Every day, the news about the oil spill becomes increasingly soul crushing. And this news from Dan Froomkin significantly ups the soul crushing ante.
A new analysis of seafloor video indicates that nearly 70,000 barrels are gushing out every day, NPR reports. That is at least 10 times the U.S. Coast Guard's original estimate of the flow, and "the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker every four days."
And nobody really knows where it is, or where it's headed.
[...]
As a result, some scientists suspect that a lot, if not most, of the oil is lurking below the surface rather than on it, in a gigantic underwater plume the size and trajectory of which remain largely a mystery.
How do you stop something like this? How do you solve the crisis when no one really even knows the true extent of the situation?
And a significant majority of Americans still believe that the benefits of oil drilling outweigh the downsides. I can't grasp that reasoning -- and believe me, as a naturally curious man, I'm really trying to understand.
Adding... I realize that blogging about this every day doesn't make for a very cheery website. Honestly, I don't care. I strongly believe that we, as Americans, need to know exactly what's happening down there so we don't allow the tragedy to pass on by like any other news cycle.