Honey I've Killed the Planet - (but you can pay for it)

I'm reeling from a double barrelled blow to the belly today (alliteration rocks!). Just a few days ago I reported that something was seriously wrong with our oceans. I follow reports of mass fish deaths and changing eco-systems religiously and I've been screaming about it to friends for over two years now. I don't suppose for one minute that scientists the world over ran to Rory's blog to see what all the fuss was about and thought 'Hmm maybe we should look into what he's saying?'
But just one day later a gathering of the world's top marine experts had this to say;
"Ocean life is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history"
Did you get that? Unprecedented in human history!? But wait! There's more...
"The findings are shocking" said Alex Rogers,IPSO's scientific Director and Professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.
"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised."
"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we thought, or in ways we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years."

DIDN'T EXPECT TO SEE IN HUNDREDS OF YEARS?

So let me get this right - everything the big skinny guy in Australia, with no scientific credentials other than a Masters in Sociology has been mailing you about for two years now - has turned out to be correct? The same big skinny guy with no money for research but who does have an internet connection and can go talk to people all over the world about their water quality and mass fish deaths? The same guy who sent you all an e-mail saying "You wanna know what's happening? Go look on YouTube!"

Damn I'm angry! Not because I wasn't listened to - but because there are hundreds if not thousands, tens of thousands of people all over the world just like me - we've known something was wrong and no one would listen.

That's one barrel - now the other.

You remember BP's little local difficulties off the coast of America? All that oil polluting the hell out of some of the most fragile environments and eco-systems in the USA? Well guess who's getting the bill for the clean up? BP of course - no I'm joking, that would just be silly. They only made the mess, surely you don't expect them to also foot the bill for the clean up - You my dear friends, the American taxpayer - are footing the bill.
THE US District Court has dismissed 100,000 bundled claims against BP and Transocean to pay for the clean up and environmental damage as a consequence of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Judge presiding over the case ruled that as the well is now sealed and clean up efforts are under way, then no claim for injury can be made by citizens against BP or Transocean - essentially the ruling said that 'It's already being dealt with by the Federal and local Government so who's suffering any financial loss?' In short, you the taxpayer via the Federal and local Govt's clean up programme are now footing the bill. Had everyone ignored it, and left the oil to wreak havoc then maybe a claim could have been made against BP but no - too late now.

It is totally perverse!

I've just had an afterthought - Just in case the 'reality' of my Blog's existence and the post I made caused all the best marine brains in the world to gather the next day - I'm gonna try this out - Poor people the world over need an immediate cash injection of $100,000 each.

Let's see what happens tomorrow...



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