Be Less Boring

There's an awful lot of talk about the Gulf Oil spill and plenty of people running around like chickens with their heads cut off shouting about how this will destroy the environment of the Gulf for generations to come. Well, maybe, but history suggests not.

The fact that most people have completely forgotten there was a nearly identical disaster in the gulf back in 1979 suggests that the long-term effects will be pretty minimal. Granted, Wikipedia isn't always the most reliable of sources, but in this case, it cites several sources regarding the results of the 1979 Ixtoc oil spill that dumped 3.3 million gallons of oil into the gulf. Regarding the long-term effects, Wikipedia says, "...After the cleanup, the beach fauna or beach populations were back to where they were before the spill within two to three years. After 6 years, it was difficult to find any evidence of oil." That bodes well for the likely outcome of this spill.

What doesn't sit well, however, is that after 31 years, the technology to contain, manage, and stop a spill hasn't improved one iota. This MSNBC story points out the almost comical similarities between the methods they tried to stop the spill in 1979 and 2010. The TV news agencies could save a lot of money this time around by simply re-broadcasting their reports from 31 years ago.

If offshore drilling is to continue, the government needs to mandate that new, effective methods of containment, prevention, and control be implemented. Otherwise we might as well go back to harpooning whales for oil because they're all going to die anyway.