BP, the government, or Phillippe Cousteau, Jr.? Who would you believe?

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Phillippe Cousteau, Jr., the grandson of French explorer and ecologist Jacques-Yves Cousteau:

BP’s oil spill is humanity’s latest strike against against the World’s oceans, according to Phillippe Cousteau Jr., an explorer and host for Animal Planet and Planet Green.

Phillipe Cousteau, Jr., actually dove into the oil, dispersants of this BP soup mix.

Phillippe Cousteau, Jr. was on “Real Time with Bill Maher” this past Friday and spoke of what the country’s worst in oil spill in history will mean for oceans that are already suffering from pollution and overfishing.



This video is not embeddable — see it here.

Philippe Cousteau, Jr., the ecologist grandson of Jacques, joined Bill Maher on Real Time last night to give his assessment of the Gulf of Mexico, where he has been working to help clean up the oil washing ashore from the the open offshore oil well. While he seemed confident that there was a way to fix the problem, he stressed that the ocean ecosystem will not fix itself. . . . .

Maher asked about the situation in Louisiana, where Cousteau had been working for the past weeks- his answer was not incredibly optimistic. He did have a direct answer for people who believe the ocean is strong and healthy enough to fix itself:

“I could cut my leg off, I could cut my arm off, I could gouge my eye out, I’d still probably survive, but not very well, and that’s what we’re doing to the ocean. It’s the life support system of this planet. We’ve been dumping in it, we’ve been polluting it, we’ve been destroying it for decades, and we’re essentially maiming ourselves… ”

Speaking about massive annual dead zones just off the U.S. Coast, Cousteau lets us know that we have exceeded the tipping point:

Cousteau:  The Florida Keys, third longest barrier reef in the world, is a dead zone. Ninety percent of the big fish, the tuna, the sharks, and other things, are already gone in the oceans. There’s a dead zone in the Gulf Of Mexico every summer the size of New Jersey, where there’s not enough oxygen for things to live. So it’s not a question of ‘Can the oceans take any more?’ The oceans can’t take any more. They couldn’t take any more fifty years ago. The question is, when are we going to stop? (emphasis mine)

43 comments

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  1. how can we quibble with Cousteau’s assessments?  

  2. For greater visability!  ðŸ™‚

  3. Some of these you’ve seen before — see these and weep!

    The Boston Globe

    h/t David Swanson

  4. Ya know I could be wrong but somewhere in 22 years of R&D scientific shit it does happen to appear that banker assholes get to decide what gets funded sciencewise vs what does not get funded sciencewise.  When somebody happens to stumble upon something of infinite value then said  banker assholes then seize upon that concept and forever lock it up with profit loss analysis.  You may Google Nicola Tesla and J.P Morgan, who funded, then not funded Tesla’s works.  All of it of course is just simply tin foil hattery in light of Tellinger,Hoagland or Gary McKinnon or Michael Schratt.

    Movie review.

    Edge of Darkness with Mel Gibson

    Must be a documentary which happens like every day.

    Everything is illegal in Massachusetts.  I fucking love that line.

    • Traci on May 31, 2010 at 10:07

    Thank you for putting this together.

    • banger on May 31, 2010 at 16:44

    Is there anything we can do?

    I think not. We face a hostile gov’t, hostile press, hostile culture and therefore hostile populace. Most people in the U.S., despite what they might say on any given day, don’t care about the environment unless it looks bad. As long as daughter looks presentable for school on Monday morning it doesn’t matter how much daddy has raped her. That’s the bottom line in the good ole USA.

    Democrats are not the answer and therefore politics, as currently played is not the answer. I have argued for organizing as a community, establishing businesses, unions, cooperatives, “churches”, NGOs, whatever. Because information sharing has now reached its ultimate conclusion. Those that want to know (a very, very small minority within a minority) what is actually going on in this country know the basics. We need to make a compendium of those things and move on and build something, anything.

  5. which he received from a friend:

    An Ocean of Hearts

    My ears listening on sunny shores,

    Deep into the ocean lye of crying hearts

    Softly crashing against each other and

    Washing emotions up onto the sand.

    The clapping waters, calling to us

    As the ocean roars in it’s fury,

    Trying to balance her inner self and

    Wiping away all memories that curse.

    If my love could cure one thing

    It would be an ocean of hearts

    All wound together as they drown.

    My tears falling on sunny shores

    Deep into the ocean lye of cried out hearts.

    Moving away from the ocean

    I’m feeling refined and I bid the sea good night,

    As I know its’ yearning, hard to confide.

    An ocean that’s ready to break the cycle,

    Hearts already broken like scattered sand.

    My heart with grief for the ocean,

    The whole world will know

    When the aching is gone.

    Because the ocean isn’t there.

    Mandy Williams

  6. Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit . . .

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