On this Earth Day 2010....

[J.R.E.]

I got to watch  a great documentary the other day on PBS entitled : Earth Days / American Experience. If you have some time to spare, I highly recommend it !

For those interested you can watch this ( almost two hour video) Here:

Hope I get this link right : (give time to load)


http://video.pbs.org/video/1463378089/



This was also one of the first Earth Day commercial that aired on April 22nd, 1971.  How many remember :



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=862cXNfxwmE


Ray

[leatherman]

This was also one of the first Earth Day commercial that aired on April 22nd, 1971.  How many remember :

I was only 9 when that first aired, and you know I have never thrown any trash out of a car window because of that PSA

[alliance]

I caught a good part of that last night - a great program.
I wonder why we dont see the green and white ecology flag anymore?

[fearless]

we had this gem of a CSA in the 80's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_KW8hlkVEc&feature=related

whilst nothing to do with earth day, your post reminded me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ5KC1s3YZo&feature=related on of my favourite CSA of all time.

[alliance]

 from     http://www.earthday.net/node/77

Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, proposed the first nationwide environmental protest "to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda. " "It was a gamble," he recalls, "but it worked."

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.

Earth Day 1970 turned that all around.

On April 22, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values

[tednlou2]

I was surprised to hear on ABC NEWS that our energy usage has dropped by half.  In 1970, we made up 5% of the world's population but used 50% of the energy/resources.  Now, we still make up 5%, but use 25%.  The air is a lot cleaner, but CO2 has gone up 19%.  I remember as a kid, people would just throw trash out the window of their cars or into lakes while fishing.

When I see trash on the highways and rivers now, I wonder how much was intentionally thrown there and how much blew out of trash bins, garbage trucks, or blown there from high winds, floods, etc.

[alliance]

"As emergency response teams scurry to clean up the expanding oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to prevent it from reaching the shoreline, efforts to burn off the oil are raising fresh concerns about the impact on marine life and air quality.

The April 20 explosion that led to the sinking a deepwater drilling rig operated by Transocean Ltd. (RIG) for BP PLC (BP) off the coast of Louisiana has led to the largest oil spill in U.S. waters in decades. The companies haven't been able to cap the well, which continues to leak at a rate of 1,000 barrels a day. Other methods to stop or contain the spread of oil, including constructing a canopy to catch the oil and drilling of a relief well, will take several weeks to implement. "


"No matter what technique you use, there is always an environmental trade-off,"

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100428-726268.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesEurope



Where is the outrage?

[J.R.E.]

More update on the oil leak :

Officials: Leaks spewing more oil into Gulf
Thursday, April 29, 2010



http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2010/4/29/612924.html?title=Officials:+Leaks+spewing+more+oil+into+Gulf+++++



By CAIN BURDEAU
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is even worse than officials believed and the federal government is offering to help industry giant BP contain the slick that is threatening parts of the U.S. shoreline, the Coast Guard said.

A new leak discovered in a blown-out well a mile underwater means five times as much oil is spewing into the water _ an estimate BP disputes. The time may have come for the defense department and other public agencies to offer up "technologies that may surpass abilities of the private sector" to get the mess under control, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said at a news conference late Wednesday.

She said more than 5,000 barrels a day of sweet crude are discharging into the gulf, not the 1,000 barrels officials had estimated for days since a drilling rig exploded and sank 50 miles off the Louisiana Coast. The new oil spill estimate comes from the federal National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP PLC, which leased the rig, said he welcomed the government's offer, but that he did not believe the amount of oil spilling into the water is beyond earlier estimates.

"We're actually applying every resource available to us," he said.
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He pointed to a diagram that showed the new leak is upstream from the one officials knew about.

"Due to its location, we do not believe this changes the amount currently believed to be released," he said.

When asked again, Landry stuck to the NOAA estimate and said it was based on aerial surveys, study of the trajectory of the oil slick and other factors.

The Secretary of Homeland Security has briefed President Barack Obama on this new information and the government has offered to have the Department of Defense use its equipment and expertise to help contain the spill and protect the U.S. coastline and wildlife, Landry said.

"It has become clear after several unsuccessful attempts to determine the cause" that agencies must supplement what's being done by the company, she said.

Meanwhile, a plan to contain the slick by burning off parts of it was successfully tested late Wednesday afternoon, Landry said. BP was to set more fires after the test, but as night fell, there were no more burns. The burns were not expected to be done at night. No details about when more were planned were given during the news conference.

Crews planned to use hand-held flares to set fire to sections of the spill. They turned to the idea after failing to stop the leak at the spot where a deepwater platform exploded on April 20 and later sank.

A 500-foot boom was to be used to corral several thousand gallons of the thickest oil on the surface, which will then be towed to a more remote area, set on fire, and allowed to burn for about an hour.

The decision to burn some of the oil came after crews operating submersible robots failed to activate a shut-off device that would halt the flow of oil on the sea bottom 5,000 feet below.

Officials had estimated about 42,000 gallons of oil a day was leaking into the Gulf from the blown-out well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. That would be closer to 210,000 gallons a day with the new estimates. Eleven workers are missing and presumed dead and more than 100 escaped the blast, the cause of which has not been determined.

A spokeswoman for a U.S. military base in Colorado Springs, Colo., that provides support to civil authorities during natural disasters said BP has not requested the defense department's help to contain the leak. However, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command at Peterson Air Force Base, were anticipating the request, said Stacey Knott.

"We are looking at how we may be able to offer support if we are asked," said Knott.

As for the burn, Greg Pollock, head of the oil spill division of the Texas General Land Office, which is providing equipment for crews in the Gulf, said he is not aware of a similar technique ever being tried off the U.S. coast. The last time crews with his agency used fire booms to burn oil was a 1995 spill on the San Jacinto River.

"When you can get oil ignited, it is an absolutely effective way of getting rid of a huge percentage of the oil," he said. "I can't overstate how important it is to get the oil off the surface of the water."

When the flames go out, Pollock said, the material that is left resembles a hardened ball of tar that can be removed from the water with nets or skimmers.

"I would say there is little threat to the environment because it won't coat an animal, and because all the volatiles have been consumed if it gets on a shore it can be simply picked up," he said.

Authorities also said they expect minimal impact on sea turtles and marine mammals in the burn area.

A graphic posted by the Coast Guard and the industry task force fighting the slick showed it covering an area about 100 miles long and 45 miles across at its widest point.

"It's premature to say this is catastrophic. I will say this is very serious," Landry had said earlier.

From the air, the thickest parts of the spill resembled rust-colored tentacles of various thickness. The air was thick with the acrid smell of petroleum.

Amid several of the thicker streaks, four gray whales could be seen swimming in the oil. It was not clear if the whales were in danger.

BP says work will begin as early as Thursday to drill a relief well to relieve pressure at the blowout site, but that could take months.

Another option is a dome-like device to cover oil rising to the surface and pump it to container vessels, but that will take two weeks to put in place, BP said.

Winds and currents in the Gulf have helped crews in recent days as they try to contain the leak. The immediate threat to sandy beaches in coastal Alabama and Mississippi has eased. But the spill has moved steadily toward the mouth of the Mississippi River and the wetland areas east of the river, home to hundreds of species of wildlife and near some rich oyster grounds.

The cost of the disaster continues to rise and could easily top $1 billion.

More than two dozen vessels moved about in the heart of the slick pulling oil-sopping booms.

Earlier Wednesday, Louisiana State Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham told lawmakers federal government projections show a "high probability" oil could reach the Pass a Loutre wildlife area Friday night, Breton Sound on Saturday and the Chandeleur Islands on Sunday.

In Plaquemines Parish, a sliver of Louisiana that juts into the Gulf and is home to Pass a Loutre, officials hoped to deploy a fleet of volunteers in fishing boats to spread booms that could block oil from entering inlets.

"We've got oystermen and shrimpers who know this water better than anyone," Plaquemines Paris President Billy Nungesser said. "Hopefully the Coast Guard will embrace the idea."



Ray