This doesn't seem like the sort of happy news one would expect on the 4th of July:
Hundreds of skimming boats prepared Friday to return to calmer gulf waters in the wake of Hurricane Alex and resume cleanup of the massive BP oil spill, which scientists now predict is likely to reach the Florida Keys and Miami in the months ahead.
Using computer simulations based on 15 years of wind and ocean current data, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report Friday showing a 61% to 80% chance of the oil spill reaching within 20 miles of the coasts of the Florida Keys, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, mostly likely in the form of weathered tar balls.
Shorelines with the greatest chance of being soiled by oil — 81% to 100% — stretch from the Mississippi River Delta to the western Florida Panhandle, NOAA scientists said in astatement on its projections for the next four months.
Who's to say that it won't go further? Who's to say that the Caribbean as a whole won't be affected in some way before the oil is washed out of the Gulf of Mexico and into the Atlantic Ocean? Tar balls and oil balls and dead things and poisoned waters will wash up in unexpected places for years, perhaps. I don't know.
I do know one thing--without figuring out how to contain and clean up these sorts of spills, there's just no way that further deep-sea oil drilling should continue. I get that we need this oil and that we need the jobs. I think that it is well past time to re-design and re-tool and start the long process of moving away from oil with serious efforts. Two billion for solar power just isn't anywhere near enough.
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