Overwhelmed with a challenge of epic proportions, BP makes both a smart PR move, and also an earnest plea for assistance. The company asked all citizens for innovative ideas to help in cleaning up the oil spill and stopping the leaks. interestingly enough, 3700 tips immediately appeared within the first few days of their announcement that they wanted help, ideas, and innovative solutions.

Even Russian Scientists called in, they of course are into “Going Big” – and one of their scientists suggested Nuking the bottom of the ocean in that region and that would collapse and cave in the hole, plugging it up forever. would it work? yes, actually it would and the Russians volunteered to come and set off one of their nukes for us off the coast there. “OMG!” said one environmentalist and oceanographer professor.

Unfortunately, even though a lot of people mean well, they really do, we have to be extremely careful. Let me give you another for instance. The USA Today reported in an article; “Idea for Making Booms: Shear Genius or Hairbrained?” by Elizabeth Weise shows a perfect example. The story was about a non-profit group which wanted to use panty hose with hair clippings inside to make barrier booms to stop the oil. but this is a really bad idea, let me explain.

You see, hair is very high in protein and it can cause flesh eating bacteria to flourish, which is probably the last thing you really want to introduce into the eco-system where fish and aquatic life swim. in fact, a few years ago, chicken feathers, and chicken waste escaped from a waste pool after a big flood in the Carolinas, and it ended up in the rivers, and then the ocean. This is how the flesh eating bacteria got out of control there.

Although this idea was not so hot, BP and the clean-up teams need to do something, we are all out of oil boom environmental devices here in the USA, and they cannot seem to make them fast enough, and time is running out, that oil is already hitting the shoreline, an eco-disaster in the making, although not a problem yet, it appears it surely will be, at least in some beach, inlet, and island locations.

As the coordinator for the Online think Tank, these sorts of issues are quite common from what I can tell. you see, not every idea is good, but every idea has the potential to lead you to an idea which will work, and perhaps to the best possible idea. please consider this.

British Petroleum BP Has Asked Citizens For Ideas to Assist in Cleaning Up the Oil Spill