Since man discovered fire, we have learned that any form of energy production holds risk. Fire cooked our food, lit the night so the wild animals stayed away, kept us warm, removed old vegetation at the end of the hunting season so that new growth would attract game in the coming spring. Fire also burned our skin and destroyed our homes. Every form of energy–wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and others–carries its unique downsides. Drilling carries the risk of oil spills. In BP’s case, oil spews from a pipe a mile underwater. Waterfowl and turtles wash ashore. Fish die by the score. Fishermen can’t work. In all, it is a mess that will cost billions in lost revenue and cleanup of catastrophic proportion.
Things look bad in the Gulf of Mexico. You might summarize editorials about British Petroleum’s (BP) Deepwater Horizon accident and spill: The gulf is dying! The gulf is dying!
No, it’s not. There have been bigger spills in the last 40 years. Oil has spilled into the ocean before: naturally, accidentally, and on purpose.
BP’s rig was still afire when the inevitable question about drilling on the continental shelf surfaced: Is it worth the risk? The short answer is yes.
The BP spill fiasco is a big gooey deal, yet if this spill behaves as all the other spills have, the setback will be temporary and not the end of the vegetation, wildlife, tourism, seafood, or anything else in the gulf. The states along the gulf coast should be back to normal within a year after experts plug the leak.
Consider the biggest spill in history: The 1991 Persian Gulf oil spill. Saddam Hussein ordered the destruction of the Kuwaiti oil fields and had the valves opened at the oil terminal near Kuwait City, dumping between six and eight million barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf. Greenpeace and others predicted “unprecedented” destruction of fragile ecological services and possibly large-scale extinctions. Similar fears are being voiced now. “We may well be living with the consequences of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill for the rest of the 21st century,” wrote James Gibson in a recent Press-Democrat editorial. Professor Gibson, who teaches sociology at Cal State Long Beach, may be right about the social consequences. Yet if history holds he should miss the mark for the environmental consequences by 89 years. The effects shouldn’t last two years, let alone until 2100.
Just one year after the largest marine oil spill in human history, a team of researchers from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission at Unesco found little lasting damage to the coral and fisheries in the affected area. The area’s animal life was in better shape than even the most optimistic pundits had predicted. The oil had evaporated, broken up and had been digested by microbes, or formed annoying bits of tar.
One year is a long time and damage is occurring, but the harm is not as lasting as the current frenzy would lead us to believe. In the meantime, President Obama has appointed a commission to investigate the cause of the spill and recommend fixes. The “National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling” will do what commissions always do: Convene, look solemn, hear testimony, write a report that no one will read because the effects will have already passed.
We’ve seen this drama before but, like my father who had dementia, have forgotten the ending. So we worry about the future. The answer to the question of whether we should drill or not drill is only nominally political. It’s primarily economics: Follow the money. We vote with our wallets. Now we might not allow the drilling in our backyard, but that hardly is the point. We need our energy fix. Get it from the North Sea or Nigeria, but get it. In the meantime, as we watch endless loops of oily birds, remember this: the gooey mess is not permanent.
Nullius in Verba 
BP lying again. They have zero credibility. Ruin our coast and lie the entire way through it. Oil is great, eh?
It’s not the oil that is great. It’s the energy we derive from it. So far nobody has found anything that has as much power per unit as oil.
Though you’re right, BP is looking like a bunch of greasy weasels.
Help Save Our Wetlands and Animals
How? What is your plan? I would like to know what you think would work.
been following your blog for 3 days now and i should say i am starting to like your post. and now how do i subscribe to your blog?
Click the “subscribe” radio button.
It seems like there is finally some good news with the spill. The Houston Chronicle reports, U.S. ships were being outfitted earlier this month with four pairs of skimming booms airlifted from the Netherlands and should be deployed within days.” Finally a good sign. For all those feeling pretty gloomy about this situation, I recommend a good laugh… Here’s a funny joke, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3j7uSbccSc
The well has been officially declared dead.
This entire catastrophe with BP is ridiculous. The total amount of leaking into the Gulf of Mexico skyrocketed by 1000s of barrelfuls Wednesday after an subaquatic robot seemingly hit the containment cap that has been capturing petroleum from BP’s Macondo well. I question how much desolation this entire incident is going to cost the gulf when it’s all over and done with
I agree. BP has been stupendously uneven in its handling of this mucking disaster. They’ve taken responsibility and disingenuously downplayed the amounts. As to the long-term effects of the spill, look to Ixtoc I’s spill into the Gulf of Mexico in 1979 and Saddam Hussein’s dumping of oil into the Persian Gulf in 1991 as templates for what will likely happen. These spills happened in warm waters with similar climates.
For more on other spills locations and amounts see:
The World’s Worst Oil Spills by Amount of Oil Released Into the Environment (http://environment.about.com/od/environmentalevents/tp/worst-oil-spills.htm?nl=1)
Over the past 40 years (including BP’s spill) the amount of oil spilled into the ocean is down 90%.