Oil Oil Oil and Trouble

I recently opined that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the worst man made accidental disaster in history. I’d like to reword that opinion. It is verging on becoming the worst disaster of any kind in recorded history. For semantic precision it should be added that in a “spill” oil would flow down rather than up to the water surface. But “if you can’t lick ‘em join ‘em.”

This spill of course is monumental news. But developments have been slow and I for one am tiring of pictures of oil. The well began to spew on April 20^th (Hitler’s birthday) and it’s still spewing. So is political palaver which deals with the problem in all but its most important context, that our overall energy policy has been proved wrong, dead ass wrong! Amazingly the “drill baby drill” people are sticking to their guns. It must be admitted that in one respect they were right. As they’ve been saying for years, there is plenty of oil beneath the earth’s surface, much of which is now covering the Gulf of Mexico and threatening to infest points north and east.

The government response has been something less than ideal according to that deep thinker Michelle Bachman, who asked repetitiously where the Coast Guard was on “day one.” She has a point in the sense that had multiple U.S. Government vessels been filmed scurrying about the accident site the current presidential approval rating would probably be higher. There are situations where a simple show of activity can create an impression of accomplishment without accomplishing anything. Taxpayer dollars would have been wasted, undoubtedly leading to criticism from the other side. The basic flaw in Deep Thinker’s logic is the assumption that there was something that could have been done on day one that has yet to be learned by day fifty. What we needed was someone with prescience and knowledge on the scene at day minus one.

We should learn from this event that we are dealing with intolerably high stakes when we gamble on the safety of energy sources such as deep water drilling and yes, atomic energy. As a practical matter, current circumstances necessitate the use of these sources to some extent for our existing needs. But the idea that we should direct our resources to advancing these high risk technologies while working simultaneously on safety measures overlooks one important consideration. As our technology advances so do potential dangers, as in the Gulf scenario where our safety measures were a big step behind our technological achievements.

The parallel may be oblique. But I’m reminded of an E.Y Harburg lyric which goes “Once I built a tower up to the sun, brick and rivet and lime. Once I built a tower, now it’s done. Brother can you spare a dime?”