Word: oiling
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...sharp drop in demand for Alberta oil, plus auto-plant shutdowns in Ontario, have pushed Canada's trade deficit for May to an all-time high of $1.2 billion. This is in contrast to to a much smaller merchandise-trade deficit of $346 million reported in April and a healthy surplus of $979 million in March, according to the government agency Statistics Canada. (See 10 things to buy during the recession...
...suddenly cratering? Many in Canada blame the U.S., the country's biggest trading partner, whose bankrupt car companies have thrown a wrench into the domestic automotive industry. At the same time, continued contraction of the U.S. economy means energy exports are suffering. (Canada is the biggest supplier of foreign oil to the U.S. economy, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.) Year-over-year energy exports tanked 54%, to $4.8 billion, for the month of May, and automotive exports fell 38%, to $2.67 billion. Total year-over-year exports declined 33%, to $25.3 billion...
...what was it? An oil slick? Some sort of immense, amorphous organism adrift in some of the planet's most remote waters? Maybe a worrisome sign of global climate change? Or, as folks who followed the blob via the Internet wondered, was it something insidious and perhaps even carnivorous like the man-eating jello from the old Steve McQueen movie that inspired the Alaska phenomenon's nickname? (Read Richard Corliss's review of The Thing, a sci-fi film set in the Arctic...
...responded as if it were an oil product," says Coast Guard Petty Officer Terry Hasenauer. "It was described to us as an oil-like substance, thick and lingering below the surface of the water. Those characteristics can indicate heavy, degraded oil, maybe crude oil or possibly an intermediate fuel oil." Meanwhile, the story spread over the Internet like an oil spill, giving lots of people a queasy feeling. (Read about the coming battle for the resources of the Arctic...
Test results released on July 16 showed that the blob wasn't oil but a plant - a massive bloom of algae. While that may seem less dangerous, people are still uneasy. It's something the mostly Inupiat Eskimo residents along Alaska's northern coast say they cannot remember seeing before. (See pictures of the Arctic...