Uninformative news. What is a section? What percentage of the reef area are them? How near?

I forget who said it (Neil Tyson?), but something along the lines of: "If you hear a statistic, change the order of magnitude. Does that change how you feel about the fact? If not, the statistic is probably bullshit."

The dangers to the environment are there with any well, but it's not just Brazil that is endangering the Amazon, far upstream, in Iquitos, Peru, there are also several oil fields that are already being exploited. And (sometimes pretty violent) protests there are not because of environmental concerns but because foreign companies got the drilling rights, leaving many locals in fear they won't profit from the oil (which I get - it's a really poor area).

And I don't think environmental concerns count much in Brazil either, the economy has been in a long recession and lots of people are unemployed. Last month I did the trip from Belem (Atlantic coast), via Manaus, to Colombia on a slow boat used by locals: At least half the 500 or so passengers where going back to their villages in the jungle because in the big cities they cannot not find work anymore.