Keeps on climbing......

[Anthony Gratl]

....the barrel leak estimates that is.
Now BP is gathering 15000 barrels a day, and it's still not capturing half.
CNN is now saying the estimates are 'roughly' 25,000 barrels a day.
So that means it's probably 5 times that

All BS from BP, and the spin control machine is at full speed, people.
The american people need to stand up to corporate and media control. Now.

This is a catastrophe! Take back your country!

[David Rasberry]

I saw a report that said the pressure at the well head is something like 13,000 psi!
That's why the top kill couldn't work.
Any guesses as to how much oil 13,000 psi can push through a 21" pipe in a day?

[PatrickW]

Who is ready to kill demand for this ecological disaster that is killing us now, and will kill your children and grandchildren?

Its not just the gas in your car, its the oil fertelizes the food you eat, its the deisel that powers the trucks that bring your consumer goods to town, its the dirty crude that powers the ships that bring you stuff from China, its the plastic that is everywhere in your life. we are addicted to oil.

[Michael Hastings]

....the barrel leak estimates that is.
Now BP is gathering 15000 barrels a day, and it's still not capturing half.
CNN is now saying the estimates are 'roughly' 25,000 barrels a day.
So that means it's probably 5 times that

All BS from BP, and the spin control machine is at full speed, people.
The american people need to stand up to corporate and media control. Now.

This is a catastrophe! Take back your country!

If virtually all of our manufactured goods coming from China, or the Iraq war lies, or the banking disaster, or.... couldn't wake them up I'm not sure it is possible. Complacency runs extremely deep.

[David Rasberry]

A friend of mine is an engineer at Michelin. He says that if we could shift most of the urban population to either electric or plug in hybrids their figures show it would reduce total oil consumption in this country by about 75% as most of it is consumed in less than 30 mile daily round trips.
There are even more promising clean fossil fuel free technologies going commercial in the next two years that will eventually make coal, oil, and nuclear economically non-competitive. That is what will make the real difference. Quit using fossil for fuel for any purpose. Mind you it will take a decade or two to completely replace the existing power infrastructure, but most fossil fueled electric plants could be converted relatively easily an quickly.

[Mark Collins]

I don't want to stand up to corporate media...they pay so well...

[Michael Hastings]

A friend of mine is an engineer at Michelin. He says that if we could shift most of the urban population to either electric or plug in hybrids their figures show it would reduce total oil consumption in this country by about 75% as most of it is consumed in less than 30 mile daily round trips.
There are even more promising clean fossil fuel free technologies going commercial in the next two years that will eventually make coal, oil, and nuclear economically non-competitive. That is what will make the real difference. Quit using fossil for fuel for any purpose. Mind you it will take a decade or two to completely replace the existing power infrastructure, but most fossil fueled electric plants could be converted relatively easily an quickly.

It seems to me that we should be doing a massive jobs program creating a national infrastructure of electric plug in, battery exchanges, etc. (i.e. hundreds of downtown parking spaces with plug ins, highway battery exchange stations, etc.); plus geothermal plants; wind generation, hydrodgen fuels, etc..

In the long run we may have to do offshore drilling, since there are some things that petro fuels are particularly good for (jets, rockets, among others) but we don't need to waste it on day to day driving - we should be saving it as a long term strategic resource.

These infrastructure programs would help the jobs situation in the short term, and energy payoffs in the long term - and most of them would be creating manufacturing here in the US. I understand that many of these are not economically competitive right now (particularly if you don't count the environmental damage from things like the oil spills, coal mining, etc.) but they are a lot better than simply pumping money into the unemployment and welfare systems to help people that would be willing to work, and a WHOLE LOT better than spending a trillion dollars on bank bailouts, ill-conceived foreign wars, etc.

[Peter Hodgins]

If I were POTUS I would order the construction of at least one new Nuclear Power Plant in each state to begin today. I would ask the French, the world leaders in this technology, for help, if necessary. This would also create real jobs and stimulate the education of real professionals.

[rod bradley]

Good suggestions, makes absolute sense to mobilize to act in a rational way to our slow-death self-destruction -- but denial isn't just a river in Egypt, and I would say ranks about third in the hiearchy of human impulses right after thirst and hunger and maybe before sex.

We aren't so much addicted to oil as to lifestyle. People kill themselves and others to maintain lifestyle. Sacrifice requires both leadership, and alas, it seems "an enemy" -- and if the enmy is "us" -- it's hard to get up a lot of steam among the masses.

And as we now have the leadership of "hope" in the form of a very eloquent and elegant and weak and corporatist president who is a decent and well-intended, but doesn't really have a vision or any fire in the belly to "rock the lifestyle boat" or the powers that be in any way, and because we have a very fragmented and beset and time-deprived populace (who is also by and large decent), and we have the distraction and grief of two pointless wars (which we know are mistakes) and we are in debt up to our noses both individually and as a nation, now is precisely the time we need to make some serious moves in the right direction.

If the president suddenly "found himself" and became a real leader (sort of ala FDR), we might be able to turn the culture and the ship of state in the direction of its underlying inventiveness, generosity and shift the upsidedown reward system from the corruption of the military-industrial-lobbyist-corporate complex and our excessive financialization, back to real people who do real and positive things.

I'm pretty certain we won't turn things around by continuing to be an unsustainable "consumerist" culture dominated by a lobbyist corporate-political elite intent on militarism -- but instead become a more sustainable creative inventive culture that recognizes the necessity of a greater harmony with nature -- which is the source of all so-called "wealth." Without a healthy in balance mother nature, there will be no economy or "lifestyle" for most of us for very long.

[Anthony Gratl]

If I were POTUS I would order the construction of at least one new Nuclear Power Plant in each state to begin today. I would ask the French, the world leaders in this technology, for help, if necessary. This would also create real jobs and stimulate the education of real professionals.

There are a few minor problems with nuclear power (in addition to the mythology that it produces clean energy and emits no co2's or cancer clusters around the plant).
1. It's expensive to build (no plant has ever been built on budget)
2. It's expensive to maintain
3. The amount of CO2 required to build the thing (ie. concrete) is equivalent to what you save in its non-co2 output versus a regular coal fired plant
4. We don't know what to do with the spent uranium!!! BIG PROBLEM!!!!(except put it into munitions, where it kills and poisons other populations and ecosystems)

Lifestyle doesn't equal quality of life. IMHO it's really quite a simple question that people need to ask themselves. Wouldn't you rather spend more time with your kids, work a little less, and be more relaxed with a little less money, instead of having the brand new car and the starbucks latte?

There are simple and ancient solutions right in front of us:

SOLAR AND WIND !!!!!! DUH!!!!!!!

And to those folks who say windmills are an eyesore and that solar is expensive, and have organized (with help from coal and gas companies), i say enough (as in STFU) There is no time to waste. We've got less than a decade left to right this crazy boat, and the noise needs to stop. Everyone needs to pull in the same direction.

Algae based fuels, massive transit systems, limiting freeway usage, etc etc etc.....that's how we will shift. The question is will it be willingly, or do we wait until we hit the brick wall with full force before change happens (at that point it'll be much more difficult to initiate)

And no, I'm not putting all of my faith in technology to save us. That wouldn't be prudent, cause if it doesn't, we're fucked...if we aren't already.

Update: now the admiral allen in charge of whatever is saying that they're going to be doubling the amount of oil that they're pumping to the surface....hmmmm that's 30,000 barrels then. Funny, i thought the spill was only about 5,000 barrels a day.
The spin is just absolute BS on this one. Has been from day one.

The most compelling stuff are the interviews with the engineers and crew about what happened on board the drill rig on that fateful day.