Gulf Spill and Global Warming

An article in the New York Times quotes John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an environmental advocacy group that sharply criticized the early, low estimates of the size of the BP leak, noted that no oil had gushed from the well for nearly two weeks. “Oil has a finite life span at the surface,” Mr. Amos said Tuesday, after examining fresh radar images of the slick. “At this point, that oil slick is really starting to dissipate pretty rapidly.”

According to the article, some of the compounds in the oil evaporate, reducing their impact on the environment. Jeffrey W. Short, a former government scientist who studied oil spills and now works for the environmental advocacy group Oceana, said that as much as 40 percent of the oil in the gulf might have simply evaporated once it reached the surface.

An unknown percentage of the oil would have been eaten by bacteria, essentially rendering the compounds harmless and incorporating them into the food chain. But other components of the oil have most likely turned into floating tar balls that could continue to gum up beaches and marshes, and may represent a continuing threat to some sea life. A three-mile by four-mile band of tar balls was discovered off the Louisiana coast on Tuesday.

In a Washington Post article, "the light crude oil is biodegrading quickly," NOAA director Jane Lubchenco said during the response team daily briefing. "We know that a significant amount of the oil has dispersed and been biodegraded by naturally occurring bacteria." Much of the oil appears to have been broken down into tiny, microscopic particles that are being consumed by bacteria. Little or none of the oil is on seafloor, she said, but is instead floating in the gulf waters.

Both articles raise concerns, of course, being the good alarmists that they are. However, these statements should make clear that earth is quite resistant to anything that would destroy parts of it.

Such science should be a lesson for Global Warming activists as well. Not even an unintentioned human-caused oil event in a body of water as large the Gulf is of much concern to "mother nature." It has processes like evaporation and bacteria that take care of it. We think (arrogantly) that we are doing something to a victim that we call earth. Earth is far stronger than that. Earth is stronger than human beings, which should be a "duh," but in the political environment of today, it seems to be in question.