Have you had any Sun Chips lately? If so, you would remember the experience. Last Earth Day in an effort to “go green,” Sun Chips came out with a new compostable package. It is the loudest packaging that I have ever heard in my life. My wife and I were astonished at how noisy it was when we first had one some months ago. It’s so loud that you hardly want to touch the bag. It’s that annoying.

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones annoyed. There’s now a Facebook page devoted to despising the Sun Chips bag. It’s titled “SORRY BUT I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THIS SUN CHIPS BAG,” and it has over 37,000 members. “The Today Show” reported about the widespread consumer dissatisfaction with the new packaging, and they found that the new bag is louder than the New York Subway. The Subway was 91 decibels, and the Sunchip bag was 95.

I wonder how long these bags will last. I predict not long. It’s not easy being green.

“The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm…

“It remains to be seen whether subtle, long-lasting environmental damage from the spill will be found, as has been the case after other large oil spills.”

-Justin Gillis, “U.S. Finds Most Oil From Spill Poses Little Additional Risk,” New York Times (August 4, 2010)

From the author of Forest Gump comes one of the saddest reports I’ve read about the oil spill yet. His description of the clean-up effort is particularly dispiriting. Winston Groom writes:

“So far, the effort to contain the spill has been pathetic. Oil washes up, and after a while a truck arrives with a cleaning crew hired from distant states, who mop-up or shovel it into plastic bags that may or may not get picked up later. They then return to sit under a tent until the next call comes or, as has happened in a few cases, a sheriff arrives to arrest them on outstanding warrants. Meantime, fleets of college kids using daddy’s fishing boat are being paid up to $2,000 a day to tool around looking for oil.”

Groom says that the government’s effort to clean-up the oil “has created a perfect storm of bureaucratic and regulatory gridlock.” Read the rest here.

This graphic shows a likely dispersal pathway for the oil spill over the next several months. It assumes that the spill runs continually from April 20 to June 20. As you can see, the oil moves around the Gulf coast, up the eastern seaboard, and out into the Atlantic. The Associated Press reports it this way:

“Oil could enter the Gulf’s loop current, go around the tip of Florida and as far north as Cape Hatteras, N.C. According to researchers, oil could threaten East Coast beaches by early July… The oil could then head by Bermuda on its way to Europe.”

Pray this ends soon.

(HT: Timmy Brister)