No end in sight yet...
Jul. 18th, 2010 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anigoI was sailing this weekend and one of the guys I sail with (Gregg - possibly the smartest sailor I've ever sailed with... ever) is also a geologist. He's typically "out west" somewhere doing geologist type things with the oil rigs but we're lucky enough to have him sail with us when he can - and this weekend was one of those times.
Sitting on the rail with Gregger on the weekend we discussed his professional opinion on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and he said that he's constantly fascinated about the fact that about 31 years ago there was a similar incident off the coast of Mexico yet nobody talks about it. This incident, he says, lasted considerably longer (more than 9 months) than the current environmental disaster, and while there are certainly more variables - one of which is the Mexican government's reluctance to take any responsibility, another of which is the lack of the information superhighway and live webcams, a third might be the amount of time it took for the oil to actually come ashore - thirty years later there doesn't seem to be any significant impact.
Sure, we'll never know how much stronger the environment would be right this very second if there hadn't been the oil spill, there was significant impact at the time, and there are disturbing reports still of an oily smell if the sand is disrupted but the economy goes on, the environment goes on... hell, life goes on. The apocalypse didn't happen then and it may not happen now.
Again, sure, we really need to stop beating up our poor old planet because each incident is only one more stone on the balance that decides our fate here, but for the soothsayers of doom and gloom this might not be the "big one" as predicted. We may, indeed, survive for another decade.
By the way, Gregg's answer to all this is to charge one cent a litre for every gallon of gas that's sold on the planet to be put towards a disaster response team that will actually be trained and available, not to mention be willing and have the resources, to deal with shite like this when it happens. He says it'll never materialize, but one can dream. I'd pay $0.01 a litre to see it happen.
Feel free to discuss...
Sitting on the rail with Gregger on the weekend we discussed his professional opinion on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and he said that he's constantly fascinated about the fact that about 31 years ago there was a similar incident off the coast of Mexico yet nobody talks about it. This incident, he says, lasted considerably longer (more than 9 months) than the current environmental disaster, and while there are certainly more variables - one of which is the Mexican government's reluctance to take any responsibility, another of which is the lack of the information superhighway and live webcams, a third might be the amount of time it took for the oil to actually come ashore - thirty years later there doesn't seem to be any significant impact.
Sure, we'll never know how much stronger the environment would be right this very second if there hadn't been the oil spill, there was significant impact at the time, and there are disturbing reports still of an oily smell if the sand is disrupted but the economy goes on, the environment goes on... hell, life goes on. The apocalypse didn't happen then and it may not happen now.
Again, sure, we really need to stop beating up our poor old planet because each incident is only one more stone on the balance that decides our fate here, but for the soothsayers of doom and gloom this might not be the "big one" as predicted. We may, indeed, survive for another decade.
By the way, Gregg's answer to all this is to charge one cent a litre for every gallon of gas that's sold on the planet to be put towards a disaster response team that will actually be trained and available, not to mention be willing and have the resources, to deal with shite like this when it happens. He says it'll never materialize, but one can dream. I'd pay $0.01 a litre to see it happen.
Feel free to discuss...
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Date: 2010-07-20 01:00 am (UTC)Where are the Tracys when we need them?