Although the spill has stopped, questions remain. How are the fish and the shrimp? What about the birds? Where did the oil that BP and the government can’t account for go? Did the dispersants hurt or help? I have at least a dozen more. As you’ve thought about the spill, you’ve probably come up with your own. Since we can’t ask the fish, birds or the oil for answers we ask those with the expertise to glean them. The scientists.
I turned to the one scientist I’d met covering the children’s symposium put on by the Moss Point Visionary Circle, Dr. Mark LaSalle. He is the director of the Pascagoula River Audubon center and has been on the ground there for six years, working with the bird enthusiasts, other environmental groups, government agencies and more. He agreed to talk with me and we met at the center on the river last Tuesday.
Mark is a very likable guy. To my untrained mind (I learned all the science I know back in high school), his approach to the spill contains no agenda, is based upon his experience and the data that is just now starting to surface on the aftermath. In a word, scientific. He also has the enthusiasm of Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, and their ability to translate arcane data into words normal folks like me can understand. It’s people like Mark we’ll need over the coming months and even years to explain what’s happening in the Gulf after the BP oil spill.
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