What BP isn't telling you: Not just an American problem.

WASHINGTON, DC (Herald de Paris) - So much of the handling of this BP Oil Disaster (a name for this mess we are advocating as it does not downgrade the situation, since IT’S NOT A SPILL) has been left to BP, out of the hands of the international science community and away from US federal agencies, I thought I might remind you all of what might happen if this hemorrhaging of crude oil is allowed to continue much longer:  Think Gulf Stream.

Called “The North Atlantic Drift” in Europe, the Gulf Stream is perhaps the most influential current on our planet.  It is responsible for the movement of warm, equatorial waters up the East coast of the United States, bringing with it an abundance of sea life that – right or wrong – is responsible for a substantial portion of the US seafood industry.

More importantly, the Gulf Stream crosses the Atlantic Ocean diagonally, and is responsible for making the waters of the Scandinavian countries navigable all year round, thus affecting shipping of goods and products around the world.  In fact, the winds blowing over the warmer Gulf Stream is the primary reason places like London and Paris don’t get colder, in the winters.

The warm Gulf Stream waters come off the equator and South America, hugging the coastline of Central America to the Yucatan Peninsula.  Some of the waters move directly Northward along the Eastern Caribbean, but others enter the Gulf of Mexico before being carried through the Caribbean Sea, where it rejoins the rest of the Gulf Stream heading Northward.

Ultimately, BP’s escaped crude oil will be carried right into the Gulf Stream.

Here’s where it gets hairy.  Some of the Gulf Stream waters move directly Eastward towards the Western Coast of Africa, where subtropical recirculation sends it right back to the Brazilian coast of South America, back up the coast, and right back into the Gulf of Mexico.  And if it isn’t bad enough that, like a boomerang, some of this crude oil will end up right back where it first shot out of the deep source below the Gulf, what happens to the rest of it is even more concerning.

The crude oil that will be carried by the Northward fork of the Gulf Stream will cross the Atlantic and eventually cause ecological and aquatic food chain issues.  That’s right, BP tar balls will eventually wash ashore in the United Kingdom (kind of fitting), France, Spain, Portugal, and the Scandinavian countries.

The remainder of the article can be found at:

http://www.heralddeparis.com/what-bp-isnt-telling-you-this-isnt-just-an-american-problem/94513