View Full Version : Big Oil - historic damage happening to our Seas
One of the most damaging events in history is about to hit the earth - that is deep sea and shallow continental shelf exploration for oil and gas, using what is called 3D Seismic Air-Gun explosions.
These explosions literally harm and damage organisms from plankton, shrimp, lobsters, other crustaceans, fish and of course marine mammals such as whales and dolphins and seals.
The industry seriously DOES NOT CARE one iota about the damage that they create or the harm that is produced by the actual search efforts.
Off Africa right now plans are being made to create surveys literally from South Africa all the way up the Atlantic (west) side to Morocco at the Straits of Gibraltar.
Plankton -
Without it two primary issues will exist: fish will die from lack of food, and CO2 will not be recycled properly back into the seas, resulting in a larger CO2 build-up planetwide.
What is this off-shore 3D seismic explosive surveying?
https://blog1.miami.edu/sharklab/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2013/05/21.png
During exploration for oil and gas formations seismic airguns are towed with a vessel and release pulses of sounds from 225 to 250 decibels several times per minute (Richardson et al. 1995).
To put that number in perspective, the noise from a jet engine is 140 decibels—seismic airguns are 100,000 times more intense than a jet engine.
Airguns produce sound by creating a compressed air bubble, which collapses under the pressure of the water (Popper et al. 2005).
The surveys off the US Atlantic coast will have on average about 20,000,000 such explosions during the surveys.
It looks like this:
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/61/56/11/13034088/3/920x920.jpg
Dead plankton, stunned fish: the harms of man-made ocean noise (from June 2018 article (https://phys.org/news/2018-06-dead-plankton-stunned-fish-man-made.html))
Human-caused ocean noise and its dangers to marine life are the focus of meetings at the United Nations this week, a victory for advocacy groups that have long warned of this problem.
A boat tows 12-48 airguns at a time, each of which shoot loud blasts of compressed air. These blasts are EXPLOSIONS.
These sound waves pass through the water and hit the seabed, and penetrate deeply, up to 20 thousands of feet into rock layers, reflecting back information about buried oil and gas deposits that can be used to create three-dimensional maps.
The blasts are repeated every 12-15 seconds, over vast areas of the ocean at high volume, sometimes for weeks on end. The high volume damages internal structure of that which is in the seas, from the plankton which are the building blocks for higher life forms (food), through the larger organisms such as fish and marine mammals.
With that much penetration energy, what happens to ANYTHING in the water subject to the shock waves?
A review of 115 studies done mainly in the 1990s and 2000s, showed the effects of ocean noise on 66 species of fish and 36 kinds of invertebrates, or animals without a backbone.
Zooplankton were found to be highly vulnerable to seismic blasts. A 2007 study showed that one blast, even at a lower level than those typically used in oil and gas prospecting operations, could decimate half the zooplankton in the area.
Up to 95 percent of certain species died.
Zooplankton form the base of the foodchain, and are vital nutrition for whales and numerous invertebrates like oysters and shrimp.
Fish can suffer internal injuries and change their behavior. Becoming disoriented by the noise, they may swim away or freeze in place.
According to studies in 1996 and 2012, seismic airgun blasts caused haddock and cod to flee, reducing the catch rate by 20 to 70 percent in some areas.
Some fish swam deeper, where they could be more vulnerable, while others were caught with empty stomachs, a sign they had stopped eating.
To date, about 130 species have been documented to be impacted.
Necropsy analysis to brain damage from explosive shockwaves:
https://www.omicsonline.org/articles-images/neurology-neurophysiolog-vascular-damage-5-188-g001.png
While the US is coming up with ways to STOP oil and gas exploration off the eastern seaboard, and off shore in Alaska, Canada says FINE do it.
Canada continues to allow off-shore oil and gas exploration, quite a hypocritical stand while "faces" scream that oil and gas burning is raising the temperature past the critical 2 degree point.
If Canada was truly concerned like the US courts are, the US courts have reversed Trump's opening of the continental shelf for exploration) they would shut down exploration. Instead they INSIST on allowing off-shore air-gun exploration, especially in the prime fishing grounds.
Are fishermen complaining the harvests of fish and products from the sea are dwindling (in the areas where the airgun surveys are happening) - yes, most certainly.
https://aemstatic-ww2.azureedge.net/content/os/en/articles/2019/04/more-seismic-surveys-planned-offshore-eastern-canada/_jcr_content/leftcolumn/article/headerimage.transform/width500/image.png
Black and White observations:
There are about 41,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families who oppose seismic testing.
These groups oppose seismic exploration because those explosions can harm and displace fish, greatly reducing the populations that both commercial and recreational fishers depend upon.
In other parts of the world, catch rates for species like cod and rockfish have fallen by 50 to 70 percent in the days after seismic tests.
The tourism industry can also be affected, since airgun noise can potentially force whales to beach themselves.
“Tourists don’t like to see dying marine mammals on the beach”.
Ecology minded groups weigh in - see https://www.oceanfdn.org/our-story/board-directors
“The ocean is an acoustic world—a world of hearing not vision,” says Michael Jasny, an expert in the law and policy of ocean noise pollution at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
These explosions can substantially injure the internal organs of fish, as well as the hair cells that allow them to hear - It can damage the organs that allow invertebrates, from rock lobsters to giant squid, to maintain their balance.
It slows development, induces damaging levels of long-term stress, forces animals to seek shelter instead of feeding, prevents them from spotting predators.
The explosive seismic 3D surveying is a criminal act against nature.
“For whales and dolphins, which rely on their hearing to find food, communicate, and reproduce, being able to hear is a life or death matter,” according to Oceana an ecology organization who studies and educates people to the damages created by ocean seismic exploration.
Airgun explosions create a shockwave which can be heard thousands of miles away, and not just “right under the airgun array”. Direct results up to 4000 feet away from
the blast - dead plankton, stunned fish - from “The harms of man-made ocean noise” (Link: from June 2018 article).
Human-caused ocean noise and its dangers to marine life are the focus of meetings at the United Nations, which would be a victory for advocacy groups that have long
warned of this problem.
Eco-News website page: https://www.ecori.org/renewable-energy/2018/12/11/whitehouse-promises-to-oppose-seismic-surveys-for-oil-and-gas
A review of 115 studies done mainly in the 1990s and 2000s, showed the effects of ocean noise on 66 species of fish and 36 kinds of invertebrates, or animals without a
backbone.
Zooplankton were found to be highly vulnerable to seismic blasts. A 2007 study showed that one blast, even at a lower level than those typically used in oil and gas prospecting operations, could decimate half the zooplankton in the area. Up to 95 percent of certain species died.
Zooplankton form the base of the food-chain, and are vital nutrition for whales and numerous invertebrates like oysters and shrimp. Zooplankton can also include tiny
jellyfish, crustaceans, and the larval stages of fish.
Fish can suffer internal injuries and change their behavior. Becoming disoriented by the noise, they may swim away or freeze in place.
What can we do?
We need to stay aware of where 3D off-shore air-gun seismic surveying is happening and file protests with the government and the agencies who allow permitting to these groups.
Our own research group has come up with a way to do deep-sea surveying without airguns. We are willing to go to the areas that airgun surveys will be conducted and
beat them to the punch, gathering the data AND PUBLISHING that there is NOTHING THERE.
Wasting money up to 30 million $ US per survey is a bad business practice.
The airgun survey groups get money from investors, who expect the airgun exploration company to then license the data to oil companies who will want to drill.
The existing 3D airgun derived seismic data is next to useless for providing any accuracy as to where to drill.
During drilling exercises, such as the BP disaster in the US Gulf of Mexico, the hazards of an area are not fully known with existing 3D airgun surveys.
Off Africa so many numerous "non-economically viable holes have been drilled" which runs the risk of leaks that can contaminate the fishing waters, the coastal areas..
We propose to create a situation, a monkey-wrenching so to speak, economically, to existing air-gun survey exploration groups, by getting in there first where the surveys will be done, and verifying that there is NOTHING THERE.
No oil company is going to license useless data that shows NOTHING is there.
Enough of that happening and it will become useless to do off-shore-airgun surveying.
Emil El Zapato
13th May 2019, 21:41
https://www.omicsonline.org/articles-images/neurology-neurophysiolog-vascular-damage-5-188-g001.png
that's freakin' murder...
And it is murder to ALL LIFE on earth - a ticking time bomb - no plankton, no food, no CO2 cleaning...
What's left? Future scenario if left unchecked, unstopped:
'Plastic food' made from oil, sold by the big oil corporation to the world (Bayer/Monsanto GMO "solutions") (many of our pharmaceuticals are made from oil or coal products..)
Toxic Air
Toxic Water
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions unemployed
Permanent economic slavery to the 'corporation'
The Grand Banks Fishing grounds off Newfoundland, Canada used to be one of the most abundant and yearly sustainable fishing grounds for at least a hundred years.
Over the last 9 years though, Canada has allows 3D-Seismic AIRGUN surveys, covering a large part of the Grand Banks.
Fishermen have been finding year after year, after the start of the offshore AirGun surveys within the Grand banks, that fishing is dwindling to alarming levels.
The Canadian Government then chose to BLAME the fishermen who have harvested properly for many many years prior to the airgun surveying.
They say the fishermen are OVER-FISHING.. Strange.. If there were adequate plankton, the amount of fish would not be dwindling to dangerous levels.
If there were no ACTIVE airgun surveying within the Fishing grounds, there would be adequate fish.
Interesting eh?
Canada says YES PLEASE DO more offshore airgun surveying in the Grand Banks for the NEXT 5 years !!
By that time all the plankton will have been decimated, and the fish population dwindled to minimums..
And big oil can give Canada's licensing agencies, their KICKBACK (called permitting fees) to continue to phase 2, drilling dry holes on the 3D airgun seismic..
Is that right? Good business? Kill off fishing for big oil? For profits pocketed way higher to Canada than what they would make from sales of fish?
Emil El Zapato
13th May 2019, 22:12
interesting...in the skin color thread...Dr. Zablonski cites the impact of the depletion of vitamin D rich sources of fish...Cod for example, on human health.
Aianawa
13th May 2019, 22:20
I sometimes feel that some peoples are so self loathsome and externalizing this, that when they fly their flag/desire/duty/job that is very simply stupid and future human wise damaging, gosh to the point of pushing Mummy Earth too far, is a form of waving to the Were's ( former TPTb ) send money and help to this project and or pass this bill etc.
That is a lot of people affected so surely push back is happening ?.
Most certainly there is some activity to block - the oil companies and exploration companies just continue to plow ahead saying there is no damage no worries; they have spotters who look out for whales (but the have nothing taking plankton counts before and after, as that would be the smoking gun..
https://www.ecori.org/renewable-energy/2018/12/11/whitehouse-promises-to-oppose-seismic-surveys-for-oil-and-gas
here's the board of the Ocean Foundation - https://www.oceanfdn.org/our-story/board-directors
What an airgun looks like:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/546d61b5e4b049f0b10b95c5/t/5c0fe4de8a922d03c68fa8ad/1544545511650/Screen+Shot+2018-12-11+at+8.19.46+AM.png?format=1000w
https://usa.oceana.org/climate-and-energy/grassroots-opposition-offshore-drilling-and-exploration-atlantic-ocean-and
More than 350 municipalities and over 2,100 elected local, state and federal officials have formally opposed offshore oil and gas drilling and seismic airgun blasting, including more than 250 along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. All the Governors along the East and West coasts - Republicans and Democrats alike - have expressed concerns with and/or opposition to expanded oil and gas exploration, development, and production off their coasts, including the Governors of Washington, Oregon, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Along the Atlantic Coast, numerous fishing and tourism interests, including local chambers of commerce, tourism and restaurant associations, and an alliance representing over 46,000 businesses and 500,000 fishing families from Florida to Maine, also strongly oppose oil exploration and/or development off the East Coast.
Additionally, the Pacific, North Pacific, New England, South Atlantic, and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils have all expressed concerns about the risks posed by seismic surveys and oil and gas development to managed resources, fisheries and coastal communities in the Atlantic. Finally, NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Florida Defense Support Task Force have all expressed concerns about expanded offshore oil and gas development threatening their ability to perform critical activities.
there are quite a few communities opposed in the US, but the move is to allow airgun use.
Canada has no opposition, all of Africa offers no opposition, such happens also in the North Sea off the UK and off Norway - no stop.. The only opposition appears to be strong in the US..
Well Canada just allowed this dangerously destructive to plankton and other life in the seas "Airgun Seismic offshore surveys".
A survey off Labrador is the target.
https://img.offshore-mag.com/files/base/ebm/os/image/2019/05/ramform_titan.5ce2dcf0cdab0.png?auto=format&h=640&w=640
The two companies committed to doing the deed are: TGS and PGS - these companies do north Atlantic airgun seismic and in the North Sea between Norway and UK
https://www.offshore-mag.com/geosciences/article/14033543/first-ever-3d-seismic-survey-offshore-labrador-to-start-in-july and
https://www.offshore-mag.com/geosciences/article/16802957/tgs-completes-major-seismic-surveys-in-atlantic-regions
TGS also uses the same techniques off Brazil in South America - Any fishermen notice their catch dwindling off Brazil? TGS most likely with the offshore airgun surveing had something to do with that - probably you are not over-fishing, just fishing normally, but the fish have possibly died off, from lack of plankton their food.
TGS wants to go to Alaska and do the same - the result no doubt will be similar to the damage done to the Grand Banks - all the prime fishing grounds are being assaulted? How come?
https://www.offshore-mag.com/geosciences/article/16761392/tgs-reports-several-new-surveys
How's fishing in UK's West Shetland basin? They were there too.
This map shows where TGS has done the deed:
https://aemstatic-ww1.azureedge.net/content/dam/ogj/online-articles/2015/11/Nov13ECCMapSeismic1.jpg.scale.LARGE.jpg
Each line represents where they ran their airguns - what's fishing like in those areas? For 9 years already and there is no stopping them. Canada apparently is saying please go ahead blast away (we don't care), just be sure to give us upfront the $$$ for the permit fees... (sigh)
Is it all about the money $$$ and who's pockets get lined? Or is it also about destroying a prime resource for the world - food..
Chester
22nd May 2019, 02:44
Where's "the free press" when you need them? Looking for someone's tax returns I guess.
Dreamtimer
22nd May 2019, 11:27
I bet the tax returns of these corporations would be quite informative and useful.
Just like they would if someone wanted to be cleared of money laundering and such.
It's easy to clear your name if you're actually clean.
Dreamtimer
22nd May 2019, 11:38
This is in fact being reported in the following places:
Guardian Liberty Voice
Southside Daily
Washington Post
wydaily.com
National Geographic
Change.org
Cleantechnica.com
Oceana.org
These are from the first page that came up with a DuckDuckGo search.
The media is reporting on it.
We should be sure we know what the media is doing for real.
Maybe folks saw those reports and just decided to "believe the opposite".
Wouldn't be very smart, would it?
The measure of if the OCEANS are dying is a measure of looking at oxygen levels, and looking at plankton levels and looking at fishing.
Data is saying 87% of the world's oceans are dying - where are they looking? Where the oil and gas exploration is looking and using the plankton killing airguns.
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/87-of-worlds-oceans-are-dying-climate-change/
"The world’s oceans are rapidly becoming unrecognizable as impacts from human activity strip them of marine life, according to a report published in the journal Current Biology.
In fact, just 13% of the world’s oceans have intact marine ecosystems, while the rest have been plundered and degraded.
The majority of healthy ocean space, meanwhile, exists in the high seas... "
There is no reason to be doing offshore air-gun surveying in the high seas - the airgun use is happening within the prime fishing grounds, where plankton would be found..
Connecting dots - ??
I've shared the airgun article with Sea Shepherd (haven't heard back any positive action being taken though a.t.m.) - I have talked with Captain Watson personally a few years back..
https://seashepherd.org/2015/09/29/if-the-ocean-dies-we-all-die/
Commentary by Sea Shepherd Founder, Captain Paul Watson
We need to return whale and fish populations to pre-exploitation levels.
The focus must be on revitalizing bio-diversity in the sea.
https://i2.wp.com/seashepherd.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/editorial-150929-1-1-100224_BV_Whales_26_0565-280w.jpg?zoom=1.5&resize=280%2C187&ssl=1
Photo: Sea Shepherd/Barbara Veiga
If the ocean dies, we all die. Why?
A few people have asked me to explain just why it is that humanity will die if the ocean dies.
Billions of people depend upon the ocean for food, and I’m not talking about restaurants, sushi bars and fish markets in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo or Sydney. I’m talking about extremely poor people whose lives actually depend upon catching fish.
But food being taken from the ocean is the least of the factors that will kill us.
The ocean is the life support system for the planet, providing 50% of the oxygen we breathe and regulating climate. The ocean is also the pump that allows us to have fresh water. It is the driving force, along with the sun, of the global circulation system that transports water from the land to the sea to the atmosphere and back to the land again.
Plankton – the most important group of plants and animal species on the planet (excluding bacteria). Plankton populations have been diminished by 40% since 1950, yet there is now commercial exploitation by Norwegian and Japanese fishing corporations to extract millions of tons of plankton for conversion to a protein-rich animal feed.
Every year 65 billion animals are slaughtered to feed humans and some 40% of all the fish caught are converted to fishmeal to feed pigs, chickens, domestic salmon, fur-bearing animals and cat food. With fish populations diminishing, the corporations are looking to replace fishmeal with a plankton paste.
Is cheap fishmeal for domestic animals worth robbing the planet of our oxygen supplies?
Where does oxygen come from? Some 50% comes from the forest that we are rapidly cutting down. The rest comes from the sea.
Some of this oxygen is produced by seaweeds and sea grasses, but the vast majority of the oxygen is produced by phytoplankton, microscopic single-celled organisms that have the ability to photosynthesize. These tiny creatures live at the surface layer of the ocean (and in lakes and rivers) and form the very base of the aquatic food chain.
During photosynthesis, phytoplankton remove carbon dioxide from sea water and release oxygen. The carbon becomes part of their bodies.
Providing oxygen and sequestering carbon dioxide is the major contribution of plankton, along with forming the foundation for the entire oceanic food chain.
The fish- and animal-killing industries are robbing the seas of oxygen production for short-term profits.
This is one of the things that most likely WILL NOT be discussed at the Climate Change Conference in Paris in two months.
Other factors diminishing plankton are acidification from excessive carbon dioxide, pollution, habitat destruction and the radical diminishment of whale populations.
The whales are the primary species that fertilize the phytoplankton. For example, one blue whale defecates three tons of nitrogen and iron-rich feces a day, providing nutrients to the phytoplankton. In return the phytoplankton feed the zooplankton, the fishes and ultimately everything that lives in the sea.
In order to restore phytoplankton populations we need to restore whale populations and we need to abolish the industrialized exploitation of bio-diversity in the ocean. We also need to have governments end all subsidization of commercial fishing operations.
The reality is that there are simply not enough fish in the sea to continue to feed an ever-expanding human population. It is a simple concept to understand – more humans eating fish, directly or indirectly (i.e. fishmeal), contributes to further diminishment of fish.
This diminishment means diminished supplies, resulting in increased subsidization to provide more efficient technology to extract even more of the diminishing supplies. Unless the subsidies are cut, this diminishment will result in collapse. I call this the “economics of extinction.”
There must be a global moratorium on all industrialized fishing. And there must be a global cessation on the killing of whales. We need to return whale and fish populations to pre-exploitation levels. The focus must be on revitalizing bio-diversity in the sea in order to address climate change and diminishment of phytoplankton oxygen production.
Will it cost profits? Absolutely. Will it costs jobs? Absolutely. But are jobs and profits really worth destroying the planet’s life support system?
Strangely, to many of the world’s politicians, the answer to that question is yes.
Chester
22nd May 2019, 22:37
This is in fact being reported in the following places:
Guardian Liberty Voice
Southside Daily
Washington Post
wydaily.com
National Geographic
Change.org
Cleantechnica.com
Oceana.org
These are from the first page that came up with a DuckDuckGo search.
The media is reporting on it.
We should be sure we know what the media is doing for real.
Maybe folks saw those reports and just decided to "believe the opposite".
Wouldn't be very smart, would it?
Imagine if this got 10% of the coverage that is given to the "other"... just 10%. I mean on the big three major networks and then cnn, msnbc and fox. You would think it should, right? I mean, isn't this far more important? I mean, we are talking the extinction of all life on this planet at stake. Where's the priorities? Looks to me like there isn't any real priorities about things that actually appear to matter. Looks more like something else "is driving that bus." Like something else "is in charge."
Emil El Zapato
22nd May 2019, 22:46
The feeding public are obviously driving the bus...when you can get a majority audience to start screaming about such important matters then we will see it on the Moron Stream Media...After all, we see Trump all the time...ad nauseum even...I'll trade global warming and destructive human action coverage over Trump...starting immediately...but then Trump is an example of destructive human behavior and that is why he gets so much press...We can't win!
Aragorn
23rd May 2019, 00:01
The feeding public are obviously driving the bus...when you can get a majority audience to start screaming about such important matters then we will see it on the Moron Stream Media...After all, we see Trump all the time...ad nauseum even...I'll trade global warming and destructive human action coverage over Trump...starting immediately...but then Trump is an example of destructive human behavior and that is why he gets so much press...We can't win!
Bread and circuses, my friend. The mainstream media are a major arm of the advertising industry, and so they need to make sure that they get high viewer ratings, so that more people get exposed to the advertising. That's what puts money in the bank. So they only broadcast what draws in higher viewer ratings, which means anything controversial and/or dramatic. Trump, and political shenanigans in general, are controversial, because it's always about "us versus them". Besides, one would get the impression that the only thing modern journalists know how to talk about anymore is politics. They're all brainwashed. :rolleyes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkzb656WVuQ
Emil El Zapato
23rd May 2019, 14:37
It's a feedback loop...but politics as always is big news...with Trump...well there's the circus. One ring.
Joe Jackson is one of those 'names' that escaped me.... :)
Aragorn
23rd May 2019, 15:42
It's a feedback loop...but politics as always is big news...with Trump...well there's the circus. One ring.
One Q to rule them all.
One Q to find them.
One Q to bring them all,
And in the Darkness bind them.
:eyebrows:
Joe Jackson is one of those 'names' that escaped me.... :)
He sounds decisively North American when he sings, and he does also live in the USA now, but he's actually British, and he does still speak British English. His success took off around 1979-1980, with "Is She Really Going Out With Him?", of which he later on recorded a live a capella version. He's quite well known over here. He's a proficient songwriter, as well as a talented pianist and saxophone player. ;)
Emil El Zapato
23rd May 2019, 17:04
yeah, I'm familiar with him, heard a lot about him...but never listened to his music...
Chester
25th May 2019, 18:04
It's a feedback loop...but politics as always is big news...with Trump...well there's the circus. One ring.
So that folks know where I stand, there are many rings in the Big Circus, Trump only being one of them and in part by his own doing but also, manufactured.
Within the Big Circus is a set of rings which I would place under the umbrella of TOS which can include some of the Trump supporters and also some of the Trump agenda supporters. ... but under there are several other sub-rings that are just as obsessed if not more so (in part because they perceive or fear his "block" is currently more powerful... whichever the case may be).
But there are several rings not under the larger TOS ring that are not necessarily pro-Trump but share some affinity with some of the goals of the Trump agenda. I refer to these as the "Trump tolerant." Some are part of this group because their lives are better than they were pre-Trump (and don't make the mistake in thinking this group is small). They feel this way in part because of their determination it would not have been that way if it were not for his election.
The circus is big and so my question to myself is, how much do I allow myself to be distracted by the circus aspect of it all and how much do I live extricated from the circus. How much time do I spend on matters that could be called "spiritual practice" or "spiritual contemplation" as an example of things we might engage ourselves with that have the potential to minimize "circus" focus/activity.
Emil El Zapato
25th May 2019, 20:06
I'm hearing that Sammy...great post... :)
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