This great site allows you to re-locate the BP oil spill in the Mexican Gulf to your own patch of the earth, to get the real sense of scale in an area you are familiar with.
I have centred it over Canberra (which many people might think deserves being smothered in sticky black oil anyway - but I try to avoid too much political comment on this blog.) Think of my comment as Irony.
What that positioning actually does is it gives me an area starting at Robertson (where the Highway 48 sign is, between Bowral and Shellharbour) on the north-eastern corner of the oil spill.Ok, on the far end, it goes out beyond Wagga Wagga (Urana actually).
Click on the map to enlarge it, to see the full details.
Two weekends ago, I did a drive which was north from there (to West Wyalong). That drive took me nearly 5 hours. So for me to drive diagonally the length of this oil spill would probably take me 7 hours.
That to me is a scale I can understand.
That's one bloody big clean up job, Mr Hayward (CEO of BP)
Well might you say you "want your life back".
No wonder some in the American Media are calling him "the most hated - and most clueless - man in America". Big call, but understandable.
***** ***** *****
You can play with this map for your own education and personalised bewilderment by visiting http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/
Send that link to your friends - copy your own personalised link from the website, once you have fitted the Oil Spill where you want it to be. Type in the location - City, State, Country, and then click "Move the Spill". Then click "link and more" to copy the url of your own personalised Oil Spill map.
11 comments:
Denis
I did the business centering the spill on London. Effectively it covered the UK from the Severn to the Wash, excluding Devon and Cornwall.
I look forward to boycotting BP!
Martin
Pity we cant centre the spill on the CEO's lovely clean upmarket neighbourhood where he goes to hide from the reality of his responsibilities.
Kirsten
Hi Martin and Kirsten
Along with a few other comments I have received off line, BP is not faring well in the PR stakes.
Quite remarkable how seemingly out of tune these people are when they reveal themselves.
Thanks all.
Denis
New Scientist May15 carries info about deep sea drilling dangers, warnings, and US regulating body's virtual carte blanche to drillers. Obama's right to take the blame (it's a US Govt-Big Biz mess). But it will speed things towards renewables.
Hi Tony
Well you are certainly right about Obama, because he had only just approved new exploration in areas of the USA coast line where sympathetic States were prepared to accept drilling (and revenue).
He has since had another think about it, but not actually revoked any licences, or anything like that...
.
And of course "Big Oil" is in there right up to their pockets.
I just hope you are right about it speeding up renewables.
.
Meanwhile it seems only a matter of time till we do something more drastic than ground a coal carrier on the GBR.
.
Someone (who ought to know better) told me today that it would only be a matter of time till we had the same thing here.
I choked.
Of course, as we have just had our own version of this off the WA coast - but there were fewer TV Cameras around.
And Martin Ferguson is off overseas flogging even more of it, as we speak.
Madness abounds.
Cheers
Denis
It's a great tool, isn't it? I think it demonstrates how little we respect what goes on in the oceans - if the same sort of things happened on land there would be all sorts of outcry.
Thanks Lynds
I appreciated you having found it, and circulated it.
Well done to you.
I have had some interesting feedback, on and off line.
Cheers
Denis
That's an amazing bit of software. I did it over Sydney and it stretched from Wollongong to Forster and out to Orange!! That's just mind boggling.
You mentioned the recent WA one, just how large was that in comparison? I heard that was a huge one as well, but didn't get much notice because most of it floated out to sea.
Hi Mark
Yes, imagine cleaning every Gum Tree and every Wombat Burrow from Sydney to Forster and out to Bathurst.
I cannot think about it.
I don't know for sure how large the WA spill was.
Of course, it was in an area with almost zero public profile. Unless you are a Whale Shark or an Indonesian traditional fisherman.
Cheers
Denis
I have read that this oil disaster has far greater threatening consequences than first thought, but I am not hearing much going public!
Regards.
Hi Le Loup
Yes, I saw the video linked from your site about the "Bubble" underneath the sea-bed.
Scary stuff.
Cheers
Denis
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