Gulf Update Redux

From time to time Ned will reprint edited posts from months ago to see where he got things right and where he was wrong. This post was published on July 19.

This was taken from an article in today's (7/19) NYT: "The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected."
Now, Ned's followers will savor this line and recall Ned's earlier posts decrying the media-induced hysteria over the effects of the Transocean rig disaster. Ned cautioned against over-reacting, for the following reasons:
* He described the chances of any measurable oil getting into the Florida Keys as miniscule, quoting NOAA Administrator (and no BP stooge) Jane Lubchenco to that exact effect.
* He explained the Loop Current and said the chances of large amounts of un-degraded oil getting into the Loop Current to be small.
* He described the claim of a lawyer quoted in the NYT to the effect that "hypothetically" oil could contaminate the Atlantic and Mediterranean and bankrupt BP as preposterous. Hypothetically, there is a planet where people like Sharron Angle, Sarah Palin and Rand Paul make perfect sense.
* He pointed out that the high temperatures in the GOM made the spill there wholly un-comparable to the Valdez Alaska spill, where oil continues to degrade Prince William Sound today. The reason? Mainly that the water temp in PW Sound is close to 40 degrees, resulting in low evaporation and degradation rates, compared to a typical summer surface temp of the GOM closer to 90 degrees.
* He pointed out that the GOM has thousands of natural and man-made oil and methane seeps, which has allowed vast communities of oil-eating microbes to flourish.
*And finally, he decried the hysteria of the media and some left-wing bloggers who saw disaster and catastrophe at every turn, from exploding sea-floor wells, to destroyed beaches, to mass extinctions.
Now, the hysterics have destroyed the career of hapless former sneering plutocrat BP CEO Tony Hayward, cost innocent BP shareholders billions in lost income, cost state, local, and federal governments billions in tax revenue, cost Gulf businesses billions in lost economic activity, and cost pension funds in the UK and here tens of billions in losses as BP's share price tanked.
But why listen to scientists when we can listen to bloggers and the MSM, eh? Just think of the Republicans and climate change.