Exxon-Valdez oil spill
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Valdez redux? Scientists sound alarm over key Gulf fish species
Could one of the Gulf of Mexico’s most abundant fish face the same fate as Prince William Sound’s crashed herring population? A new study [PDF] by a team of researchers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences raises alarming questions about the lingering effects of the BP oil spill on Gulf killifish. The […]
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Students Gear up to Protest Exxon Graduation Speech
As college students around the country are wrapping up their semesters, graduating seniors at Worcester Polytechnical Institute (WPI) find themselves in the midst of an ethical controversy. On Saturday, WPI’s commencement speaker is none other than oil baron Rex Tillerson, CEO and chairman of ExxonMobil, although perhaps you’re more familiar with his role as the […]
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Can we calculate the true cost of our dependence on oil?
A BP shareholder comes clean on big oil, the true costs of an increasingly dangerous dependency, and why BP may bounce back from this disaster virtually unscathed.
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Seven reasons BP would like to forget last weekend
It’s been 81 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in the Gulf.Photo: U.S. Coast GuardIt should have been a good weekend for BP. Its latest plan to staunch the geyser — lowering a tighter cap over the spewing pipe — is ahead of schedule, and its two relief wells, which could stop […]
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The mystery BP Twitterer revealed!
Leroy Stick is the brains behind a fake BP Twitter account called BPGlobalPR that’s racked up more than 180,000 followers. Need to Know‘s Erin Chapman grabbed an exclusive on-camera interview with him at the TEDxOilSpill conference. Stick (an alias) began feeding his updates to humor-starved news junkies on May 19 and — like the oil […]
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Expert measures human cost of Gulf oil leak
Dr. J. Steven Picou is Professor of Sociology at the University of South Alabama. He is currently working on human response to the BP oil spill.Photo courtesy of stevenpicou.com Steven Picou doesn’t have the happiest of jobs. He specializes in the human toll of disasters. As a sociology professor at the University of South Alabama […]
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Officials admit BP disaster worst in U.S. history, best estimate of flow rate a total crock
Cross-posted from Wonk Room. Officials have finally admitted that the Deepwater Horizon blowout is the worst oil disaster in American history, exceeding the Exxon Valdez spill. After a month of insisting that the damaged well was only spewing 210,000 gallons (5000 barrels) of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, officials admitted this morning […]
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Remembering my last oil spill
It’s been three years since a container ship, the COSCO Busan, spilled 53,500 gallons of bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay, just after my return home to live on the bay by the sea that I love. Remnant oil still sometimes surfaces after it rains and the bay’s herring fishery has yet to recover. Ten […]
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[updated] Lisa Murkowski (R-ExxonValdez) opposes forcing oil companies to pay to clean up oil spills
On the Senate floor a few moments ago, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J), and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) asked for unanimous consent to pass their Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act of 2010, which would raise the liability cap on offshore drilling accidents from $75 million to $10 billion. Unanimous consent simply means the […]