BP Oil spill

I came across the following (written by a marine biologist/science fiction author) last week which i think puts the environmental hand wringing over this spill in perspective. I couldnt give two shits about the financial implications of BP's fuckery but the idiot hypocrisy of our species amazes me and i thought this brief rant summed it up pretty well.

Dead zones suffocating 20,000 square kilometers of ocean. Endangered wetlands, disappearing at the rate of over 300 Ha/day. Clouds of black viscous poison soiling the coastlines of four states.

And then the Deepwater Horizon blew up.

What, you thought those apocalyptic descriptions were of the spill? You thought the Gulf of Mexico was some pristine marine wilderness before those nefarious assholes from BP came along and ruined everything?

What are you, twelve?

Everything I’ve just described was old news long before April 20. Granted, the black tides were dinoflagellate blooms, not oil slicks; the dead zones came to us courtesy of the Mississippi, which delivers agricultural runoff from almost half the continental US. The wetlands — 40% of the US total — were being decimated daily: by dredging, by condominiums and golf courses, by the collapse of the very substrate as oil and gas were sucked up from underneath.

Wile E. Coyote ran off the cliff decades back, was already halfway to the rocks below, and nobody gave a shit. Now you start wailing and gnashing your teeth, just because the anvil BP dropped into his arms is making him fall faster?

Me, I prefer to look on the bright side. The Gulf was already dying, just like the rest of the planetary conshelf. The fishers and tour guides were already dead men walking; the wetlands were already doomed. Nobody cared. Now they do, and I think that’s a good thing.

Not because we’ll finally survey the carnage, take a deep breath, roll up our sleeves and fix things. Only an idiot would believe that that’s ever going to happen. Gulf coast residents are already complaining that a moratorium on new wells will cost thousands of jobs; the Obama administration is poised to permit the resumption of oil exploration in the Gulf; and all the foxhole environmentalists screaming about Big Bad Oil will shut up the moment the price of gas sails past $4/gallon. Nah, we’re pretty much like every other species on the planet: short-sighted, hooked on instant gratification, drawn irresistibly to the path of least resistance. The spill could continue unabated into next year, but long before then it will have stopped being News; we’ll forget about it as soon as American Idol starts up again.