ANOTHER SPILL IN THE GULF?

"A suspected oil slick has been spotted around 20 miles north from the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.

Several people reported seeing a rainbow sheen on the surface of the water several miles long just off the coast of Louisiana, to the National Response Center.

Officials have confirmed there is a five-mile wide spill of some substance in the Gulf of Mexico, but have not yet identified it."
Daily Mail

This story has been bouncing around for the last couple days on the net though it doesn't seem to be getting much traction. So, is it a new spill? Or is it oil from the Deepwater blowout finally coming to the surface? I have no idea.

Like just about everything else these days I don't know what's true and what's not concerning the Gulf. To hear the government, big oil and tourist related sources tell it there's no problem at all. On the other hand, there's still reports of dead fish and sickness bubbling up on the net.

My guess, and that's all it is, is that there's a whole lot more going on than we're being told. Common sense seems to say that with all the oil that leaked from Deepwater Horizon and with the little that was removed, something is still out there, lurking and waiting to show itself.

But there's a larger problem. Most of us really don't want to see the world get completely trashed in the search for energy and drilling in the Gulf, regardless of industry propaganda, is a dirty business. But we must have energy to maintain our economy and our way of life. Hell, we must have energy, period.

The arguments that surround the energy debate usually seem to miss that one simple point. We WILL use energy to survive. The only question is, what kind? All energy sources have risks and they'll pretty much all kill in one way or another, whether oil taints the food, coal mines collapse, air pollution causes cancer, radiation poisons or we simply set the house on fire burning wood. Dead is dead.

Many on the left seem to believe that windmills and sunshine (doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy?) can get the job done. Really? Realistically, if you like your A.C. and heat, driving your car, working in a nice white collar job, having a grocery store with more than two aisles in it and most everything else we take for granted today we either have to burn carbon based fuels or use nuclear. Anything else moves us back.

I'm old enough to remember when houses didn't have air conditioning and neither did cars. I remember when our TV's were 13" and black and white. When I was a kid they didn't call off school because it was too hot and we didn't have air conditioning in the classrooms, either. We didn't have microwaves, computers, cell phones, stereos or i-anything. In other words, our energy footprints were much, much smaller but our lives were much less pampered, too. Hell, I'm the first generation in my family that didn't have to use the privy in the backyard! How much energy do we use just flushing toilets?

All this is to say that we need to come to grips with reality in our arguments over energy. We have to decide what we want. Flush toilets or two-holers in the back yard? Central heat, coal burning furnaces or fireplaces in the winter? Do we want to maintain our modern lifestyle and comfort or will we accept a return to a much simpler and less energy reliant life?

Because, in all our bickering about energy, carbon footprints, nuclear meltdowns and everything else this is the central issue. Until we're honest about the subject there's no point in having the argument.


UPDATE:

"The Coast Guard said on Sunday that miles-long patch of discolored goop floating in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be caused by river sediment.

The Coast Guard collected and tested samples of a dark substance after receiving varying reports on Saturday of possible pollution floating on and beneath the water's surface.

The largest sighting described the substance as stretching 100 miles into the Gulf, south of Grand Isle, Louisiana.

An analysis found only trace amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons, oil and grease — all at levels well within the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's clean water standard.

Sediment carried down the Mississippi River and possibly agitated by dredging is believed to have caused the dark substance, according to a Coast Guard news release.

The Coast Guard also investigated on Sunday an oily substance washing up along the Louisiana shoreline.

Samples of that substance will be tested. It is not suspected to be residual oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in April."
MSNBC