Dearest Friends and Family,
We are facing a planetary nightmare disaster – the Gulf Oil Spew. Please read the following, excerpted from: Counter Currents. Org. I have bolded salient words to capture your eye to the points.
A Much Greater Disaster than Reported
According to Ian MacDonald, Florida State University biological oceanographer, about one million gallons of oil are leaking daily, based on NASA data he studied. If so, the incident already exceeds the 1989 Exxon Valdez catastrophe (topping 11 million gallons) from which affected areas haven’t recovered and won’t for decades, perhaps longer, from any spill that large. Already, said MacDonald, as of May 7, around 6,200 square miles are affected, a figure growing daily as long as leakage continues.
Other scientists agree, suggesting an estimated 25,000 daily barrels spilled, or over one million gallons. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports a worse potential if a so-called bent “riser pipe” deteriorates further. If so, daily leakage could more than double to over two million barrels.
Already, vast parts of the Gulf are at risk as well as marshes, other type wetlands, estuaries, beaches, fishing, wildlife, the mouth of the Mississippi River, East Coast, Florida Keys and Everglades, parts of the Atlantic up to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and beyond if Gulf Stream currents are affected, as well as inland cities, towns, rivers, and lakes if Gulf hurricanes spread oil-contaminated rain - a vast ecosystem threatened by corporate criminal negligence and government complicity, the usual combination behind virtually all destructive acts.
Public health is also affected from contaminated fish, water, rain, and air from oil smoke and vapors - problems that won’t abate for years because oil is a toxic brew and enough contaminating the environment causes an array of health problems, including potential chemical poisoning (hydrocarbon pneumonia).
According to Columbus, Ohio Nationwide Children’s Hospital Pharmacology and Toxicology head, Dr. Marcel Casavant:
“Smoke from burning oil contains many chemicals; some are potentially lethal poisons and some are nuisance irritants, but even these….can trigger breathing problems in people with asthma or emphysema or other lung disease(s).”
Why is because burning oil smoke contains carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organics, and other toxins - all harmful to human health. Once ingested, serious problems can result affecting the heart, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, liver, pregnancy, other bodily functions, and the potential for cancer and other diseases. It’ll be years before the full impact is known, but it’s already clear what happens when government and business share the same bed. The public always suffers - this time, like others, disastrously.
This article is by:
Stephen Lendman who lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the
url: http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman120510.ht
Already, we have read that many people have shaved their heads, put the hair in nylon stockings and sent it to the Gulf to act as booms.
I can’t tell you the seriousness of the situation we face.
I don’t know what to do. Amma commented years ago, that the times to come would be so terrible that if we only knew about them, we would lose all heart to go on. But she wants us to be like butterflies and keep our minds light, lest we drown in anxieties and depressions, becoming useless even to ourselves.
Gandhi said: “Birth and death are not two different states. They are different aspects of the same state.” from CWMG 25:333.
So, transition is nothing to fear, but seeing the innocents in Nature, our children be hurt, ourselves, is a very hard part.
Amma has commented that humanity will have to wipe the tears of each other for generations to come….the coming generations will be born into tremendous suffering.
I get the feeling, humanity has taken a very wrong turn, back in 1930’s. I frankly, despite Daddy’s great admiration for FDR, feel he took the country, and the world, down a rotten road. It was from FDR that the WTO, IMF and World Bank were formed, totally undemocratic and taxpayer funded institutions which are responsible for the global economic mess, ecological rape and decimation of human ethics and cultures; from FDR that the atom bomb development was sponsored, although Truman hit the trigger; from FDR that industrialization as a development model gained planetary credence to the point that even India thinks industrial development is the only kind of ‘real’ development possible; ( How I wish India would just open her eyes to the results of that development, seen in the human societies of the west, the ecological devastation of her own lands and peoples!) FDR that made the US a military mighty power, began the pentagon and the CIA; and FDR that planted the seeds for a later UN ’security council’ based upon power and privileged for the hands of the richest….It was also FDR that forcibly put all Japanese American people into US concentration camps during WW 2; FDR that got women out of the home after birthing their babies, and into the workplace, letting television and society raise their children to learn to hit, to become bullet targets, wars, to hurt other mother’s children….
Please tell your leaders, your friends, any ideas you have to ease this situation. Lets not pretend this is not happening….we need to make our communities fast…too many will be hurt for us to face this alone or as brave individuals…time to find out what gardening tools our neighbors have…what seeds…careful with the seeds….
We must all grow food, Amma has been saying for long that people should be growing vegetables….gardens gather us together….Let us gather together…
Loving you,
Aunty Kamala, Anni and Link
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