I can't stop thinking about the oil spill. Who could, with 24/7 live images of a gushing geyser polluting the Gulf of Mexico and at least four states with unrelenting force? Weeks ago, I remarked to my family that this catastrophe was worse than 9/11. It does not have the dramatic impact of what happened that horrible day, nor the resulting geopolitical ramifications. The oil spill looks less like a Greek tragedy than a Shakespearean dark comedy of errors, as evidenced by that viral YouTube video depicting BP execs fretting over how to clean up a spilled cup of coffee.
Details of what happened to precipitate the April 20th explosion have yet to be revealed. And the criminal investigation launched too late may never assign proper blame. Yes, the dreaded scoundrels of BP are at fault, Deepwater Horizon played a role and Haliburton made a cameo appearance. The people who run the Minerals Management Service were apparently too busy watching Internet porn to notice the gross overreach of corporate interests at the expense of environmental safety. The Obama administration underestimated this calamity from the start, barely registering a reaction until nine days after the event, waffling about who is in charge of fixing the mess, and only now demanding that BP come up with better methods of containing the oil within 48 hours, as of yesterday.
We see Thad Allen of the Coast Guard and BP's Chief Operating Officer Doug Settles giving news updates, along with a continuous loop of oil-drenched pelicans, beleaguered fishermen and the tide bringing in the slick slop. Reporters troll the shorelines interviewing people who came for a day at the beach and leave with sore throats and nausea. Clean-up crews are on some affected sites, while others remain untouched. Louisiana and Alabama politicians wail and beg for relief as Ragin' Cajun James Carville unleashes his fury at everyone involved. Even schoolchildren's ideas for solving the crisis are being vetted.
But the crude keeps coming. As a friend of mine posted on his Facebook status: future students of the environment will be taught in two categories, pre-BP and post-BP. There's no end to the dire consequences of this horror in economic, ecological and health-related terms. Yet the U.S. government is dragging its feet, BP is evading responsibility and no one in the world has a clue how to halt the damage. It's infuriating, embarrassing and pathetic. Dick Cheney, who authored energy policy during the Bush years behind closed doors and in total secrecy, is noticeably absent in all of this. As citizens, we also need to examine the part we play as oil-addicted consumers who can't be bothered to carpool or support a greener lifestyle.
I can't stop thinking about the oil spill. And it looks like it will be spilling clear to Christmas and beyond.
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"Slick slop" is a good name for a rock band.
ReplyDeleteI think they will get the spill stopped in August or September, but Christmas is threatened by lots of oil still coming on shore.
The Miami Herald published a good story last week on the years following the Ixtoc spill, much of which washed ashore in South Texas - San Padre Island, etc... It was bad, but not calamitous (sp.?). Maybe, just maybe, the resilience of nature will surprise us.
But the lesson is clear. All human designed and maintained systems decay with entropy and hubris. "There hasn't been a spill in 30 years." And as we prepare to expand our nuclear power capability, a parallel argument is advanced. How about our technical community being really careful and questioning on this topic? I only know one nuclear engineer personally - and he is not convinced. We still haven't solved the age old problem of disposal/safe storage of spent fuel.