UPDATE EXTRAVAGANZA: BP OIL SPILL, FUKISHIMA, AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS

Another day, another round of WTF news. I swear if the news gets anymore bleak and weird, they should just have David Lynch report it from now on.

This report was just released from Al Jazerra:
http://gizmodo.com/5903021/bp-oil-spill-aftermath-eyeless-shrimp-clawless-crabs-and-fish-with-oozing-sores

In this report, an astonishing amount of sea life in the Gulf have been found to have an alarming amount of deformities in local shrimp, fish with sores, eyeless crabs and more. Local fisherman say it's like nothing they've seen before. Here's the list of problems found:

• Shrimp with tumors on their heads
• Shrimp with defects on their gills and "shells missing around their gills and head"
• Shrimp without eyes
• Shrimp with babies still attached to them
• Eyeless fish
• Fish without eye-sockets
• Fish without covers on their gills
• Fish with large pink masses hanging off their eyes and gills
• Crates of blue crabs, all of which were lacking at least one claw
• Crabs with holes in their shells
• Crabs with shells that have no spikes or claws or misshapen claws
• Crabs that are dying from within
• Elevated levels of nickle and vanadium in oysters

Yummy. People who have worked in the area for as long as twenty years have never seen anything like this before. According to scientists working in the area, only one tenth of one percent of Gulf fish had lesions on them before the Gulf spill. Afterward, that number increased to 20-50% of all fish in the region.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are being blamed, which are compounds found in crude oil. Worse, the dispersant used to clean up the spill are also known to be toxic to humans with symptoms that include, vomiting, diarrhea, cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovascular damage as well as serious damage to unborn children. These symptoms have been long reported to people who have spent any amount of time in the Gulf and continue to this day.

With the Gulf providing almost half of the seafood caught in the US, seafood shortages may become inevitable. According to local fisherman, brown shrimp catch have dropped by two thirds, white shrimp are gone and seafood catch is ten percent less than usual.

Darla Rooks, a lifelong fisherman from the Gulf, says it best:"We're continuing to pull up oil in our nets. Think about losing everything that makes you happy, because that is exactly what happens when someone spills oil and sprays dispersant on it. People who live here know better than to swim in or eat what comes out of our waters."

That is not good news. But wait, there's more. Fukishima is STILL pumping out radiation which means, unlike Chernobyl which was capped after five days, these reactors are still going strong.

In order to get radiation levels down to more manageable levels, Geiger counter readings are taken after soil removal and washing, limiting the true scale of the problem. 80% of the radiation in Fukishima is leaking into the ocean which, much like the BP oil spill, could have serious ramifications for a society dependent on seafood. The reactors themselves are in grave trouble, which if they meltdown would release enough radiation into the atmosphere to envelop the planet. In Japan alone, 250 kilometers would have to be immediately evacuated, including Tokyo. Rumors of dead fetuses and birth defects have spread through Japan, although their veracity cannot be confirmed at this time.

 Here is a map showing fallout readings combining Chernobyl with Fukishima which shows one bit of good news :
http://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/fukushima-2011-versus-chernobyl-1986-a-fallout-map-comparison/

As Chernobyl was a land locked area, most of the radiation stayed on land. As wind moves west, most of the radiation went over the ocean. However, as we are the next bit of land that this radiation would hit, it would also explain the still high radiation levels over the west coast.The rest of the world may have dodged a bullet, but the US is still smack dab in the middle of whatever Japan dose or doesn't do over the next few years.

Some have tried to discredit the original report here:
http://www.radiation.org/reading/pubs/HS42_1F.pdf

And here is the debunker article:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/20/researchers-trumpet-another-flawed-fukushima-death-study/

However, the "debunkers" of the piece against it say in their article that since the EPA evidence doesn't show any increase, there wasn't any. This is the same EPA that is saying don't worry about the radiation, it's all fine and  then suspended all radiation testing afterward. When the radioactivity detectors that we spent millions on didn't work, their response was they had no time line to fix them and again, don't worry. If you allow your entire argument to be based upon questionable data, as the debunker article did, then it won't pass any sort of real scrutiny. There were countless other data reports available at the time that showed high levels of cesium in our milk and water supplies, sometimes above legal limits that shifted depending on who was talking (EPA vs. CDC vs. FDA) all of which have different levels of what is acceptable radiation. That's not too confusing is it?

This is not to say the original article did not have some problems with its methodology. The debunker article is correct in the fact that just because these people died suddenly, does not mean it was exclusively due to radiation from Fukishima. However, as the data does suggest a sudden increase in deaths among the ill, infants and the elderly, the radiation theory becomes a whole lot more possible. The fact that the EPA is playing fast and lose with their data, as is Japan, then this study must be taken with more weight than normal.

Lastly let's take a quick look at climate change. Everytime it's get a little cold or we get snow in a place we normally don't, the deniers cry that it's evidence that global warming is bull. But then they conveniently don't mention the fact that, as a whole, the planet is getting warmer, as are our oceans, and temperatures are spiking, especially across the arctic regions. In just my area, temperatures have been way above normal now for our tenth straight month and except for a few months last year, is a continuing trend even before that. We are breaking world records for everything lately including heat, cold, snowfall and drought across the planet everyday.

Sea ice is continuing to disappear, unless you believe the debunkers who say the ice is bigger than ever, which it isn't as no scientist working anywhere in the Arctic has this theory only Dr. Joe Shmoe from Podunk U. Just because one idiot disagrees with what 99% of all scientists agree on, doesn't mean he's right just because he mirrors your position. Usually, these guys are either bought and paid for by the oil industry or just really suck at what they do.

Weather is out of whack, statistically speaking as disasters are striking with greater force and in larger areas. The argument that we are seeing more tornadoes is because of better weather reporting and larger population is complete bull. First, our weather reporting is actually getting worse due to budget cuts and lack of adequate satellite use. And the tornadoes touching down are being reported in places they have never been seen before not in way out areas that have been recently developed.

Our weather is getting out of control and the warming deniers are going to get us all killed. All evidence points to a global disaster that already may be too late to contain. Let us hope it isn't. But with the human race trying to amplify the effects with the BP oil spill and Fukishima, it is not looking good.