Skip to main content
Donate

L.A. in Deepwater

By Yoli Martinez
May 10, 2010
Support Provided By

Los Angeles has been the backdrop for many disaster movies - volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis destroy the city about once every year. Many enjoy sitting through an hour and a half of Mother Nature bent on bringing every single palm tree down. But an L.A. sized version of the real-life Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf Coast would give Hollywood producers a run for their money.

Over at The Atlantic, columnist James Fallow shares an interesting little utility from Paul Radamarcher's site. The tool shows the Deepwater Horizon oil spill compared to the size of a city. Fallow notes the "surprising power that different visual renderings of reality can have, in changing our ability to understand, or at least begin to envision, what is going on around us."

The size of the oil spill is even more shocking when juxtaposed with a map of L.A. - all of the city is covered. I commute from UC Irvine (zot!zot!) to the KCET studios in Los Feliz by train. The one hour train ride would not get me out of the oil spill zone, only half way through! If this were a Hollywood disaster movie I would probably not be a survivor. The oil spill is that big.

oilspillLA.jpg

The spill can be compared to any city, or state if it is small enough. Try it out here.

Support Provided By
Read More
An oil pump painted white with red accents stands mid-pump on a dirt road under a blue, cloudy sky with a green, grassy slope in the background.

California’s First Carbon Capture Project: Vital Climate Tool or License to Pollute?

California’s first attempt to capture and sequester carbon involves California Resources Corp. collecting emissions at its Elk Hills Oil and Gas Field, and then inject the gases more than a mile deep into a depleted oil reservoir. The goal is to keep carbon underground and out of the atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to climate change. But some argue polluting industries need to cease altogether.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Inside Climate News