Environment Spew #  [017]  --  Rush Numballs Soils His Trousers Again 

As Letterman recently observed, since getting re-married for, what?, the 5th time, Rush Limbaugh is on a Viagra drip.  But he still has time to show the world how ignorant he is.  

I recently got one of those be-a-patriot-and- pass-it-on Emails from a Numballs fan, who also happens to be one of my best friends, which is the only reason I read it.  It showed the graph below, which was produced by the  "official climatologist" for EIB, Numballs' phony Excellence In Broadcasting carnival.  Here's the link to the Numballs site where the graph is found:

 http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/ home/daily/site_060110/ content/01125111.guest.html

And here's part of the Numballs Jun01.2010 broadcast transcript explaining the graph:

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I have something here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. The official climatologist of the EIB Network, Roy Spencer, has sent in a chart of oil spills through the years. The second-to-smallest oil spill through the years since 1991 to present is the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. A deliberate spill by Iraqi forces 1991-1992 spilled 500 million gallons of oil.  Average yearly spills, rigs and tankers, global, every year, 250 million gallons of oil spilled from rigs and tankers.  As I keep talking about: In 1979, the Ixtoc 1 rig in the Gulf of Mexico spilled about 140 million gallons.  Then the Amoco Cadiz, which is a ship, the English Channel, about 60 million.  Torrey Canyon, south England, a ship, about 30 million.  The Exxon Valdez was 11 million. And so far we're at about 25 or 30 million gallons; this is assuming 15,000 barrels a day through May at the Deepwater Horizon rig.  So it's the second smallest oil spill since 1991 or '92.  Not that it isn't bad, don't misunderstand. I'm just trying to put things in perspective.

Just today Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar reported for a governmental working group that the flow is between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day -- yes, at least 2x, maybe 4x, the flow reported by Numballs.  So much for the "excellence" part.  And a quick fact-check at Wikipedia shows that Rush and his "official climatologist" are totally full of BS (OK, no surprise there.) with respect to the relative size of the DW spill.  

For a more accurate and objective appraisal of the relative size of the DW spill, have a look at Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_oil_spill#cite_ref-35

After just 57 days, the DW spill already ranks somewhere between 2nd and 4th in terms of the all-time most gallons spilled. 

Number 3 is the 1979 Ixtoc spill shown in Numballs' graph -- that spill gushed for 9 months before it was capped, and it was only in 150 ft of water.  You can easily get divers down to 150 ft.  I've been to 225 ft myself.  So if it takes divers 9 months to cap a gusher at 150 ft. how long will it take to cap one 1 mile deep?  A number of estimates already put DW ahead of Ixtoc in terms of amount of oil spilled.  I can guarantee you that by the time they get this thing capped, it will be far, far beyond Ixtoc.  Of course, someone as simple minded as Numballs, just ignores the obvious fact that we are on a timeline here.  Numballs takes a snap-shot of this mess as of June 01, about 40 days after the DeepWater explosion, and he compares that to the Ixotc spill that lasted 9 months and he concludes "Hey, the Ixtoc spill was a lot worse."  These are the idiot tricks he uses to distort the truth. 

The second worse oil "spill" is Sadam's 1991 intentional spill to prevent US Marines from landing during the first Gulf War, also shown in the EIB graph.  DeepWater is presently estimated at about 50% of Sadam's spill.  But, again, we have a long way to go before the fat lady has sung in this tragedy, and DW could easily surpass the Sadam mess.  Hopefully, whoever is responsible for the DW spill will meet a fate similar to Sadam's.  They would just as surely deserve it.   

The dubious distinction of being the largest oil spill in history goes to a 1910 gusher in Kern County, California -- the Lakeview Gusher.  This one is not even shown on Numballs' graph. It spewed 9 million barrels over a period of 18 months -- or half a million barrels per month.  By comparison, DeepWater is gushing at somewhere between 1 and 2.5 million barrels a month.  Clearly, DW is not going to go 18 months without being capped.  But if it is spewing at 5x the rate of Lakeview, it will only take another 60 days for DW to win numero uno honors.

So it's gotta' just make you wonder: Who the hell is "official climatologist" Roy Spencer?  And even if he is a climatologist, so what?  A climatologist is no more of an expert on oil spills than a protologist or chiropodist.  Roy Spencer, "EIB official climatologist" is a smoke screen for the fact that Numballs doesn't have any more of a clue where his "data" are coming from as he does what the data mean.