Gulf of Mexico oil spill
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Corn industry brazenly turns Gulf disaster into marketing opportunity
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (the dull gray color southeast of the Mississippi Delta) seen by satellite on May 1 Photo: NASAAs if being bombarded with oil from below and chemical dispersants from above weren’t enough, the Gulf of Mexico also has to endure marketing rhetoric from a long-time tormentor: the corn industry. Industrial corn […]
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Choosing sustainable sushi more important than ever, post-spill
In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related videos from around the Web. ————- There are lots of reasons to choose your sushi carefully: most salmon, shrimp, tuna, and eel come hooked to ecological disaster. Now, with the Gulf oil spill threatening the entire marine ecosystem that provides the bulk of U.S. shrimp and […]
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Away from the oil spill, signs of local progress
The Gulf oil spill story is too big to ignore right now. It’s a massive, toxic indictment of our dependency on fuels that fill our atmosphere with heat-trapping pollutants even when everything goes right. But there are other stories too big to ignore, including the story of people finding creative ways to escape the death […]
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Leadership lessons in the Gulf
BP’s Drilling Disaster is quickly unfolding to become one of the world’s worst ever environmental catastrophes. Credible sources already are saying that the volume of oil gushing into the Gulf exceeds the Exxon Valdez, and shockingly, there is no end in sight. As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, as fisherman watch […]
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A teachable moment
The Cape Wind project just approved for the waters offshore of Massachusetts will pump $1 billion into the local economy and create clean, reliable wind energy for decades. The BP oil rig in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico is spewing millions of gallons of petroleum toward the coastlines of four states, incurring $6 […]
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Burning oil sends heavy vapor toward Gulf residents
The EPA is warning that Gulf Coast residents are at risk of headaches, nausea, and other ill health effects; the culprit is air pollution from the oil burns that response teams are conducting to try to keep the big slick away from coastlines. “The BP Oil Spill in the Gulf could cause an odor similar […]
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What are we dumping into the Gulf to ‘fix’ the oil spill?
A 2006 oil-dispersant-spraying test run by the Air Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing, currently deployed to the Gulf to support the oil spill recovery effort. (U.S. Air Force file photo) In addition to the indignity of oil oozing into its depths at a rate of at least 5,000 barrels per day, the Gulf of […]
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The Scene in Louisiana: Disaster Looming
I’m in Venice, LA today, near where the leading edge of the Gulf Coast oil spill has started to ooze ashore. Despite the sense of looming disaster you get from talking to people here, there are at least two groups seeing an uptick in business: The staff at the bar & restaurant at the Venice […]
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Beyond Petroleum
My friend Dean was mostly drunk rowing his raft down the Grand Canyon. He was also naked most of the time, except for a piece of climbing webbing around his waist, ostensibly to help him if the raft flipped. As he headed into the huge rapids of the Inner Gorge, Dean used to cackle and […]
