Posted on 07/17/2010 4:59:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The ocean floor is known to release numerous natural gases. The release of these gases is not normally caused by manmade disasters but by natural events. Because the ocean and the world’s land mass are plush with natural filters alleviating risk to human lives, we have not been truly affected until now.
One of the most dangerous natural gases released under the ocean floor is methane gas.
Today, because of the horrific Gulf oil spill that continues to affect the lives of all persons, an unfathomable amount of methane gas imposes grave danger to the entire world. Recent scientific research identifies the Gulf disaster as a potential mega killer.
BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years.
There is no question that this disaster could have been prevented. Most intriguing is the fact that this disaster, even after it occurred, could have and should have been stopped long ago. Unfortunately, prevention, preparing, responding, and recovering were simply not planned and enforced appropriately.
Risk Management planning is a fundamental principle that the U.S. Government has been instilling in private and government sectors for many years now. State and federal Homeland Security Departments have spent billions of dollars of your tax money to ensure all identified critical assets have executable risk management plans in place.
Very simple in nature and very easy to create is a risk management plan which entails four fundamental sections: prevent, prepare, respond, and recover.
It is likely that a plan was in place for British Petroleum; however, such a plan was not executed. Short cuts were made to save cost of operations and oversight appears to have been non-existent. Private organizations do not want to spend the time, money, and resources in creating and following such plans.
Most recently, two separate natural gas companies conducting operations deep in the heartland of the Northeast United States were asked whether they had risk management plans in place and they stated that they did not. Simply put, many federal, state, and private organizations do not care about crises until they happen. This means as a society we have become accustomed to being reactionary in nature. This leads to utter mismanagement and improper decision making.
Today, out of pure laziness and private companies sleeping with government oversight, the world faces the similar situation it faced nearly 250 million years ago that nearly wiped mother earth out of the atmosphere. While that which occurred over 250 million years ago is strictly theory; that which occurred in 1986 Cameroon killing over 1,700 persons through natural gas exposure serves as fact.
Simply put, the BP oil spill has potential even now with a cap in place to cause a greater catastrophe than any media outlet will ever inform.
*****
Kerry Patton served in the U.S. Defense and Justice departments, and as a contractor within the Homeland Security and State departments. He has worked in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, focusing on intelligence and security interviewing current and former terrorists, including members of the Taliban. He is the author of “Sociocultural Intelligence: The New Discipline of Intelligence Studies.” Currently, Mr. Patton teaches for Henley Putnam University and is the Northeast Regional Director for Stand Up America www.standupamericaus.com.
Already hyperboled.
Possible, but Obama has reaped more economic and societal damage to what once was the greatest country mankind has ever known, so.. Why not add a little environmental damage to the mix? Furthermore, I guess we could kill off all living animals (especially cows and termites) to offset the BP oil spill and menthane damage.. Or maybe we could get Al Gore to establish some sort of “methane gas offset” tax. THAT would fix it. /sarcasm
On August 21, 1986, possibly triggered by a landslide, Lake Nyos suddenly emitted a large cloud of CO2, which suffocated 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock in nearby villages.
Don’t buy green bananas.
Scare Mongering B/S from Kerry Patton. He dosen’t even have his facts right.
Well Obama’s oil spill is 20 times bigger than the Valdez, and a quarter of people didn’t die..
So I would say hyperbole.
Apples and oranges.
The Exxon Valdez was a spill from a breached oil tanker. The Gulf oil leak is basically a hole punched in an undersea oil deposit that is under unimaginable pressure from within the earth itself.
There's not just oil in these deposits. They contain lots of gasses, as well - one of which is methane. Underwater methane deposits have exploded before, and have killed many people.
A great deal of study was done on the Lake Nyos eruption, which killed a village of about 1,700 people just a few decades ago. Scientists also theorize that enormous methane eruptions may have been responsible for at least two of the planet's prehistoric extinction events.
The story is not without a basis in fact, and is worth serious consideration.
Most hyper hyperbolic hyperbole. Someone is really trying to milk the last drop out of their ad space by posting apocalypse. First it was going to blow up the gulf because it wasn’t contained, now it’s gonna blow up because it is, even though it was in the first place. Sheeesh!
Where and when? I'm curious because I have a hard time envisioning an explosion underwater without oxygen in the system.
What research, when and how?? To compare this spill with the methane release triggered by the Siberian Traps some 250 million years ago when a supervolcano erupted for some 200,000 years resulting in the Permian mass extinction is ridiculous. For the record, most geologists believe the methane release was only the last of many straws, if you will.
Yes, everybody is going to die.
Everybody send me their worldly possessions since you won’t need them anymore.
Late 1980's. Lake Nyos in Africa. National Geographic or Scientific American likely have good, in-depth archives about this story.
This from one of the followers of Goreism and Gaia worship... I suppose this will all happen after the manmade global ice age...errr... warming...errr climate change...errr methane-induced catastrophe-
Oh - never mind.
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Lakes/description_volcanic_lakes_gas_release.html
From: Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program Website, 1999, GVNB 23:12
“Only three lakes in the world are known to contain high concentrations of dissolved gas in their bottom waters: Lakes Nyos and Monoun in Cameroon and Lake Kivu in East Africa. The release of large quantities of gas from lakes is very rare; however, massive carbon dioxide gas (CO2) releases from Lake Monoun in 1984 (Bulletin v. 9, no. 8) and Lake Nyos in 1986 (Bulletin v.11, no. 8) resulted in the loss of nearly 1,800 lives.”
—
Long & short— very rare occurance. “Chicken Little the Sky is not Falling!”
***BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years. ***
So lets all go outside, run around in circles and yell WE ALL GONNA DIE!
Bunk!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.