“Amazing nanoparticle sponge that sucks up oil”


Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) engineering professor David Schiraldi and his research group have created a nanoparticle clay sponge that sucks up oil like files are attracted to a magnet.  Aeroclay composites are ultra-lightweight sponge made of clay and a bit of high-grade plastic that draws oil out of contaminated water while leaving the water behind.  There is no chemical reaction between the material and oil. If the oil is uncontaminated, it can be used again.
The Aerogel comes in granular form, in sheets or in blocks of almost any shape and is effective in fresh and saltwater or on a surface. Oil spill experts on both coasts say that the ability to squeeze out and conserve the oil is an advantage over other products currently available.
This is a nanotechnology product.   These researchers have created a line of patented foam-like and environmentally friendly sponge/foam  like polymers. Check out the videos and the full story.
Will this become the magic bullet for spill cleanup in the future?
Resources
Excerpts
and videos courtesy of  ceramics.org/ceramictechtoday/aeroclay

Excerpts and videos courtesy of  physorg.com

Excerpts courtesy of ceramics.org/ceramictechtoday

“US set to vote to kill whales-your vote needed”


How can we allow  the US to support the slaughter of whales?

The future of the largest sea going mammal is in your hands.

According to the latest research whales are very intelligent, have close family groups, mourn and or as smart(maybe smarter) than the average human. We now know from field studies that a lot of the large whales exhibit some of the most complex behaviour in the animal kingdom,” said Lori Marino, a neurobiologist at Emory University.

The future of these gentle giants comes under global debate at IWC talks in Morocco on this Monday.

Will we let international corporations dictate another sea time disaster? Tell Obama to vote no.

Do not give Japan, Norway, Iceland or any country a license to kill whales, especially whales that are threatened.

How can we allow  the US to support the slaughter of whales? Click here to save whales.

According to the latest research whales are very intelligent, have close family groups, mourn and or as smart(maybe smarter) than the average human. We now know from field studies that a lot of the large whales exhibit some of the most complex behaviour in the animal kingdom,” said Lori Marino, a neurobiologist at Emory University

The future of these gentle giants comes under global debate at IWC talks in Morocco on this Monday.

Will we let international corporations dictate another sea time disaster? Tell Obama to vote no.

Do not give up our sea animals Japan, Norway, Iceland or any country a license to kill whales, especially whales that are threatened.

The future of the largest sea going mammal is in your hands.

Resources

Excerpts courtesy of  thepetitionsite.com/takeaction

Image courtesy of   ozanimals.com/australia/Z-SethLieberman.jpg

“A salute to sea life as it was in the Gulf of Mexico”



An underwater tour of the Gulf of Mexico by submarine and scuba, highlighting the vast diversity of marine life throughout the Gulf, from the surface to depths of nearly 2,000 feet. The tour begins in the northern Gulf, tracks south along the west Florida shelf, to northwestern Cuba and finally west to Veracruz, Mexico. This video was produced for the opening ceremony of the first “State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit” held in 2006 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

This video was also shown at the May 19, 2010 U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, “Deepwater Horizon: Oil Spill Prevention and Response Measures, and Natural Resource Impacts” as part of the testimony of Dr. Sylvia A. Earle.

Chair and Program Coordinator, Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies and a marine biologist Sylvia Earle has been an explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society since 1998. Named “Time” magazine’s first “hero for the planet” in 1998, Earle has pioneered research on marine ecosystems and has led more than 50 expeditions totaling more than 6,000 hours underwater. She was the former chief scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Resource
Video
courtesy of YOUTUBE.com/1planet1ocean

For more on the Gulf of Mexico http://1planet1ocean.org and http://oceandoctor.org

“Bristol Bay Alaska save the endangered whales, salmon and other wildlife”


Another mega-company Anglo American and Mitsubishi wants to turn the pristine area near Bristol Bay, Alaska area over to be mined.
The Pebble Mine is run by another Japanese mega corporation the Mitsubishi Corporation.

Please sign our new Petition of Protest so that your voice can be heard loud and clear at Mitsubishi’s annual Shareholders Meeting in Tokyo on June 24, 2010. Click here to let your voice be heard.

Killer whales may go extinct

Mitsubishi and its share holders wake up!
SAVE BRISTOL BAY

Bristol Bay is a unique American natural treasure.

Beluga whale

  • Home to orcas and beluga whales, wild moose and caribou, and one of only two populations of freshwater harbor seals in the world

It’s world-class salmon runs that support thousands of sustainable jobs in fishing and tourism as well as Alaska Natives who depend on the salmon for food. Click here to let your voice be heard.

What do they propose to do?

  • Put a 2,000-foot-deep open-pit mine in the heart of America’s wilderness in a known earthquake zone.
  • The Pebble Mine’s colossal earthen dams are supposed to hold back some 10 billion tons of mining waste mixed with toxic chemicals. These dams never work forever. These dams are  disasters waiting to happen.

Problems  in the exploration phase

In April 2010 even without the mine in full swing, the companies had taken water from 45 unauthorized stream segments, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The exploration was temporarily halted.

Permits have been reinstated allowing Pebble Limited Partnership to continue exploring copper and gold deposits in southwest Alaska, the state Department of Natural Resources said Friday.
But the partnership still needs permission from the state’s Department of Fish and Game to work in fish habitat in order to begin drilling again this year.
All ready the Pebble Mine before it goes into full-scale operation, it will permanently destroy over 60 miles of salmon habitat.
If salmon runs collapse, so could the entire ecosystem and the communities that rely on salmon for their very subsistence.

Please stand with the Alaska’s Native communities and lovers of nature everywhere by making your voice heard at Mitsubishi’s Shareholders Meeting.

Don’t allow this mega corporation that sells so many cars, trucks, and electronics in the United States sacrifice one of America’s most spectacular pieces of endangered wilderness and the bioms dependent on it.  Click here to let your voice be heard.

Will Mitsubishi rethink this destructive venture when faced with worldwide opposition?

It did 10 years ago. Click here to let your voice be heard.


Resources

Excerpts courtesy of NRDC.com

Images 1 & 2. courtesy of  NC library

Images 3. courtesy of  en.academic.ru/Seehund.jpg

Images 4. courtesy of    http://bit.ly/aTbmA1

Images 5. courtesy of   http://bit.ly/c2hhoT

Images 6, courtesy of   http://bit.ly/aoXH8w

“Bribary at the International Whaling Commission”


An undercover investigation found officials from six countries were willing to consider selling their votes on the International Whaling Commission (IWC for payment of their expenses and the favors of prostitutes supplied by Japan.

IWC wants to saction whaling

Japan is desperate to break the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling. This months meeting of the  IWC  will decide if thousands of whales, including many endangered species will continue to be hunted and slaughtered for “scientific purposes.

Japan denies buying the votes of IWC members.

Delegates from the involved countries have been documented:

  • Admitting that they voted with the whaling countries,because they accepted large amounts of aid from Japan. One delegate claimed he was not sure if his country had any whales in its territorial waters; while  other countries are landlocked .
  • Cash payments were handed to delegates in envelopes at IWC meetings by Japanese officials who picked up the tab for the travel and hotel bills. of co operating members
  • A supply of call girls were offered to one delegate when fisheries ministers and civil servants visited Japan for meetings.

Resources

Excerpts courtesy of   timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment

Image courtesy of  NC library

//

“Is Big Oil running this world amuck?”


Who runs the  degradation of the planet?

This madness of excessive oil disasters around the world is the responsibility of us all. Why?  We have trusted that big oil will take care of our way of life and our modern life style and industry, but time to rethink that belief.  Here are of few examples of why we need a new director of modern life.

Climate:

Saudis block call for warming report on June 11, 2010.  Saudi Arabia a call by vulnerable island states at climate talks for a study into the impact of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming.

Why?

The appeal came from the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), gathering low-lying islands in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific, which is lobbying hard for the UN climate arena not to abandon the 1.5 C target.
The goal is receding as emissions of greenhouse gases rise and political problems for tackling climate change multiply.
AOSIS, supported by the European Union (EU), Australia and New Zealand, called for a technical report on the cost of reaching the 1.5 C target and the consequences of breaching it.
But it was thwarted by Saudi Arabia, with support from Kuwait and Qatar, under the UN’s consensus rule,because they argue that action on carbon emissions control to decrease global warming will hurt their revenues as fossil-fuel consumers switch to cleaner energy

So what if small island states could disappear from sea level rise due to global temperature rise to be kept below 1.5 C.

Where was the US and other countries backing for this bill? Who did not support it were conspicuous by their absence.

Water

From the BP oil from the Gulf gusher, Exxon Valdez and the pipe breaking on the Alaska pipeline, BP has learned that they are so well insulated that no matter the size of the disaster their insurance picks up most of the tab.  People forget and profits get better. People, nature and the environment are only around to help them increase profits.

BP got away with paying only 3% of the bill for the Exxon-Valdez mess. They  had assured the people of Alaska and the state and federal agencies, they could contain all accidents, but never bought the equipment or trained people to operate containment equipment, because it would have cost them about 1 million to complete their end of the bargain. They saved their money instead.   Is this why their logo is green?

Gulf of Mexico

They are required to have safety equipment the rubber skirts to contain oil and the ships to draw up the spillage on site, but had none and have never brought any in.  People will forget.

Cut costs  1 bill while increase production off shore and took difference out of safety budget.

BP claims to be picking up the bill for this disaster, but their is a cap on how much they have to pay-75 million liability limit.  Guess who will pay?  People will forget.

Since the blackening blanket began spreading across the Gulf of Mexico, the cost of oil per barrel has risen by $2.5 dollars a barrel. BP made 4 million dollars  a day before the crisis,  now it makes 10 million  per day.  Why should they worry about containment. People forget and go back to work on those rigs.

BP has mastered making money iearned cheap to cheep out on safety and repair; it saves my bottom line.  They are getting away with it again.

Land+ SEA  Africa

Seismic tests over the past 50 years have shown that countries up the coast of East Africa have natural gas in abundance and suggest the presence of massive offshore oil deposits. Those finds have spurred oil explorers to start dropping more wells in East Africa, a region they say is an oil and gas bonanza just waiting to be tapped, one of the last great frontiers in the hunt for hydrocarbons.

“The question is not if any hydrocarbon deposits exist, but where they are.” 

It doesn’t help that the region is so geologically complex with lots of fractures and offshore oil deposits likely deep underground. The countries with  large potential deposits regularly go to war and unrest and leaders that cannot lead. Somalia remains a no-go zone, and Ethiopia’s eastern Ogaden region is beset by a violent rebel insurgency. And while Mozambique’s civil war may have ended in 1992, it has taken years for the country to recover.

The west African countries where big oil has set up shop have had their local way of life destroyed. The oil companies have polluted their waters and made may coastal areas and river banks uninhabitable from the trash and water pollution left behind.

Oil in Africa — from the Gulf of Guinea to northwestern Sudan — lies at the heart of questions of good governance and development, as oil prices and revenues soar but fail to bring better living standards for millions of poor.

There is no person or group powerful enough to regulate these amoral oil giants to hold them accountable for responsible care of the planet much less to demand they improve  the quality of life everywhere they drill.

How long will we allow this arrogant blind greed to control and destroy our economy and world? Listen to what a life long biologist has to say as he flew over the Gulf of Mexico this weekend.

Resources

Excerpts courtesy of   terradaily.com/Climate_Saudis

Excerpts courtesy of  time.com/time

Excerpts courtesy of  petroleumworld.com

Video courtesy of   YOUTUBE.com

Video courtesy of  youtube.com

Image 1. courtesy of   greenprophet.com/dubai-money

Image 2. courtesy of  cartype.com/bp

Image 3. courtesy of  time.com and Steve Allen/Getty

“The picture BP doesn’t want you to see-Contractor’s view”


Stained black it’s all black now – a contractor’s personal story.

dead dolphin oozing oil

Never shown to our President – a dead dolphin rotting in the shore weeds.

Filled with oil. Oil pouring out.

BP cover up cover up everything with oil a contractor’s view

BP uses the police to keep these oily images of the dead animals out of the news.All the life out here is just full of oil.

BP never showed the President.”

The grasses by the shore littered with tarred marine life, some dead and others.

“No living creature should endure that kind of suffering.”

Queen Bess Island endangered Louisiana brown pelicans rookery little white heads stained black stood sentinel. They seemed slow and lethargic-dying.

Birds trying to clean themselves, but they are unable. Oil kills.

A caring contractor attempts to save birds and turtles struggling hard to survive…

Green Reed grass mow half  black..

Five turtles drowning in oil -two dying not dead yet, but they will be.

A pod of dolphins showed up to swim with the vessel and guide it to land.

“They know they are in trouble. We are all in trouble,” the contractor said. …

BP spends 10 thousand dollars a day to major media to keep a positive image.

On Monday, a Daily News team was escorted away from a public beach

on Elmer’s Island by cops who said they were taking orders from BP.

Resources

Excerpts and Image 1. courtesy of  floridaoilspilllaw.com

Image 2. (laughing gull) courtesy of  google.com

“Oil arriving to a shoreline near you-Florida Keys”


People, animals and environment are stressed out over the spread of the oil onto the beaches and wildlife sanctuaries in the Florida Keys. Our NC staff arrived in the “Keys” yesterday to read the headlines of a local paper ” Oily slicks will arrive here within the next two days” To observe history in the making, knowing you are possibly photographing the wildlife for the last time before their entire health and habitat are altered maybe forever is a bitter sweet experience. The oil is 75 miles off shore.
  • Live feed of BP efforts to contain gulf oil leak Look at the oil covered bird images. Why is no one rescuing them?
  • Even a dime size drop of oil could kill a bird, when a bird encounters oil on the surface of the water, the oil sticks to its feathers, causing them to mat and separate, impairing the waterproofing and exposing the animals sensitive skin to extremes in temperature. This can result in hypothermia, meaning the bird becomes cold, or hypothermia, which results in overheating. Instinctively, the bird tries to get the oil off its feathers by preening, which results in the animal ingesting the oil. This ingestion can cause severe damage to the bird’s internal organs. The focus on preening overrides all other natural behaviors; including feeding and evading predators, making the bird vulnerable to secondary health problems such as severe weight loss, anemia and dehydration. Many oil soaked birds loose their buoyancy and beach themselves in their attempt to escape the cold water.
BP is currently using in the marshes a snare and absorbent boom to trap the oil.. With the tide changes, They still claim that the booms work “pretty effectively at picking up oil as the tide comes in and out.
Hello what planet are they looking at this spill from?
When oil hits the marshes, it covers the grasses and plants,
leaving the plants with high and low brown tide markings as the water recedes.
  • All Pelican and other bird nests and rookeries become covered in thick brown oil as the tide comes in.
  • The oil soaks into the soil of the marsh lands and barrier islands, eroding the fragile ecological makeup of the wetlands. Oil poisons and suffocates all it covers.
  • Even with a minor spill, oystermen reported oil-covered oysters ten years after a spill, because of oil seeping into soil.

Some scientists know think we should nuke the oil hole to close the well. Yummy radioactive fish and glowing oil balls falling from the sky-how wonderful!

Resources

Live feed and video courtesy of boston.com/caught_in_the_oil

Excerpts courtesy of   ibrrc.org/oil_affects

Excerpts courtesy of   seminal.firedoglake.com

“”Glimpses of hope for our endangered ocean life”


Using the camera to share a message of hope for the resilience of our oceans, Brian Skerry’s labor of love has been telling the stories of the ocean for thirty years. His images and words covey his deep love and respect portray for endangered wonders of the ocean life, but convey his message of hope, the timeliness, and  relevance.

Brian usually lives amongst his subjects for eight months of the year in the field,  enduring extreme conditions to capture the complete story of his beloved wildlife above and below the sea. He has lived on the bottom of the sea, spent months aboard fishing boats and dived beneath the Arctic ice to get his shot. He has spent over 10,000 hours underwater.

Brian Skerry has been a photographer for National Geographic Magazine since 1998.

“Thank you for your timeless awesomely beautiful, tender portraits of some of the oceans most endangered creatures as seen in  the photographs you shared at the TED presentation.”  (Click link )

– Mother Nature

Resource


Video
courtesy of TED.com and YOUTUBE,com

Image courtesy of National Geographic and Brian Skerry

“Eat up that oil”


Oil Eating Microbes

ON May 17, 2010 the Texas Land Office and Texas Water Commission successfully used ‘oil eating’ microbes to clean up large oil spills on land or in the water in just weeks. Bacteria hunt down and eat the toxic oil and leave only a biodegradable waste that is non-toxic to humans and marine life.

Applied as a dry powder blend of stabilized bacterial spores and micro-nutrients formulated for use in the degradation of petroleum based hydrocarbons. Remediation of marshland and beaches were pristine again in just weeks. Could this help save the Gulf of Mexico?

The video shows a possible way to safely clean up and restore the oil-polluted ocean, wetlands and sea-shores back within weeks instead of years
.

Resources

Video courtesy of YouTube

Excerpts courtesy of http://bit.ly/aTh7rz

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