Gulf Coast marine scientists agree that the unfolding oil disaster could mean devastation beyond human comprehension. Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story in this repost.
In an exclusive interview with the Wonk Room, a team of scientists from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, MS, discussed the ecological impacts of a three-month blowout from the BP-Halliburton Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig, described as the expected timeline for “ultimate relief” of the leak by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. None of the scientists even wanted to attempt to imagine the coming devastation, because, as ichthyologist Jeff Hoffmayer said, “oil is bad for everything” that lives in the ocean. If the leak continues for three months, about 100 million gallons of oil will have flooded into the Gulf during the peak spawning season of the region and the start of the hurricane season. Dr. Bill Hawkins, director of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, summarized the scenario starkly:
All bets are off!
via Gulf coast scientists: ‘oil is bad for everything’ « Climate Progress.
