FloridaRed Tide

Governor Crist gets on CNN and says all the right things, we suppose. In truth, we think there’s much more The State of Florida could be doing to keep this oil from washing up on it’s beaches en masse’. If we do, we’ll all be known (including you Governor Crist), as the heros that stopped the flow of Oil from going into the Atlantic and possibly, actually destroying all of mankind. Okay, maybe the BP Oil Leak isn’t a planet killer (how big does an oil spill have to get before it kills the planet anyway?), but if this oil gets into the Atlantic in large quantities, it will be a global disaster.

Of course there is risk for a Governor to do something about this. As you know our Governor is currently campaigning. If he was to go out there and try to get this oil, and fails to get it all, or even just looks silly doing it, his career could be over. So he has a huge motive to stick to traditional emergency response methods. After all traditional and conservative mean just about the same thing and here in FL they argue about who is more conservative like it’s a good thing.

Here’s the “traditional” forms of actions he’s taking:

• Requested $50 million from the federal government.
  • Half of which has been approved and delivered. It’s marked for marketing, of all things.
  • The other half hasn’t been decided on yet and that half is for beach clean up, booms, skimmers, etc.
• Requested $100 million “promptly” from BP for clean up and research projects
• Issued a State of Emergency for “virtually” the entire state of Florida
• Acting tough and concerned in public about the issue in the media
  • This is while still saying the beaches are clean and the water clear, come on down to FL and have some fun.

These aren’t bad things by any means.  But according the Admiral Thad Allen of the US Coast Guard, it’s not going to be enough.  He says “”It will be impossible to stop all of the oil from reaching the coast . . .”  I think everyone agrees that traditional methods aren’t going to work.  We at Florida Red Tide Solutions are certainly hoping for a plan that keeps the oil off the shore and limits it’s destruction a great deal.  We feel that almost anything is better than the current method of letting most of it wash ashore and then scrub the shore and each effected animal by hand.  We think the worst thing we could do about this oil spill, is to not try something new.

If the governor would do something bold, and it worked . . .

That would launch Charlie Crist to whole other political clout level.  right now he has a lot of respect from people because he split from his political party and is running as an independent.  Most of the public seems to be on the Fence about Mr. Crist’s move though.  If he doesn’t stand for the Republican party’s ideals, than what does he stand for?  If the parties are bogging us down and preventing us from getting major projects like this one,  can you show us how it’s done?

If he plays his cards right, Florida, America and the entire world will gain an whole new level of respect for Charlie Crist.  Imagine this scenario:

Mr. Crist tries the alfalfa idea (or whatever one out there makes the best fit for the situation) and it works. The Governor is sure to in his campaign.  In future campigns he could point to this as why he’s so much better now that he’s not with either political party.  We think that’s exactly the position a politician wants to be in, isn’t it?

By the way, we picked the Alfalfa Solution for this scenario because it’s the best politically, we haven’t examined the science behind any oil spill clean up methods. which makes great sense because it’s a Florida crop in high supply, that can be had for cheap and it gets all the oil, not just makes it sink to the bottom.  And it can be had in mass quantities, for cheap, right now.

So governor, we know you at least have your people read our blog, what do you think?  Do you want the take the safe road and risk a fast road to retirement, or do want to take some action, get something done and be remembered for it forever?