Environmental awareness grows in Alabama as oil soaks Louisiana marshes

[salazarmms]

Source: Mobile Press Register

A heightened sense of environmental awareness grows day by day in Alabama with oil creeping toward the coast and many worried that sea life may already be affected, marine researchers said Saturday, as warnings rose in Louisiana that the gooey slick in marshes there could prove impossible to clean.

For the past week, dead catfish have washed ashore around Mobile Bay, but marine researchers said Saturday that the kill is most likely unrelated to the spill.

More than 50 miles of Louisiana's delicate shoreline already have been soiled by the massive slick unleashed after the Deepwater Horizon rig burned and sank last month, killing 11. Officials fear oil eventually could invade wetlands and beaches from Texas to Florida.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, head of the federal effort to contain and clean up the spill, called oil in the marshes a "worst-case scenario."

Read more: http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/environmental_awareness_grows.html

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So all it took was a worst case scenario to occur regarding the environment! Flip floppers.

[annabanana]

1. correction: all it took was a worst case scenario ON THEIR DOORSTEP.

If it doesn't happen to them, it doesn't exist, or is grossly exaggerated, or is a load of tree-huggin' hooey.

[salazarmms]

3. i stand corrected ms banana

make that:

So all it took was to 'experience' (HT Xipe) a worst case scenario regarding the environment! Flip floppers.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Experience is a dear teacher, but fools learn from no other

- Benjamin Franklin

[SkyDaddy7]

6. But the SAD fact remains...

Yes the right wingers of Alabama are getting an up close and personal lesson in why it is so important to protect the enviroment...However, as soon as it comes time to actually make changes to the laws to ensure the chances of something like this happening again are minimized they will do as their Republican Masters say and oppose any new regulations! Especially if supporting new regulations on oil companies means they would be agreeing with President Obama...No self respecting redneck from Alabama could ever agree with Obama regardless of the issue at hand!

I know, because I live in Georgia and the same applies to the rednecks of Georgia! The HATE folks have for our President is such that they will oppose anything Obama is for regardless if it favors them or not! SAD!

[Glorfindel]

8. Same thing here in Mississippi, sadly

The racist rednecks of the poorest state in the union can always be counted on to act in a manner contrary to their own best interests. They're tying themselves in knots trying to think of some way to make this Obama's fault. Haley Barbour has called the oil spill disaster a "little inconvenience" (not an exact quote; I try to avoid hearing his nasty, porcine voice whenever possible).

[SkyDaddy7]

27. The south has been like an...

infected wound on the face of America since almost day one! I love to read about American History and one thing I have noticed is the south has been the primary problem that holds America back from being a much better country!

Coming out of high school I always wondered why the south was ridiculed for being backward because we did not learn "TRUE" American History in school. Then when I got in the military and was stationed in California I got so tired of listening to everyone talk bad about the south and I had no way of defending the south. So, I decided to do some reading and then it became very clear why the south is talked about the way it is.

There are many things I love about the south and even the people but when it comes to politics and basic common sense the south is an embarrassment!

Who knows what this country would be like had the Republicans not went with the "southern strategy" and especially if FOX "News" had never happened.

I had an old friend from California come and visit one time and they were laughing at the fact every business you go into down here has a TV always tuned to FOX "News"! I just had to laugh with him!

[movonne]

29. I remember when Pat Robinson and other preachers saying that

every time something happens in a blue state it was because God hated us..well I'm not hearing the same thing about the southern states that are having all these troubles..just wondering why???

[izquierdista]

12. We need to play the game "Obama sez"

Obama sez: "Let's discuss this rationally"
Hell no we won't! We're gonna have a tea party!
Obama sez: "We're lowering taxes to the lowest point since 1950"
Hell no, My taxes are too high, I need a tax cut like Booosh gave me!
Obama sez: "Put the gun down and don't aim at your own head"
Hell no I won't put it down, I'm gonna ........

[SkyDaddy7]

28. SO TRUE!

It would not matter what the issue is and how much it could benefit these people they will always take the opposite side that Obama does.

[SemperEadem]

4. I'm curious as to how the Alabama thug delegation feels

now, after having sat on the floor of their thug convention back in 08, with huge smiles on their faces, chanting along with Michael Steele: "drill, baby, drill..."

Where are all of those smiling faces now?

[bowens43]

5. with conservatives it always come down to money

if there wasn't such a certainty of financial loss they wouldn't care in the least.

[sybster1000]

7. Living in a blue city in a red state...

I am hoping that the good that will come out of this spill is that the southern Repubs will have to address the environmental issues...because their beaches demand it. Because it seems that Repub states are getting the brunt of it for now.

It was interesting after the big flood here, Repubs that I work with who were afraid of FEMA and Obama...are now filling out forms for FEMA help...and counted on the gov't to save them from the water and to take care of them after the flood. Not much complaining coming from them these days!

[stubtoe]

17. Yeah, that's always the case. Anti-government till it means cash in their own pockets.

But they'll still tell you they don't trust "big guvmint". I know, but to them it makes perfect sense, somehow.

[tpsbmam]

21. We're having the same thoughts

The disaster is there, the unfathomable harm is starting to be assessed and will be for decades and red states are going to feel the greatest pain from this. When it happened my mind instantly went to something like "oh, god" as I saw the disaster unfolding. And, concurrently, maybe some good will come out of this and people/politicians will start to get a frigging clue. And that's happening, from the powerful to those whose meager incomes will reset to zero income. It's a terrible way to get there and, sadly, the lust for oil has led to fouling our waters, lands & government in ways that will take a century to clean up, if we can. Given our current president and legislators, true change in our relationship with oil will happen at a snail's pace if it happens much at all. Unless......significant numbers of us (both the powerful & the rest of us) stand up and loudly oppose our lust for oil and demand the US concentrate on alternate means of energy (in addition to oil -- don't think we can completely stop it, at least yet but we sure as hell can radically diminish the need for it increasingly over time). It's possible that could happen now.....unless memories are once again short & minds are once again swayed by Republican group think.

But I doubt it this time -- too many have been crushed by this one.

[Downwinder]

9. The ring goes all the way around a bath tub. n/t

[booksenkatz]

10. OOPS! Too late, your indifference killed it, but thanks for playing! NT

[Downwinder]

13. No indifference here. Depression, perhaps. Or maybe I was

just hardened by being irradiated in the '50s. You can always tell where man has been by looking for his trash piles. His trash outlives him.

[booksenkatz]

15. Sadly, there aren't enough of us who care to offset those who do not. :( NT

[XemaSab]

33. There is no offsetting

There's only moving the median to a different place. :(

[Bitwit1234]

11. Isn't it terribly sad that it took something like this

to get politicians and people to realize that the EPA and environmentalist were only trying to protect our fields and streams and things like the Gulf. Maybe now they will come to their senses and help support the effort. Even tho it is too late to help the Gulf and the surrounding states, they could help protect some place else.

[Downwinder]

14. "Louisiana coast's battle against drifting oil expected to last months, if not years"

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/louisiana_coasts_battle_agains.html

[flamingdem]

18. maybe decades nt

[intheflow]

19. Not years, decades, and possibly millennia.

Twenty years past the Exxon Valdez accident and there's still a lot of oil on the beach, and the herring population has never really come back. Same with the Persian Gulf oil disaster in Iraq, parts of that coastline have not recovered at all. And this Gulf contamination is much, much worse than either of those disasters. :(

[Downwinder]

20. And every year when the river floods, it will leach out of the marshes. n/t

[laurel46]

16. hers the video of drill chant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWuuXpeqNNw

[meow mix]

22. looks like mormon beck made a reply..

"this spill could have been contained in week 1.. but the obama administration wanted this to fester and exploit it for their no growth marxist agenda."

[Downwinder]

23. Did he have a seance with Red Adair? n/t

[Arugula Latte]

24. Hey, Republican Rednecks:

The Tree Huggers were RIGHT!

[MisterP]

25. if I were a Green organizer, I'd be pulling on my waders and going around the Gulf

saying, "well, this is what we've always been talking about. and there's two 'drill here, drill now' parties, and it's going to stay that way for the time being, so why not join us?"

[Downwinder]

26. It is probably too late. With fishing and tourism gone, oil will be the only game

left on the coast.

[tblue37]

30. Conservative voters never care until they are the ones suffering the

consequences of conservative policies. But then, when those policies bear their inevitable poison fruit, the conservative voters inevitably try to blame liberals for the disaster!

[JoeyT]

31. It's a nice thought, but it comes a little late.

Of course this isn't environmental awareness for its own sake, so it's still purely selfish.
The new environmental awareness is limited strictly to "How is this going to hurt ME?".

I don't expect to see a whole bunch of people doing volunteer work to help save gopher tortoises or red cockaded woodpeckers. You can't make money off of either of them.
Edited to add: For those that aren't from here, neither of those is threatened by oil in the Gulf. They're threatened by development, which I fully expect all the new "environmentally aware" citizens of my state to support at all costs. Even the destruction of a few more species.

[Blue_Tires]

32. sadly, people have short memories

and by this time next year, the same usual suspects will be railing against so-called hippies, tree huggers, anti-business eco-nazis and the nanny-state green police...