Crude oil, a naturally occurring substance found beneath the earth's toughest outer layers, is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.
It's a bad thing. At least it's a bad thing if one looks at it a certain way.
But if something is not a bad thing, does it necessarily follow that it is a good thing? I have my doubts; I also have my doubts that the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is as disastrous as one might think. I am not saying it is not a short term disaster; I am not naïve. I am suggesting, just for reflection, that it might not be a long term one (and I mean long).
Crude oil is natural. Crude oil has seeped or percolated up from the ocean floor or earth's crust -- naturally -- for thousands of years. According to Wikipedia's entry on petroleum, crude oil was even found along the banks of one notable river -- the Issus.
More than four thousand years ago, according to Herodotus and confirmed by Diodorus Siculus, asphalt was employed in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon; there were oil pits near Ardericca (near Babylon), and a pitch spring on Zacynthus ( Ionian islands, Greece ). Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates. Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society.
One article I read discussed how the biosphere breaks down crude oil; the article noted that high-pressure water-spraying as used in the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound "cleaned" up much of the crude that gathered on the shorelines, but the method washed away countless organisms that would have cleaned up the oil -- over time -- much more effectively. Another suggested that even cleaning animals covered in crude did little, as the animals died anyway, mostly from the stress of being handled by humans. One expert said that such clean up really "just makes us feel better."
This is not some attempt on my part to minimize what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. That is an ugly mess, at best. But how would we be talking if the cause of this "disaster" had been an earthquake below the sea floor? Surely such a thing could happen, where a natural event unleashes a natural substance that proves toxic to the flora and fauna of the planet. In fact, volcanoes are similarly toxic; such catastrophes wreak havoc on living things rather frequently. (Interesting, too, that volcanoes create places where life can begin.) What would the media and politicians be doing if this was not the "fault" of "Big Oil", which is "fueled" by our grotesque dependence on carbon-based energy resources? If there was no one but Nature to blame (one could blame Nature even now), what would the news frenzy look like?
No doubt this post can be dismissed as a mere thought experiment, an exercise in what-ifs and what-nots. I get that. Oh, well. But I do think a discussion about the distinction between "natural" and "unnatural", or between what is natural and what is man-made, is one worth having. I dare say it may lead to some very interesting conclusions.
Peace.
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3 comments:
I understand what you're saying, but I think you're minimizing it a bit... though not as much as some people are blowing it out of proportion in the other direction. I think the biggest "impact" to life will be on the region's fishermen.
The fact that it is Big Oil is why they will get away with it, so to speak. If it had been natural, sure it would be a different story, but it would also garner a completely different reaction if terrorists had done it. Can you imagine the outrage if Al Qaeda attacked the rig? Rigs would be erected at breakneck speed in defiance. Likewise if it was perpetrated by leftist eco-terrorists.
I think it's highly irresponsible for mankind to do something incredibly damaging and then act like it's no big deal, like a jackass drunk driver who hits something (or someone) and doesn't even bother to stop.
I read and hear conservatives go on and on about "taking responsibility," but I rarely see any of it in practice. We could be weening ourselves off the oil tit, but certain elements in our society would prefer we "Spill Baby, Spill."
Equities markets dropped on concerns by banks that the U.S. economy remains fragile and will take a long time to recover. The dollar also strengthened relative to other major currencies, making crude barrels more expensive to buy for investors holding foreign money.
Ginx,
I am not really trying to minimize a thing. The oil spill is, at least to my sensibilities, a colossal ecological disaster. But the desire to politicize this immediately arises; this is not an opportunity to fix a problem, but one to gain more political power over a political opponent. To hell with fixing this leak; let's look for someone to blame. And then let's put a feather in our own cap.
I heard one no-name radio talk-show host yesterday note that virtually nothing has been said about the 11 people who were killed at the outset of this spill. People died on that oil rig -- fathers, brothers, sons, husbands -- but all that is organically human in the story has been lost in the inorganic political posturing.
It ain't natural.
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