How much should BP fork over, and to who

Then try Sarin. Or better still, Botulin.

 

Okay.

As a gas, Sarin is entirely safe if kept under 0.5 milligrams per cubic meter of air per minute. And it's not lethal until 100 times that. You are still four orders of magnitude off from it being dangerous, and seven from it being lethal.

Botulinum is a better choice (obviously, as the most toxic substance known to man). Orally ingested, it's lethal at approximately 70 micrograms, or roughly one ten-billionth of the weight of your average human being, so you are still about 30 times larger than the concentration of oil in the gulf. (Assuming the largest end of the estimates are correct, and none of the oil has been cleaned up in any way).

Injected straight into the bloodstream, the lethal dose of botulinum is estimated to be about 400 times less, though, so now you are one order of magnitude larger than you need to be.



So if instead of oil, the Gulf of Mexico was poisoned with the most toxic substance known to man, and my vacation plans involved injecting the water straight into my bloodstream, then I'd probably have to be worried. But otherwise, nope, still not worried.

 

Wait, let me do that math again.

86 million miligrams for the average human, and Botulinum is lethal at .15 micrograms, or 0.00015 milligrams.

That means the lethal dose of Botulinum is equal to roughly 1 part per 573,333,333,333. So we're actually at the exact same order of magnitude, not one larger.

 

And all of that is completely irrelevant but Az doesn't want to address the original point.

 

Wait.

You mean to tell me that various toxins will produce variable effects on a body regardless of its size? And that the size of the body alone can't guarantee the neutralization of every toxin you put into it?

Huh.

 

Actually, I mean at that level of dilution, pretty much nothing can hurt you. And it's funny to watch you spin your wheels while trying to disprove it with oh-so-subtle sarcasm, only to have it make you look uninformed.

If the most toxic substance known to man is just barely lethal when injected straight into the bloodstream at the same concentration as the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, you can be 100% certain that swimming in the Gulf in an area with no obvious oil slicks isn't going to hurt you or your kids.

 

Are there people who are really unable to say that the media played no role in exacerbating the economic impact of the oil leak?

Played no role?

Honestly, the media's inability to be self critical is one of its biggest weaknesses.

The media is so quick to point out the flaws, the greed, the corruption in other industries, but is never willing to shine the spotlight on itself.

Only in the rarest cases, and only when they're forced to, like with Jayson Blair, are they willing to investigate their own practices.

Did any media outlet thoroughly investigate the false claim that a Koran was flushed down the toilet at Guantánamo? Where did the story come from? How was it verified? And, how many people were killed as a result?

 

Your logic is flawed since the oil was not effecting the entire Gulf. It was only effecting a fraction.

Redo the math by calculation the square footage of the Gulf involved in the spill. I am going to guess 1/10th of the Gulf (rig to shore on a Northeastern line).

So 1/10th of 3.5 bil is 1 part per 35 million.

Still a huge ratio, but you cannot look at the entire Gulf.

 

Agreed. But I think I addressed that when I said 'no obvious oil slick' caveat. If you are in the area directly affected by the oil, i.e. the Louisiana coastline, then I wouldn't want to swim there. But anywhere else in the Gulf? Go nuts.

 

OK. So, what was the ratio of oil to water near the beaches?

A lot less than that -- especially in places like Galveston & Clearwater.

Yet the media hysteria kept people away from the entire Gulf region.

 

I'm willing to say that maybe it wasn't the media so much as people's natural inclination to be fearful. But either way, the media failed to help the situation and explain the oil in its proper context.

 

Right. There are ignorant people out there who only hear part of the story. That's how you get 20% of the population believing Obama is a Muslim.

And, maybe the media can't cure ignorance, but it could have been more fair minded.

The coverage of this story -- especially on cable TV -- was no different, no better than the "Summer of the Shark" coverage or the Chandra Levy coverage.

They had a blockbuster story, and they ran with it. They hyped. They used it to drive ratings, and to do that, they focused on worst case scenarios & scared the living shit out of some people.

And when BP decided to spend their own money on PR -- to tell a part of the story that no one else was telling -- they were criticized by the media and by the President himself.