Summer 2010 issue--Talk about timing.
When Going Green Editor Monica Scott and I sat down several months ago to discuss the stories for this month’s issue, we decided that I would take a stab at the pros and cons of President Obama’s stated desire to take a hard look at increasing offshore drilling. I was intrigued by the notion on a few fronts.
For starters, I am a huge supporter of lessening our dependency on any resources from the Middle East. It is, inarguably, a volatile region, and it concerns me that international policy in a sketchy area can be affected by our need for oil. And, obviously, when I say “can be affected by our need for oil,” I mean that we are completely beholden to those who control it and...
But I digress.
Another factor of offshore drilling that intrigued me to some degree is the hypocrisy and ineptitude of our federal leaders over the decades to embrace alternative forms of energy. We have heard from president after president that reducing the need for foreign oil and increasing our reliance on alternative energies was a significant priority. Heck, John Stewart showed clips on “The Daily Show” of every president from Richard Nixon through Obama speaking on the need to resolve this issue quickly.
Anybody?
It’s easy to become disillusioned to the notion of alternative energy becoming a priority in this nation when it’s not, well, a priority. With that in mind, the general feeling was this could be a somewhat compelling subject.
I immediately started doing research on the issue, looking into how much oil we would be able to harvest offshore, the amount of time it would take for us to become self-sufficient and, of course, the safety of drilling into our ecosystem.
And then came the events of April 20, 2010. British Petroleum’s (BP) Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people. The explosion resulted in about 1,000 barrels a day (or approximately 42,000 gallons) of oil being pumped into the sea, according to reports at the time. That figure moved to 5,000 barrels a day shortly thereafter. Business Week recently reported that the number is more in line with 60,000 barrels a day, meaning that about 2.5 million gallons of oil are leaking into the Gulf each day. The New York Times reported that 102 school gymnasiums could be filled from floor to ceiling with oil from the spill.
Want more fun numbers? The New Orleans Times-Picayune stated recently that 400 wildlife species are threatened by the spill, and the Audubon Society has said that at least 30 species of birds are potentially threatened. This could forever alter the ecosystem of the entire Gulf region.
Unmitigated disaster. Plain and simple.
Suffice it to say, the mood of this column has changed from the earnest curiosity it began with to a cynical, angry tone that can barely contain itself. I’m angry.
I’m angry that federal regulators did not have steps in place to deal with a situation like this — or, more to the point, how something like this would have happened in the first place without measures in place to reduce the harm.
I’m angry that BP has seemingly attacked this problem with an approach that borders on ineptitude, and that our own federal government basically dragged its heels and sat back and watched this unfold until poll numbers forced it into action.
The easy thing now would be to say that this practice should stop immediately. Perhaps that’s a knee-jerk reaction based on the emotions of this spill, without taking into account the number of drilling operations that have not caused any problems. I can understand that. But you’d think there would at least be a moratorium, right?
Well, the Center for Biological Diversity reported recently that 27 offshore drilling operations have been approved for the Gulf since the oil spill — two of them to BP.
Many of these numbers I’ve cited can be found on the excellent environmental Web site thedailygreen.com. Others have come from sources such as cnn.com, the Washington Post and the New York Times. These do not come from some guy writing a blog in his mother’s basement who’s still mad at BP for turning down his gas card application.
Yeah, it’s that bad.
I’ve heard some of the talking heads on radio and television opine that this disaster could result in some real advancements in the technology of dealing with these incidents if they occur again. Who cares? The technology should have been in place before companies started hacking into the planet to grab oil. This is a case of closing the barn door after the horse escapes, and goes on a mass killing spree.
What happens to Delmarva if this spill comes to our shores? Disaster. Financially, this could absolutely destroy a struggling local economy that’s only now starting to make a comeback. As for quality of life concerns — absolute tragedy. If the oil does make its way all the way up here, and it does get into our inland bays, rivers and canals, well, overzealous developers would be the least of our concerns to our environment. We would be forever changed.
Should we move forward with offshore drilling after this fiasco is controlled? Should we believe that the technology that comes from this mess ensures that nothing of this magnitude ever happens again?
Let’s worry about stopping the spill, cleaning the Gulf, saving the wildlife, getting people back to work (12,000 Louisiana residents have filed for unemployment since the spill, most of whom come from the southern part of the state that has been most affected by the spill, according to Daily Finance) and getting restitution to those hurt by the initial explosion and ramifications from the spill. Do that, and we’ll talk.
But that would have to be an awfully special talk.
