Gulf Oil Spill Hysteria : Environmental Farud

As always, if the progressive media is on their collective 'high horse', one can believe they are lying about something. In this case it was the oil spill and other cases it was much the same. All it takes is a disaster for the 'hysteria' to begin, and then the money to start rolling in to support more bad news.

Environmental fascist groups, made up of former communists and sixties radicals, also Marxists, are on the scene in a heart beat. It's much the same for the global warmers and the 'green energy' insanity, where there is confusion their is profit. Their tactics are well known, but for some reason, ignored. Attack the situation with misinformation and out right lies to gain more power and control.

Remember Katrina and the media nightmare that was created out of thin air? It was truly a huge disaster for sure, but the progressive left in the media and environmental socialist saw it as an opportunity to make the situation worse than it was, hard to believe, as a means to gain more power over all our lives through increased regulation and more tax dollars to environmental causes, some real but mostly imagined.

Never forget what Rom Emanuel said about a disaster, never let it go to waste, use it to advance programs that would never see the light of day otherwise. Now, just look at the mess we are in today as a result of that agenda!

Oil Spill Hysteria
Source: Robert H. Nelson, "Oil Spill Hysteria," Independent Institute, December 13, 2010.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused many things. Most recently, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar cancelled previous plans for much expanded offshore oil and gas drilling, killing thousands of jobs and forgoing an opportunity to reduce the nation's enormous foreign energy bill. Oddly enough, however, the ecosystem of the Gulf itself turns out to have suffered remarkably little damage, says Robert H. Nelson, senior fellow at the Independent Institute and professor of environmental policy in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

One group of scientists rated the health of the Gulf's ecology at 71 on a scale of 100 before the spill and 65 in October. By mid-August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was having trouble finding spilled oil.

This squared with the finding of researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California that the half-life of much of the leaking oil was about three days -- at that rate, more than 90 percent would have disappeared in 12 days.

Damage to wildlife, too, was relatively sparse, says Nelson.

As of November 2, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that 2,263 oil-soiled bird remains had been collected in the Gulf, far fewer than the 225,000 birds killed by the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989.

Despite fears for turtles, only 18 dead oil-soiled turtles had been found and no other reptile deaths were recorded.

While more than 1,000 sea otters alone died in the Alaska spill, only four oil-soiled mammals (including dolphins) had been found dead in the Gulf region. Similarly, government agencies were unable to find any evidence of dead fish --nor was evidence found of contamination of live fish.

The media relied less on marine biologists and oil spill experts for their information and more on environmental groups. The Gulf "disaster" offered multiple potential benefits to these groups, including the possibility of desired policy changes, says Nelson.