Adorable otter gives BP the finger, says "I want my life back"
BP OTTER--a.k.a. "Tony" gives BP the finger; then begs for his life back.
More shots of wildcritters whose only crime was to live too close to BP's oilruption are
here.
So sad...it is our voracious demand for oil that causes BP to drill risky wells in the Gulf.
As a society we NEED TO DO BETTER.
We need more "eyes" on the Gulf/BP disaster
The media in this country is failing to show us what is really happening in the Gulf.Here is a
video made almost 1 month ago by
John Wathen and the Waterkeeper Alliance--it shows clearly that even a month ago this was a disaster of epic proportions!
The government is failing us too...we need to get some surveillance drones up over the gulf recording the oil slick all day--hell throw 1000 (or ten-thousand) luminescent ping pong balls out in the gulf and record their travel at night to get 24/7 data on the spill and the gulf currents.
NASA? you put how many autonomous rovers up on Mars...MARS! What would it take to outfit a few for air/land/sea rover operations in the Gulf?
Why are we forced to look at a half dozen camera angles provided (and edited) by BP?
We need a small armada of 1000 toy boats with cellphones attached that snap and send pictures of the sea surface and below (a glass bottom toy boat?) every few minutes.
Even our environmental groups are letting us down (although they have gotten some footage of the spill showing it was way bigger than estimates weeks ago--many thanks Waterkeeper Alliance!) by not getting more cameras on and
under the waters of the gulf.
Considering how many tens of thousands of peoples livelihoods are being destroyed by this apparently unstoppable oil-ruption why are we stuck looking at one video feed?
Say a toy boat costs $30 and a cell phone w/ camera costs $50 (this is just a guess--a bulk buyer of 1000 units should get much better pricing!) the cost to put 1000 toy-camera monitoring stations into the gulf would be less than $1 million!
Come on Sierra Club, NDRC, Greenpeace and others...band together and show us the truth!
Hell Greenpeace should setup a news bureau where the drilling platform used to sit! Considering all the dumb gimmicks Greenpeace tries to get media attention--the greens should be spoon feeding the media around the clock updates on this!
Biochar
I'm really excited about what I am learning about
Biochar. So far I know only the very basics--but it all sounds incredibly promising!
Biochar is basically charcoal that is buried in your field/garden to improve yields. If you make it properly, up to 50% of the carbon remains in the biochar after "burning" (i.e. generating energy) in a low oxygen environment.
1) Biochar
removes carbon from the atmosphere. And the carbon from the biochar remains in the soil for centuries. They say this is how the ancient Brazilians created the fertile Terra Preta.
2) Biochar improves the
quality of the soil (according to the studies performed so far). Boosters say it can double crop yields, because it helps the soil retain water and nutrients.
I would really like to see more research into this!
How much should be added? When? (Is this a one and done, or an annual application?) What soil types does biochar help most? Does it help all crops equally? or does it only help certain crops?
3) Biochar
generates energy when you make it.
I learned the few facts I know at a recent solar conference, where the speakers made the point that if you produced your biochar at night/cloudy days, then your biomass acts as your storage/battery. Solar + biomass (+ wind) means you can generate your energy whenever you need it. And if you use your biomass to create biochar you can even remove carbon from the atmosphere.
Considering all the bad climate news out there...biochar sounds like a really promising/exciting alternative that deserves some serious research funding!
