Let's drill off shore

... instead of all the oil fields that we can and aren't drilling in. And let's just burn, baby burn, and keep on burning until we all burn. I guess this is hell, almost.

Baby penguins found dead by the hundreds

While it is com­mon here to find some pen­guins—both dead and alive—swept by strong ocean cur­rents from the Strait of Ma­gel­lan, Pi­menta said there have been more this year than at any time in re­cent mem­o­ry.

Res­cuers and those who tre at pen­guins are di­vid­ed over the pos­si­ble causes. Thi­ago Mu­niz, a vet­er­i­nar­ian at the Niteroi Zoo, said he be­lieved overfishing has forced the pen­guins to swim fur­ther from shore to find fish to eat “and that leaves them more vul­ner­a­ble to get­ting caught up in the strong ocean cur­rents.”

Niteroi, the state’s big­gest zoo, al­ready has al­ready received about 100 pen­guins for treat­ment this year and many are drenched in pe­tro­le­um, Mu­niz said. The Cam­pos oil field that sup­plies most of Bra­zil’s oil lies off­shore.

Mu­niz said he had­n’t seen pen­guins suf­fer­ing from the ef­fects of oth­er pol­lu­tants, but he po int­ed out that al­ready dead pen­guins aren’t brought in for treat­ment.

Pi­menta sug­gested pol­lu­tion is to blame. “A­side from the oil in the Cam­pos ba­sin, the pol­lu­tion is lo w­er­ing the an­i­mals’ im­mun­ity, leav­ing them vul­ner­a­ble to fun­guses and bac­te­ria that at­tack their lungs,” Pi­menta said, quot­ing bi­ol­o­gists who work with him.

But bi­olo­g­ist Erli Cos­ta of Ri­o de Janeiro’s Fed­er­al Uni­ver­s­ity sug­gested we ath­er pat­terns could be in­volved. “I don’t think the lev­els of pol­lu­tion are high enough to af­fect the birds so quick­ly. I think in­stead we’re see­ing more young and sick pen­guins be­cause of glob­al warm­ing, which af­fects ocean cur­rents and cre­ates more cy­clones, mak­ing the seas rougher,” Cos­ta said.

Will we ever stop the greed and disregard for life of the oligarchy? Probably not.