OK — while debate continues over just how fast the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill is dispersing, some thoughts on perspective.

Compare the Deepwater spill to these figures, based on a number of sources and used in an exhibit by the Smithsonian.

Deepwater is estimated to have released somewhere around 210 million gallons into the ocean.

Check that number against those in the link? That’s right.  Every year,  we dump more than 360 million gallons of oil into the ocean from our storm drains — most of it from road runoff and oil changes. And that’s a 15-year-old estimate, so the figure is probably higher now.  Let me know if you find newer information.

Add that to the 137 million gallons released into the ocean from routine maintenance — bilge cleaning of ships and so forth — and you come up with this:

Every twenty weeks, we spew a Deepwater Horizon’s worth of oil into the world’s oceans  — without giving it a thought.

But, as Dr. Tittle points out in the comments, crude is not the same as processed oil, and Deepwater Horizon was a single source event affecting a single marine area, while the other numbers are global, spreading around the pollution.

Like this excellent post says: It’s time to get beyond debates about  “organic” vs “conventional” and move toward developing an agriculture that is better than either: highly productive while at the same time highly sustainable, good for our health and good for the planet, wisely using resources while getting food equitably to poor and rich.  This is a reachable goal, but not if we get mired down in debating categories.  I like a lot of things about organic farming, but it’s not a cure-all. GMO is not a cure-all. Local farming is not a cure-all. Industrial agriculture is not a cure-all. We need to use the best of each.

Genetically modified canola spreads in Midwest.

Media chatter in the past few weeks spurred by the “Pepsigate” exodus from scienceblogs.com has focused attention on “science bloggers” – whatever those are.

I guess I’m one of them. The problem is, there’s no such thing – at least not in the singular. Instead, “science blogger” is a conglomerate term used loosely to describe people who fall into one or another of several categories:

1) Scientists who use the internet. Some of these professionals relay and get feedback on research questions; some push an agenda; some vent about their lives and jobs; some act more like science journalists, providing context and commentary for non-scientists.
2) Science journalists who use the internet. This group, some working for media companies, some freelancers, generally relay news of scientific findings, occasionally with discussion.
3) Corporate and nonprofit PR types exploring ways to profit or raise their groups’ profiles on the internet.
4) Activists using science to promote an agenda.
5) Science fans blogging about their favorite disciplines.

There are probably others. Point is, though, that little is gained from lumping together such a disparate group, given the differences in their backgrounds and goals.

Instead, we should throw out the term “science blogger” — too loose, too squishy — and substitute simpler, more descriptive ones, like “scientist,” “science journalist,” “PR writer,” or whatever. Yes, these terms can be a little vague, too (who’s to say who gets to call themselves a “science journalist”?) but it’s a start.

I’ll go first: I am a science writer.

One of my favorite science-writer-type sites, KSJ Tracker, ran a good summary today of recent news reports that — gasp! — the long-term effects of the Gulf oil spill are not going to be as bad as most people feared. They were nice enough to mention my earlier posts (here and here). Thanks for the nod, KSJT.

Will e-books kill printed books?

Ummm. . . on brief reflection, no. On a little more reflection, hell no. In fact, e-books might save the printed book.

Buried in Amazon’s release about skyrocketing Kindle book sales was the fact that while Amazon’s Kindle e-book sales were up, so were hardcover sales. More e-books and more hardcovers sold, both at the same time. Hmm. . .

That’s just on Amazon. But traditional print publishing is having a very good year overall.  Traditional book publisher’s sales are up almost 10 percent over last year, driven by strong sales in the Adult Hardcover category. Take a look at that link, which goes to a release from the Association of American Publishers. According to their stats, at the same time e-book sales were rocketing, adult trade hardcover (those are the new books you see in bookstores) was also zooming along, with sales up more than 20 percent over last year. Of course, last year’s sales were dismal, but hmm. . . .

A few days ago Knopf announced that Kindle sales for Stieg Larsson’s most recent book, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” have topped sales of the hardcover. More than a million of Larsson’s three thrillers have sold in e-book versions. But – and here’s the important part — at the same time that a million people downloaded the e-book, sales of the author’s books are also setting records in paperback and audio. Hardcover sales of the most recent entry, the publisher said, had not been hurt by the  e-edition.

Final bit of info to throw into the mix: What’s true for publishers also appears to be true for booksellers.  One recent study of the nation’s 51 largest independent bookstores found sales steady through the first six months of this year. This is encouraging news. People don’t go into their local independent bookstore to buy an e-book.

OK — good stats in this industry are hard to come by, so I have to patch together bits and pieces like this, which do no more than hint at a possible trend. But it’s pretty interesting to think that e-books might help revitalize the old print book industry. Remember how the movie industry has moaned for 100 years  about every new development — TV is going to kill the movies! VHS is going to kill the movies! DVDs are going to kill the movies! — but in fact, all those new technologies simply increased the number of people who watch movies? Maybe something similar is happening with books.

In other words, It’s beginning to look like e-books, instead of cannibalizing sales from traditional print books, might revive  interest in reading, bring in new eyes, open up the market to people who might not otherwise read a book at all.

By expanding the universe of readers, e-books might save book publishing.

Being trained in microbiology, I can’t help but think about what happens when we feed millions of gallons of crude oil to billions of  sea-going, oil-eating Gulf bacteria — especially when we’re doing it right in the middle of the infamous “Dead Zone” caused by fertilizer pollution. I write about the potential Gumbo of Disaster here.

There’s nothing more interesting than an intellectual slugfest. Well, OK, there are a lot of things more interesting than an intellectual slugfest, but this one is worth a look if you’re interested in the future of food.

In this corner  . . . . Robert Paarlberg, political scientist and author of “Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know.” In his recent piece in Foreign Policy magazine, he had the temerity to take on the organic farm movement, lock, stock, and barrel. The central question:  whether we can grow enough food organically to feed the fast-growing population of the world during coming decades.

And in this corner. . . His piece was quickly rebutted by Anna Lappé, daughter of environmental activist Frances Moore Lappé (author of “Diet for a Small Planet) and co-founder with her mother of the Small Planet Institute. Her piece, “Don’t Panic, Go Organic,” engendered its own slew of feedback.

The two pieces make  great, provocative reading. And the comments attached to the articles make for an enlightening insight into the state of “us vs. them” thinking that currently enlivens — and cripples –  the exploration of this issue.

Even better: One of my favorite online journals, Seed Magazine, is setting up a debate to examine the, um . . . debate.  Should be good.

Anyone who grew up in the 1980s in Oregon remembers the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. I can still see the smoke billowing from the crater and the “Day After” sense of waking up to a world turned black and white, everything coated with half-an-inch of gray, soft ash. There were earthquakes and floods and the release of energy — mostly in the form of a single, huge explosion — that equaled 1,600 Hiroshima-sized bombs. Mt. St. Helens was once a beautiful, symmetrical, Fuji-like ice cream cone. Now it looks beheaded.

My Icelandic friend Jón Ágúst Guðjónsson has been keeping me up to date on the latest in the eruption there, with its melting glaciers,  floods, and air traffic disruption across Northern Europe. For any volcano junkies out there, today he sent out a link to this very good site (hit the “News Iceland” link), which has the latest news and access to webcams for live views of the eruption.

OK, get this:

“According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average 1960s farmer grew enough food to feed 26 people. Today, the average farmer feeds 144 people. According to another estimate, farmers now grow twice as much food as their parents did, using on average less land, water, fertilizers and pesticides.”

That’s from Minnesota’s Commissioner of Agriculture in a recent op-ed, and it’s terrific news. But read it carefully: There are some less-than-terrific reasons hidden behind the amazing increase in US farm productivity, like the flight of of family farmers (fewer small farms and more big, heavily mechanized farms means fewer farmers growing more food), growth of corporate industrial farming, increasing use of large-scale monoculture, etc.

Per acre, these big outfits are generally more efficient at using chemicals, and the chemicals are better — more powerful per pound — so we use fewer pounds. But the fact is that US agriculture is more hooked on them than ever. And note that the commissioner cleverly omits herbicides from his list. Herbicide use has gone through the roof.