Greatest Tragedy of Gulf Oil Spill Isn't Environmental
The New York Times reported yesterday that "the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than expected" and that "the immense patches of surface oil that covered thousands of square miles of the gulf are largely gone."
While scientists continue to study the effects deeper in the ocean from dissolved oil, the Gulf is subject to natural oil seeps on a continual basis (although not of the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon spill), and the warm waters of the Gulf break down the oil through natural biological processes that include bacteria eating the oil.
People often underestimate the vast power of nature to respond to ecological threats through natural mechanisms. The greatest threat in the long run from the Gulf oil spill may not be ecological but rather economic and political. The Obama administration, eager to "not let a good crisis go to waste," is doing serious economic harm to Gulf residents through a moratorium on off-shore drilling. I suspect most Gulf residents would rather work than be dependent on handouts from a deal negotiated between the Obama administration and BP behind closed doors.
We may not know the full environmental impact from the Gulf oil spill for some time. The impact from government policies, however, is already being felt by many Gulf residents as they see their jobs disappearing as oil rigs pack up and head to foreign waters where they are more welcome.
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Ban is obviously political
Eli Porter argues the merits of the ban, but we all know the ban has nothing to do with merit. Obama tried to make a political statement by seeming to favor more offshore drilling, then we had a huge accident and he had egg on his face. The predictable response -- change course and come out with a ban, any type of ban, that could make himself look tough on offshore oil.
In reality, no regulation is going to have an impact. Having a major oil spill like this, and seeing the damage to BP, all oil companies will now do everything in their power to prevent a spill. This is in their own self-interest, which is why *it* will prevent spills. Now safety will be reintroduced as priority one -- at least for the next 20-30 years... Beyond that timeframe, people will forget about this tragedy and complacency will redevelop and another tragedy will ensure -- regardless of any regulation. Welcome to complex systems and human nature.
Eli Porter
I would like to point out that this article and all similar claims are uninformed at best. A few key points:
1. There are currently only 33 exploratory drilling platforms operational in the gulf. This is out of a total of 3,858 active platforms. The moratorium applies ONLY to exploratory drilling rigs (33) and does NOT affect those that are pumping.
2. Claims like the ones made in this article are designed to invoke images of a shuttered industry costing thousands and thousands of jobs where, in fact, there is virtually zero impact. I want to see figures. How many layoffs have there been since the moratorium went into affect? I can find no sources that even indicate anything other than "layoffs may occur" and "up to 20,000 jobs COULD be affected." Show me the numbers.
3. The article makes the common discrediting move of downplaying one issue to try to inflate another. Per the title, we are supposed to believe that somehow a catastrophe that more than 10 times as bad as Exxon Valdez on a volumetric basis is somehow not so bad and that it is the temporary closure of 33 platforms that is the real tragedy. What about the $2.5 billion hit on the gulf coast tourist industry? How many jobs you s'pose thats worth?
4. The article further attempts to play on the emotions of its readers by suggesting that the moratorium is completely unnecessary. Agreed that 6 months seems rather arbitrary and that the process should take much less time and rigs that pass should be brought back online as soon as they are cleared, but the real issue is that in the casse of the BP accident has proven that deepwater drilling WAS NOT SAFE. Some or even every other rig may be fine, but we need to prove that. DWH may be the only unsafe rig, but we cannot take that on faith. Should the process be done differently? Sure. Is it unnecessary? Don't believe it for a minute.
If you agree with my points, please re-publish this or post your own similar comments so that this article isn't blindly read and its messages accepted without refute.
And in the spirit of good journalism, something that the above article obviously does not live by, I cite my sources below:
Number of rigs affected: http://www.louisianaweekly.com/news.php?viewStory=2934
Number of active platforms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gulf_Coast_Platforms.jpg
July 27 Gulf Spill: http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/on-day-100-of-the-bp-disaster-u.s.-still-fighting-two-other-oil-spills
Tourist Industry Impact: http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/study_gulf_coast_region_will_l.html