Science VS Common Sense
The only thing that calmed me this morning was envisioning a beautiful rose, deep red and full of delightful scent. I imagined the smell and saw it blossoming in my heart. The anger and frustration over BP and the government’s ‘head-in-the-sand’ approach to the oil spill has troubled me greatly and an article I read this morning lit my fuse.
The article was published by the New York Times November 5th. The quote that made me stomp around my kitchen taking deep breaths was this: “The discovery of the dead corals offers the strongest evidence so far that oil from the BP well may have harmed marine life in the deep ocean.” This statement was made by Dr. Charles Fisher of NOAA, the governmental agency that has reopened almost the entire Gulf of Mexico to seafood harvesting. I know, I know…their samples show minimal amounts of dispersants and oil in seafood. But how is it that I can walk on the beach and find dead crabs with blackened lungs (gills)? Of course, I’m not taking them to a lab for testing but they sure look different than the crabs we caught and cooked when I was growing up on the Gulf Coast. In those days the crabs had creamy-white gills. I’m no scientist but unless crabs have taken to cigar smoking, something is amiss. Maybe they are not sampling in the “right” places. And YEAH! they are finally admitting that the oil spill may have harmed marine life in the deep ocean, but really? I mean…is this NEWS to anyone? That they are admitting it…okay, THAT is newsworthy!
I observed Portuguese Man-O-Wars washed up with suspicious-looking grayish-black specks in them. OIL? If not, they have certainly changed their coloring by some miracle of nature. But again, I’m only a woman with a camera and a keen curiosity and love of nature, not a scientist.
And I know the sea gulls and shore birds I’ve observed in the past week have excessive leg and foot injuries and I thought maybe, just maybe, it could be from the oil they walked through this summer. And pardon my leap to suggest a Willet I saw puking on the beach, whose vomit was full of broken pieces of shells and mucus, was suffering from some illness or maybe hunger because there is no food (live shells) for him to eat. Once again, I’m not sampling the vomit or don’t have a way to ask the birds if their foot and leg injuries came from the oil. “Excuse me, when did you start having symptoms of your foot falling off?” But is it such a leap to wonder if the oil is the cause?
I totally understand that we must have hard evidence–scientific evidence–to draw conclusions. I know that hard science proves the connection from the BP Oil gusher to dead marine life. But where is the common sense of scientists? Are they so programmed to believe only what they can prove that they lose their ability to use common sense?
If there is a toxic substance, let’s just say 5 million barrels (55 gallons in a barrel). Added to it was another toxic substance….maybe 2 million gallons of it… that causes toxic substance #1 to be readily absorbed by marine organisms. Mix it all up in salt water and what do YOU think will happen? Without your high school or college biology knowledge, without knowledge of chemistry. WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN? Do you think things that live in this mixture will be negatively affected by it?
It seems as if those of us still concerned about the Gulf–wildlife, plant life, human life–keep hitting walls of bureaucratic reasoning that border on nonsensical. Really NOAA, the oil did NOT disappear magically. You allowed it to be dispersed…it sank and now…oops! It’s still there. And finally…FINALLY…your own scientists think that maybe a reef seven miles southwest of the blown oil well might indeed have been killed by the oil–no, no…the oil may have “harmed marine life.” I am not sure why Jane Lubchenco, NOAA administrator, started supporting the idea that perhaps the oil may have harmed marine life (she was the one that said the majority of the oil was gone) but whatever the reason, at least there IS reason starting to percolate in government scientists.
Please forgive the obvious unrestrained assault on the governmental scientific community. But after listening to EPA and USDA scientists at a meeting in Mobile, Alabama, in June contradict their own statements about whether dispersant use was safe, after knowing the government supported BP’s use of toxic chemicals banned in the UK (dispersant), after watching Jane Lubchenco say the oil was nearly gone (and independent scientists saying NO, it’s not), after finding evidence of oil in crabs and jellyfish, on marine life, seeing oil STILL washing up on the beaches of Alabama (as of Oct 27th), and personally experiencing airborne oil during high winds and surf on the Alabama Gulf Coast….I don’t feel anything but disbelief and frustration that our NOAA government agency is: 1) Stupid enough to believe the rest of us are stupid; or 2) Just really stupid themselves.
Can’t you be a scientist and have common sense?
Steps to staying healthy while visiting the Gulf Coast beaches:
1. Don’t dig in the sand.
2. Don’t wade in water that is bubbling with light-brown froth (this includes swimming)
3. Don’t eat fish, crabs, shrimp, oysters. PLEASE, for your own safety, wait a year or two. I really believe there is danger…I’ve seen it first hand.
4. If there is high wind and surf, blowing from the south, do not go onto the beaches. The oil is airborne. I saw it, I felt it, I rubbed oil off of sea oats the last week of October.
5. Don’t go barefoot on the sand.
6. Don’t trust the local officials as they turned their heads to beach-goers who were swimming in highly contaminated oily waters–I have video and photographs from the summer. The local officials want tourists to think it is safe so they will keep coming to the beaches.
I want my home state and other coastal states to have successful businesses. I want there to be prosperity. But not at the expense of your health, or the health of those you love. Be observant, educate yourself fully, and know the risks.