{BTW: Some years back I worked on some exploratory oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico!}

Article as follows:

 BP Explosion Led to ‘Oil Spill Hysteria’

President Barack Obama in June called the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.”

The media also sounded the alarm, with the Washington Post repeatedly referring to the “catastrophic oil spill” resulting from the drilling rig explosion and Time magazine warning that ocean currents could carry the oil to the beaches on Florida’s east coast.

Reacting to the BP spill, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in December canceled previous plans for expanded offshore drilling that could have provided thousands of jobs and reduced America’s reliance on foreign oil.

But a new report asserts that the Gulf in fact suffered “remarkably little damage” from oil spewing into the water from April 20 to July 15, when the leaking Deepwater Horizon well was capped.

“Indeed, the greatest significance of the Gulf spill lies not in its ecological effects, but rather in the outbreak of social hysteria that it occasioned,” Robert H. Nelson writes in The Weekly Standard.

Nelson is a professor of environmental policy at the University of Maryland who has worked with the U.S. Department of the Interior. His latest book is “The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America.”

In his Weekly Standard article headlined “Oil Spill Hysteria,” Nelson discloses:

• By mid-August, a month after the well was capped, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was having trouble finding spilled oil.

• Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the half-life of much of the leaking oil was about three days, meaning that more than 90 percent would have disappeared in 12 days.

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported in November that 2,263 oil-soiled bird remains had been collected in the Gulf, compared to the 225,000 birds killed by the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989.

• Only 18 dead oil-soiled turtles were found, and no other reptile deaths were recorded.

• Just four oil-soiled mammals, including dolphins, were found dead in the Gulf region, compared to the more than 1,000 sea otters alone that died in the Alaska spill.

• Government agencies could not find any evidence of dead fish resulting from the Gulf spill, or any evidence of contamination in live fish. In fact, the closure of large areas of the Gulf to fishing due to the spill has resulted in a surprising increase in the fish population, marine biologists found.

• By early November, “heavy oil” on Gulf beaches remained on only 30 miles of the 580 miles where oil had come ashore.

Most of the blame for the “hysteria” lies with the media, according to Nelson.

“Hysterical overreaction, frankly, sells newspapers and magazines,” he notes.

“The media actually relied less on marine biologists and oil spill experts for their information and more on environmental groups.

“The Gulf ‘disaster’ offered multiple potential benefits to these groups, including the possibility of desired policy changes.”

One such group is the Sierra Club, whose spokesperson confidently announced about the spill: “This will kill any plan to expand offshore drilling for the next decade.”

***

In fact a oceanographic survey the past weeks has not found any adverse effects from the BP oil leak; so what is all the Hype about?

 Does this not raise some questions like:

 1) Was the original BP oil rig leak really just an accident or maybe sabotage?

 2) Is there some reason that certain {Oil Cartel} interest, would like to stop US oil exploration?

 3) Why all the hype, when this was not the worst oil spill or leak in the US or even the world!

 4) Does the recent actions of The President really help the US get off foreign oil?

 5) When will the real truth come out about the plans for keeping the US dependent on foreign oil?

 Why not just accept the truth that even though it was a major leak, and effected many; it was not as long lasting or bad as the Mass Media and some politicians made it out to be!  Some just look to advance their agenda... 

As for Me, I like the whole Truth and have learned to live with things as they are, not as I want them to be!  But then I am a minority thinker and just a servant of the Word of Truth;  though not as defined by the popular press and some major social-political elements!  HUH!

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