Here comes the Loop Current.

Marion Laney, a realtor on Dauphin Island, has uploaded the following video from the Ocean Circulation Group at University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science. It uses drifters tracked by satellite to follow and forecast the movement of the Gulf Gusher (note that this is based on one model, like in hurricane tracking). The modeled circulation resembles a starfish with two arms stretching south and eastward over time. If you think Louisiana’s problems are only in the Breton/Chandeleur area, though, check out that one arm circling the peninsula to the west and headed up towards Barataria Bay. Bad news.

If you’re a politician and argue that America must regain its educational primacy, especially in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, don’t even think about saying the things below. What is happening on the Gulf of Mexico coast is bad enough without your adding to the pain and embarrassment. Let’s not forget that half of you don’t even believe in the science behind how oil is created in the earth, but will happily benefit from its extraction.

I also ask you, the reader, this: In talking and reading about the oil spill, keep track of and keep separate what falls under explosion, rig fatalities, oil spewing from the riser, and disaster response at the site and onshore. This way you keep yourself and others honest. This way you stop being intellectual prey.

1. “Anytime you look at any exploration, whether it’s energy or space, there are inherent risks. We just saw 29 miners killed in West Virginia, getting coal.” — State Sen. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL)

Comparing the deaths of 29 coal miners to a 5000-barrel-per-day oil gusher that has very different and farther-reaching implications in terms of geography and time scale shows that Sen. Haridopolos should probably not extend his political career beyond the Florida state legislature. But, since the senator went there, here are some cold hard numbers: From 2001 to 2010, the mining industry had 313 deaths [source: MSHA]. In contrast, there were 404 oil & gas fatalities just between 2003 and 2006 [source: CDC], while there were 128 coal mining deaths in that same time frame [source: MSHA]. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2008 alone, 120 oil and gas workers died vs. 30 coal miners.

The oil industry suffers considerably more immediate fatalities than coal mining. On top of this, there are long-range consequences on the Gulf’s living environment, air quality, JOBS, local food sources, sensitive marine and onshore flora and fauna, and the general financial AND emotional well-being of an entire American region that is still reeling from prior natural and unnatural disasters including hurricanes, floods, rapid wetland erosion, failed disaster response, and government-bureaucratic incompetence. The real treachery here, of course, is using the tragic and needless deaths of 29 West Virginian coal miners to justify what is now happening in the Gulf. Like that is somehow alright and, therefore, this is, too.

There are inherent risks in being an American in the post-colonial world, which include horrific incidents all the way from 9/11 to assholes wearing bomb-laden underwear onto our jetliners. Using Sen. Haridopolos’s logic, I would say we shouldn’t do anything about that, either.

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2. “That chocolate milk looking spill starts breaking up in smaller pieces. It is tending to break up naturally.” — Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS)

Way out in the middle of a vast ocean, spilled oil can break up or denature naturally over a very long period of time, not without doing some damage to proximal marine ecosystems in the process. The Gulf Gusher, however, happened extremely close to land and has already hit the shore, damaging fisheries and sensitive habitats in the process, not to mention that once it really hits sand, soil and rocks, the oil is going to be so hard to remove from surfaces and pores.

BP’s incident responders, the Coast Guard and the rest of the cleanup crew know the exact consequences of “letting it break up naturally,” which is why they’re out there working day and night flaring and skimming or, for the linguistically-challenged, getting the shit out of the water as soon as they can. But, since Rep. Taylor thinks it’s harmless like chocolate milk, I invite him to help remove some of it by drinking it. It does a body good.

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3. “President Obama waited to respond to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico because he wanted an excuse to shut down offshore drilling.” — Michael Brown, former FEMA head.

Is this guy still around? Why? That’s like someone saying President Bush waited to respond to The Flood in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina because he wanted an excuse to shut down New Orleans. Oh, Brownie, who gives two Arabian horse poops about you?

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4. “The oil spill is natural” and an “act of God.” — RushBo and Rick Perry

First of all, God didn’t drill to 18,000 feet and it’s not his blowout preventer that failed to suppress seriously high pressures that hit a rig, killing eleven people, and sending 200,000 gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico and its immediate coastline. If you believe in God, stop blaming him for our mistakes. (The inherent dissonance between the hardline championing of predestination and the exertion of human free will in drilling for hydrocarbons notwithstanding, but that’s a topic for another post).

Secondly, natural oil seeps do happen, but not at these obscenely-high pressure and gallon numbers. Oil seeps happen slowly along relatively-shallow natural breaks in the earth and generally ooze out onto the sea floor (often consumed there by oil-loving bacterial colonies). If oil and gas “naturally” and routinely burst forth from great water and rock depths, oil companies would not have to pay companies like Transocean up to $500,000 per day to drill one well.

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Louisiana may never stop drilling for oil and gas. It is a source of economic power and pride for way too many, rich and poor. But, folks elsewhere are rethinking Drill, Baby, Drill saying that “the risk is much greater than the money is worth.” Well, Louisiana, we’ll always be here as your customers, but is it worth it?

Critical Mass’s Mark Athitakis interviews Andrew Altschul of The Rumpus.

This is what’s so frustrating when you talk to people in the mainstream publishing industry. They’re so sure no one loves books anymore–because the corporate accountants are telling them they can’t hit a 15% profit margin. And so they’re bending over backwards to find the magic bullet: Is it e-books? Can the iPad save us? What if we get Sarah Palin to write a vampire novel? But people still love books. Period. And they want to talk about them. They want to be a part of that conversation. And it’s a much more important, healthier conversation for us to be having as a society than talking about stock options or Grand Theft Auto or America’s Next Top Model all the time.

What happens when you throw the baby of meaningful and affordable content out with the bathwater in a changing technological market? Someone alert the newspaper publishing industry about this, too. While you’re at it, check the Amazon.com landing page. How long has it been since it featured an actual book?

(via The Rumpus | We Love Books)

I’d say Happy Earth Day, but man is she pissed.

My thoughts today are with GulfSails and his family. His uncle is one of the 11 missing and presumed dead since Tuesday’s explosion of the Transocean semi-submersible drilling off the coast of Louisiana. Transocean and others suspect a blowout, usually associated with shallow gas pockets. To which NolaDishu and I immediately asked, “What was up with the preventer?” The rig sank today, but not before a NASA satellite captured an image of the explosion’s smoke plume.

GulfSails comments, “Coal mine losses are big news. Eleven men who fought to save a rig and 116 other lives – well, guess that’s crap.” Even so, the world knows little of the working conditions of our coal miners. A Massey Energy miner, who was recently interviewed under the pledge of anonymity said, “Production was the name of the game … At all costs we’ve got to get X amount of footage outside at the end of every shift … For me, I felt like that lump of coal was important than a human being’s life.”  Massey, as you know, owns Performance Coal Co., now sadly famous for the Upper Big Branch mine explosion. Read Jeff Biggers for more.

As a former energy worker, I’m not so hypocritical as to call for the wholesale cessation of oil, gas, and coal production, although I do question current expansion plans. All I ask is that we keep in mind exactly what and whom we are willing to sacrifice to extract it. “Drill, baby, drill” and “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it” are shitty, self-centered things to say when you don’t have to do the dirty work and in your backyard. Have some awareness and respect.

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Will the airline industry please quit being WATBs about the EU closing airspace in the wake of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption? Maybe you guys and your insurers should pay attention to most-assured future eruptions and work around it, not it around you. How many times do we geologists have to tell you that the earth doesn’t work at your bidding? The Eruptions blog nails it:

A lot of what I read has an attitude of “How dare you inconvenience me and hurt the airlines with this foolish ban!”

… Close the airspace: too cautious. Don’t close the airspace: too reckless. This is a classic “no win” situation for the EU, meteorologists and anyone involved in the (in my opinion) right decision to play it safe – the trap of disaster mitigation is that if you get it right, and no one is hurt, then people fall into a sense of complacency. Suddenly, the loss of money has become as big a problem as the loss of life.

Well, since the eruption is an Act Of God in the parlance of the insurance industry, I humbly suggest that we sacrifice a few airline industry officials to appease The Big Woo.

Still, I found these links funny: How To Name A Volcano and the Volcano Airlines game (Use mouse to fly. Avoid the dark ash clouds.)

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Bringing a whole new meaning to “Love A Geologist And Feel The Bedrock,” an Iranian ayatollah suggests that feminine immodesty in dress is the cause of earthquakes. To be totally fair to right-wing cleric Sedighi, what he actually said was that “women and girls who don’t dress appropriately spread promiscuity in society” and THEN “when promiscuity spreads, earthquakes increase.” Never mind the second leap of logic, the first one is troubling in itself because that’s what many pillars of polite society elsewhere in the world, including in America, choose to believe.

In full (frontal) scientific response, Jen McCreight aka the Blag Hag wishes to test Sedighi’s claim with a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.

Jen invites you to join the Facebook event and use the hashtag #boobquake when tweeting about it.

While rummaging in your closet for that perfect ho-ter top, don’t forget about our very own American ayatollahs. We do crazy quite well right here. I mean, Jesus Monkey Lords, do we ever.