Deepwater Horizon- day 20
edlorah
location: The Recession Will Not Be Televised
listening to: http://www.instantrimshot.com/
registered: 1999.12.27
posts: 3664
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It's May 10th - twenty days after the explosion that sunk the Deepwater Horizon, and opened the
oil volcano at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that continues to spew an estimated 5,000- 25,000
barrels of crude oil daily into the biological web of life we call the Gulf. So far the 'Best Minds of
our Generation' haven't a clue how to staunch the wound we have opened.
We can argue responsibility until the Gulf becomes a flammable Dead Sea. It seems academic
at this
point who to fix blame upon: the lawyers will figure that out soon enough. Ross is right about one
thing: we all contributed to this unprecedented environmental disaster. The true price of what we
pay for our 'lifestyles', our assumptions, and our sense of entitlement is still being reckoned.
The situation in the Gulf is without precedent. The Exxon Valdez had a finite number of
gallons of
oil in its hull. The earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami in Malayasia and Thailand
were huge scale disasters, but they had defined beginnings and ends. So far, no one can say how
far this slick will travel, how much damage it may cause, or when it will end.
This event needs to be the turning point for our assumptions about the true cost of our
notions of
endless economic expansion and the limits of environmental exploitation or we will be dealing with
questions about our 'lifestyles' that go far beyond the price of a gallon of gasoline.
The concerns of the commercial fisherman and the tourist industry in the Gulf States are real.
The far
bigger and longer term questions have to do with the tipping point from which the intricate and
delicate interrelationships of the Gulf's biology (and beyond) can recover. The ocean is not merely
a 'resource' to be mined for petroleum and fish sticks. It is the foundation upon which all life on
Earth
is determined to be sustainable or not. Dead sea = Dead land.
As PK said, it doesn't matter how many 'safe' rigs we have out there drilling oil. One failure of
this magnitude
should
be enough to make us rethink our oil dependence and the potential consequences of pushing
blindly forward.
–--
"It was done only for political reasons only anyway. "
"It was done only for political reasons only anyway. "
E
edlorah
(view)
It's May 10th - twenty days after the explosion that sunk the Deepwater Horizon, and opened the
oil volcano at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that continues to spew an estimated 5,000- 25,000
barrels of crude oil daily into the biological web of life we call the Gulf. So far the 'Best Minds of
our Generation' haven't a clue how to staunch the wound we have opened.
We can argue responsibility until the Gulf becomes a flammable Dead Sea. It seems academic
at this
point who to fix blame upon: the lawyers will figure that out soon enough. Ross is right about one
thing: we all contributed to this unprecedented environmental disaster. The true price of what we
pay for our 'lifestyles', our assumptions, and our sense of entitlement is still being reckoned.
The situation in the Gulf is without precedent. The Exxon Valdez had a finite number of
gallons of
oil in its hull. The earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami in Malayasia and Thailand
were huge scale disasters, but they had defined beginnings and ends. So far, no one can say how
far this slick will travel, how much damage it may cause, or when it will end.
This event needs to be the turning point for our assumptions about the true cost of our
notions of
endless economic expansion and the limits of environmental exploitation or we will be dealing with
questions about our 'lifestyles' that go far beyond the price of a gallon of gasoline.
The concerns of the commercial fisherman and the tourist industry in the Gulf States are real.
The far
bigger and longer term questions have to do with the tipping point from which the intricate and
delicate interrelationships of the Gulf's biology (and beyond) can recover. The ocean is not merely
a 'resource' to be mined for petroleum and fish sticks. It is the foundation upon which all life on
Earth
is determined to be sustainable or not. Dead sea = Dead land.
As PK said, it doesn't matter how many 'safe' rigs we have out there drilling oil. One failure of
this magnitude
should
be enough to make us rethink our oil dependence and the potential consequences of pushing
blindly forward.
–--
"It was done only for political reasons only anyway. "
"It was done only for political reasons only anyway. "
