How We Here in the Bay Area Can Help with the BP Oil Disaster

(NOTE: Originally published at Berkeley, Naturally on June 1, 2010)

Hello friends of Berkeley, Naturally! It's been a while since I posted here, because my dharma and science blogs have been dominating my time and attention.

I've missed posting there, a lot, and realized I needed to make this less of a "science" blog if I was ever going to share with others. So, that change should be evident soon in a lot more regular posts at Berkeley, Naturally!

However, since this blog is basically all about nature and celebrating it, I wanted to bring you attention to a post I just made at Goodheart's Extreme Science.

The Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster

The post is all about the growing environmental tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. I’m sure we’ve all been staggered by the sheer scale of the disaster, as every two to three days the ruptured BP oil well spews out the same amount of oil as the entire Alaskan Exxon Valdez oil spill!

What's worse, officials are now telling us that it may be August before the rupture is fixed—near the very height of hurricane season.

Gulf Pelican Being Cleaned of Oil

After discussing some of the physical, environmental, and oceanographic aspects of the oil spill, I zero in on using oil-eating microbes, which have been used with great effectiveness in other big spills. Oil-eating microbes aren't a silver bullet, but I find it hard to understand why this technology hasn't been utilized yet.

Here's the link to my Extreme Science post:

The BP Oil Disaster-Send in the Microbes!

A key part of this post is an outstanding video that I've embedded that explains how oil-eating microbes have been used before with great success.

Our Little Helpers - Alcanivorax borkumensis

If you've been wanting to know more about the science of this spill, how it's affecting the Gulf environment, you should find this post at Goodheart's Extreme Science very helpful.  There's a lot we can do, even from afar, to urge officials and the government to do more than they have.

Please share these ideas and ways to contribute with your friends or anyone who can or who wants to help.

The World Is in Our Hands-What Will We Do?

♥♥♥