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    Six ways BP’s oil spill is seeping into politics

    Forget about Wall Street — there’s a new villain in town.  Big Oil is, at the moment, the dark lord of corporate greed and evil, and, not surprisingly, it’s starting to take center stage both in political campaigns and Washington politicking.     Here are six examples of oil creep: 1. Take his job and shove […]

  • Louisianans take a break from oil-spill angst to celebrate local seafood

    Seafood abounds at the Plaquemines Parish Seafood Festival.Photos: Emily PetersonThe sixth annual Plaquemines Parish Seafood Festival, held this past weekend, had the usual fixings one would expect at a South Louisiana festival: fried seafood, a solid lineup of live local music, and plenty of cold beer to beat the high humidity and 90-degree temperatures. One […]

  • NWF scientist visits habitat hit hard by oil spill

    Dr. Doug Inkley, certified wildlife biologist & senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation, called me from Louisiana at 6:30am Central time. He was heading down to Venice Marina for another long day on the water viewing the effects of the BP oil disaster, but before motoring out beyond cell service, Doug wanted to tell […]

  • Where are the oil protests? In New Orleans, they’ve finally begun

    A few days ago, Dave asked a question that seemed to strike a chord with readers. In the face of coal miner deaths, the Gulf oil leak, the corrupt regulators that enabled it, and freak weather such as the Nashville flood, he asked:      And yet where are the protests? Where are the people in the […]

  • 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 […]

  • Gulf of Mexico: from magnificent resource to industrial sacrifice zone

    Fire and a vast oil spill, on top of one of the globe’s most productive fisheries. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard The Gulf of Mexico is a magnificent resource: a kind of natural engine for the production of wild, highly nutritious foodstuff. Here’s how the EPA describes it: Gulf fisheries are some of the most productive […]

  • The story of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill [PHOTOS]

    Photo: Transocean The Deepwater Horizon oil rig, owned by the Houston company Transocean, drilled the deepest oil well in history (35,050 feet) in September 2009 in the Gulf of Mexico. In January, the rig moved to a British Petroleum project 120 miles southeast of New Orleans.

  • Gulf oil spill worse than expected, and getting worser

    Like the oil, there’s more news spilling out of (or is it into?) the Gulf of Mexico. And none of it is good. Where to begin? The 5,000-foot-long pipe that links the oil well to Transocean’s now submerged rig has sprung a third leak, which could explain why scientists at NOAA just upped their estimate […]

  • The politics of the Gulf oil spill

    The ecological fallout of the Gulf oil spill continues as emergency teams plan to set fire to the surface slick in hopes of keeping it away from the coast. The political fallout continues as well: More bad news for the Senate climate and energy bill, as coastal-state senators with key votes voiced concerns about drilling […]