Pay No Attention to the Dead Pelican Behind the Curtain

Or the oil still on the beach either

...The immense patches of surface oil that covered thousands of square miles of the gulf after the April 20 oil rig explosion are largely gone, though there continue to be sightings of tar balls and emulsified oil here and there.

Reporters flying over the area Sunday spotted only a few patches of sheen and an occasional streak of thicker oi...

Because, you idiots, a hurricane just blew through there.

In the immortal words of Dr. Geisel

...here and there
there and here
funny things
are everywhere...

And speaking of funny things, I just got a letter from oyster with a question that bears a public answer. Oyster, hope you don't mind this.

The letter:

...A person I respect... has bought into at least some of the claims made in this rense.com article, specifically the ones regarding the radioactive implications of the oil spill.

I'm less concerned with the thesis of oil being "renewable" than I am with the health and environmental effects of massive amounts of radiation being emitted into the Gulf. Is methane a "marker" for an oil reserve containing high amounts of uranium and thorium? Obviously, the amount of methane from this Macondo gusher was extraordinarily high. So, if record amounts of radioactive materials entered the Gulf in addition to the oil and methane and Corexit...

Can you give me any sense what we might be facing?

My response:

...I'm no expert in geochemistry, but I'd be really doubtful that you are facing very much of a problem from radiation associated with the methane even if it was associated with these elements in nature. Uranium and thorium are both non-volatile, and even as charged salts they tend to oxidize to states that aren't freely soluble. They not only would tend to stay at the bottom of the ocean, they'd tend to sediment further even if dispersed.

I suspect most of that methane is of biological origin and not radiochemical decay. In fact, I get in trouble saying this, but I suspect most of the petrochemicals at the bottom of the Gulf are a lot "newer" than your standard fossil fuels. There's methane there in high concentration alright- because the archaebacteria are busy kicking it out as they anaerobically ferment everything that's fallen to the ocean bottom over the last few million years.

I think there are more than enough chemical carcinogens to worry about in the petroleum itself. I think the methane itself is quite a danger to the environment with as much of it has been released. And, I think that rense is a classic disinformation source.

Methane itself is not a health hazard to anything except global warming. The petroleum damned sure is a hazard to every living thing it encounters- especially with chemical dispersants added.

If enough people start panicking and writing enough silliness, the conservative mainstream- and BP and the people in the government they own- get to discredit them and excuse their lack of action about the real problems...

Because, you know, according to Pravda,

...Gulf Oil Spill Is Vanishing Fast...

Only a moonbat tinfoil hatter would think otherwise.