policy. It could learn plenty by looking across the Atlantic to Europe.

By forging ahead with widespread implementation of innovative conservation practices, renewable energy technologies and fuel efficient transportation, Europe has managed to reduce its 'ecological footprint' to half that of the United States for the same standard of living. The average European emits half the carbon of an average American and uses far less electricity. It takes 40 percent more fuel for an American car to drive a mile than a European car.

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Depression, Abuse, Suicide: Fishermen's Wives Face Post-Spill Trauma

My husband's talking about finding BP CEOs and hurting them..."

MOTHER JONES --  Mac McClelland | Fri Jun. 25, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/06/louisiana-fishermen-suicide-depression-abuse

Inside a cool, shaded old plantation house in St. Bernard, Louisiana, we're all breathing in our favorite color and blowing out gray smoke.

This relaxation exercise is brought to a roomful of women by the St. Bernard Project [1], a nonprofit founded in 2006 to provide rebuilding services to Katrina-ravaged St. Bernard Parish as well as offer "psychological rebuilding" through its wellness and mental-health center. Since the oil spill started, the organization has been looking to vastly expand its services to meet the area's latest mental-health crisis: the unrelenting depression falling on families living and working on the Gulf Coast. Everyone here except the three clinic workers and me is a fisherman's wife.

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BP's Hole in the World: The Absurdity of the Fix-It Mentality

By Naomi Klein, The Nation
Posted on June 28, 2010, Printed on July 1, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147348/

Everyone gathered for the town hall meeting had been repeatedly instructed to show civility to the gentlemen from BP and the federal government. These fine folks had made time in their busy schedules to come to a school gymnasium on a Tuesday night in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, one of many coastal communities where brown poison was slithering through the marshes, part of what has come to be described as the largest environmental disaster in US history.

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The BP Environmental Catastrophe: Living on a Dying Delta

By Dahr Jamail

Global Research, June 30, 2010

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19974

Our first full day in Louisiana finds us venturing south from New Orleans to Houma, a town about an hours drive to the southwest. It is from here we are to take a flight over the marsh to inspect the damage, thus far, caused by the ongoing BP oil catastrophe.

Walking into the office of Butler Aviation Services at the airport, the downtrodden mood, and accompanying anger, are palpable. Of course this is not assisted by the fact that Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Louisiana today.

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Oil Spill in Gulf Could Cause ‘Dead Zone’, Further Hitting Sea Life

by Sheila McNulty

http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/06/29/oil-spill-in-gulf-could-cause-dead-zone-further-hitting-sealife/

High concentrations of methane gas - in some cases approaching 1m times the normal level - have been found around the BP oil spill, raising fears it could create an oxygen-depleted “dead zone” where marine life cannot survive.

Dead zone: This image from NOAA shows the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. (NOAA)

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The GOP's Genetic Link to Big Oil

by Jim Hightower

If scientists were to compare the DNA of Republican congress-critters and of oil corporations, I'll bet they'd find that they match perfectly. After all, the two species have identical political instincts and seem to have a natural affinity for each other — so I'm pretty sure they sprang from the same genetic pool.

How else can you explain the remarkable gusher of compassion that Republican lawmakers are presently directing toward Big Oil in general and BP in particular? For example, only hours after winning his party's nomination for a Kentucky Senate seat, GOP teabag darling Rand Paul was on national TV decrying Barack Obama as "un-American" for daring to demand that BP be held accountable for its human and ecological destruction in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Gulf of Mexico Presents Unprecedented Toxicity Problems

By Kim Evans

Global Research, June 29, 2010

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19962

If you`re living in the U.S., particularly within a thousand miles of the Gulf, you need to detoxify your body now. Here`s why: Crude oil is packed with a toxic chemical called benzene. Even in small amounts, benzene is associated with leukemia, Hodgkin`s Lymphoma and other serious blood and immune system diseases. The EPA`s "safe level" for benzene is 4 ppb (parts per billion) and benzene is being found in Gulf air at levels of 3,000 ppb. Crude oil is being smelled hundreds of miles away, and make no mistake, if you can smell oil, you`re breathing highly toxic benzene.

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BP 'Staked Future on Expanding Offshore Drilling'

Document reveals that the company marked out 'expanding deepwater' as its number one area for long-term growth

by Suzanne Goldenberg

BP [1] staked its future on expanding offshore drilling a month before the catastrophic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon triggered the United States [2]' worst environmental disaster, according to company documents revealed yesterday.

The investigative web site ProPublica published a March 2010 strategy document [3] in which BP named "expanding deepwater" as its number one area for long-term growth.

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Reaching too Far, Delving too Deep: The Well from Hell

By Christian A. DeHaemer

Global Research, June 26, 2010
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19925

The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum... shadow and flame. — Saruman, The Lord of the Rings

There is something primordial about BP's quest for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It's an Icarus-like story of super-ambition; of reaching too far, delving too deep.

I don't know if you've stopped to contemplate what BP was trying to do...

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BP oil spill Corexit dispersants suspected in widespread crop damage

Yobie Benjamin,  SF GATE, June 27, 2010

UPDATED: June 27, 2010 - Last May 24, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson promised, "We will conduct our own tests to determine the least toxic, most effective dispersant available in the volumes necessary for a crisis of this magnitude... I am not satisfied that BP has done an extensive enough analysis of other dispersant options."

As of today, those tests have not been completed, according to the EPA. In the meantime, BP has dumped 1.4 million gallons of Corexit on the gulf. Next week, we could have a hurricane pushing Corexit inland.

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United States Congress Must Act Re: BP Oil Spill

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/United-States-Congress-Mus-by-Dr-Tom-Termotto-100626-944.html

June 27, 2010

United States Congress Must Act Re: BP Oil Spill

By Dr. Tom Termotto

We are witnessing the greatest environmental catastrophe of the modern era in the Gulf of Mexico. Many of the top experts have already estimated that this oil volcano has far surpassed the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Even if the current "stopgap" measures temporarily contain this gusher, it still remains an extraordinary challenge to permanently cap. Simply put, we have HUGE problems before us no matter how you look at it. Many are silently weeping in the privacy of their homes because of the sheer enormity and profound gravity of this ongoing, unprecedented, manmade disaster.

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A New Generation of Natural Gas Drilling Is Endangering Communities From the Rockies to New York

By Nora Eisenberg, The Nation
Posted on June 22, 2010, Printed on June 25, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147298/

Theater and film director Josh Fox's documentary Gasland explores the new generation of natural gas drilling, which for a decade has been blasting its way east across the country, tapping shale formations from the Rockies to Pennsylvania, and is now expanding in New York. Fox is only 37, but he is a veteran explorer of complex themes from militarism to war to globalization and torture who skillfully blends artistry and social message. Gasland is more straightforward than Fox's earlier experimental mixes of theater, dance, music and film, but no less striking. Winner of the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance, where it premiered in January, Gasland has been causing a stir wherever it has gone since. 

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BP Welcomes You to the Apocalypse

by Mark Morford

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/25

Please do not worry. Please do not fret about that one thing you always fret about, or that other thing, or even that third thing that might have something to do with erupting oil, dead pelicans and that sickening feeling in your gut that Something is Very Wrong Indeed [1].

I come bearing fabulous news. There is no longer any need to concern yourself with pesky trifles like love, a mortgage, child rearing, planting a garden, dreams, money, shoes, wristwatches, parking spaces, mysterious rashes, foreign policy, baseball, bridge tolls or generally caring about much of anything in particular.

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Toxic Chemicals: CDC advises “Everyone, including pregnant women” to avoid areas affected by spill

Expert says crude oil contains “some of the most toxic chemicals that we know”

Oilflorida - 2010-06-23

Health Data Gaps, BP Suspicions Worry U.S. Panelists, Bloomberg, June 22, 2010:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has issued health warnings…

While they suggest there is no threat, the CDC simultaneously advised “everyone, including pregnant women” to avoid spill-affected areas. …

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Dear Mother Earth, Call a Doctor...Your Blood is Gushing...

By Mitchell J. Rabin, Host of A Better World

Mondays and Wednesdays at 6 pm

Yes, the Earth is wailing as BP is fudging in plugging. What kind of government is this that doesn't require "worst case scenarios" among oil drillers, on and offshore, to be exhaustively explored, so that there are "solutions for catastrophic failure"?  But apparently, not only does the government not require such, but BP's own Board or shareholders don't require this either. Wouldn't you think that, just to protect their investment--forget about the environment--they'd want to know what the potential cost of a catastrophe?

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Deepwater Horizon: The Worst-Case Scenario

By Richard Heinber

Global Research, June 23, 2010

Post Carbon Institute - 2010-06-20

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19850

Reports from the Gulf of Mexico just keep getting worse. Estimates of the rate of oil spillage from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead just keep gushing (the latest official number: up to 60,000 barrels per day). Forecasts for how long it will take before the leak is finally plugged continue pluming toward August—maybe even December.

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