Game Over
What follows is my personal opinion.
I think the gusher in the Gulf is a lot worse than anyone in industry or government wants to admit. BP is clearly panicking, flailing to contain the damage they said “was unlikely, or virtually impossible… to occur.
As I’ve said before, the fact that the media, the government, and the industry continue to call this disaster “a spill” betrays a complete and catastrophic misread of the situation: this isn’t a spill of a few hundred thousand gallons of oil (although that’s clearly unacceptable). This is almost certainly unstoppable, a geyser of highly pressurized oil spewing into one of the most productive fisheries in the entire world. The oil is predicted to head up the east coast, ruining coastlines, habitats, and livelihoods everywhere it goes. It may even hit the New Jersey shore this summer, which will do wonders for the states tourism industry as beachgoers flock to soak up the sun and the light sweet crude.
I think we have really done it this time. And by “really done it” I mean I think the human race has just Armageddon-ed itself. Apologies to those of you who were expecting a nuclear war or the slow burn of global warming. I think we may have given our oceans a death blow.
And now we are up to more than 2.6 million gallons of oil, and growing. It’s going to continue to grow, too.
I think we have shit the bed this time. And once you shit the bed, it is impossible to un-shit it. I think we have consigned ourselves to certain extinction.
I’d be happy to be wrong… but I don’t think I am. Our game of environmental Russian Roulette may well be over, and we lost.
