British Petroleum has finally given in to pressure to provide a live link to the oil spill, allowing scientists to get a better estimate as to how much is being released into the Gulf of Mexico. Their initial reluctance and slow response has been troublesome. The CEO recently came out and made a comment so full of ignorance you wonder how he could be the head of a major oil company, and furthermore, just how motivated he is to solving the problem. But it's part of a larger issue--our society's dependence on oil, and the cloud of ignorance we have created to mask the dangers inherent with such dependence. BP is trying to minimize the damage and politicians and uninformed journalists alike (Brit Hume to be specific) are following suit. But before I take issue with these reactions it is important to understand the situation.

Details on the oil's future and its current status in terms of size and volume are hard to gauge with any real certainty. Estimates as to how much oil is spewing into the Gulf have ranged from 5,000 barrels a day (that's the figure BP is claiming) to 100,000. The brief video released last week of the spill suggested to scientists that the reality is tipping towards the latter figures; believing the actual amount to be approximately 70,000 (this is likely to change with the live link now established). Just how bad is that? Well oil and water interact in a peculiar way. First, oil always floats on top of water. Just take a glass of water and add some of the olive or canola oil in your kitchen, you'll notice it floats. The current spill is floating within a foot of the surface. Unfortunately crude oil goes one step further than cooking oil; when the volume of water is larger than the oil, it spreads, and does so in a dangerous way--as much as possible. Experiments have shown that if you drop a single milliliter of oil into a large body of water it will spread outwards to 24 feet. BP's figure of five thousand barrels works out to approximately 1/2 billion milliliters of oil. The oil has been leaking for thirty one days, thus sending over 15 billion millilitres of oil into the Gulf, and this is with the most conservative numbers, consider how much that works out to be using the estimate of 70,000 or 100,000. And it's here to stay. Scientists believe that 50-60 percent will stay in the gulf, the remaining forty will move out into the ocean.

(The spill as of May 17)

Given these facts one might rightly wonder what this all means? Why does it matter if its 5,000 or 100,000 barrels? Either way, it's a big disaster and is being treated as such. Unfortunately the tug of war on numbers and estimates between BP and scientists have far-reaching consequences. For starters, obtaining a fair and approximate number allow scientists to accurately track the spill and it's impact on the environment. Of course, important legal implications will also result. BP is likely to face charges under the Federal Oil Pollution Act, for the personal and environmental damages caused by the spill. Considering this is one of the busiest areas in the Atlantic Ocean, and affects not only millions of people but also wildlife and fishing economies, the company needs to be held responsible. But one has to wonder just how motivated BP is to finding an accurate figure. On the one hand it would seem reasonable that they would try to undermine the disaster as much as possible to avoid catastrophic consequences to the company's finances, stability and future. However, on the other hand, stopping the spill is a necessity, and the longer it is allowed to continue leaking, it will only result in more damage and consequences for the company. Arriving at an accurate figure for the extent of the spill and its subsequent damage would seem necessary if not essential to stopping it. I am not an advocate of conspiracy theories, but I do hold the scientists figures above that of BP. Scientists after all do not have a political, financial or legal agenda here, they are after the truth and recognize it as essential to dealing with the mess. BP however, although they need the truth to deal with the spill accordingly, are far more likely to be trumped by the ramifications, this I believe is clouding their judgment and stagnating their response. Consider a recent quote by the CEO: "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." This of course is an absurd statement. As noted above oil spreads as much as possible when it is dispersed into high volumes of water. By resting on the surface and spreading throughout the Gulf it impacts entire ecological systems. It astounds me that the CEO of an oil company does not understand these basic scientific principles. If he is genuine in these claims then it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the disaster happened and is not being treated with a concerted effort by the company to stop it. It would also explain why BP is sticking to its guns on the 5,000 estimate and not embracing scientists efforts. If they truly believe that 5,000 barrels a day is minimal to the overall size of the Gulf, than they would try to perpetuate smaller figures as much as possible. They, like most people believe that the more, the worse. This is true, 100,000 is a lot worse than 5,000, but as the scientific properties of oil tell us, 5,000 is bad enough. His attempts to undermine the disaster is laughable. Biologists Jerry Coyne has likened his quote to "Mission Accomplished," and "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Now, if you were a journalist, would it not be your responsibility to be familiar with certain facts about oil, how it interacts with water, and what the scientists are saying before you open your mouth about the spill? Brit Hume doesn't think so, he recently stated:

"Where's the oil? It's not on—except for little chunks of it, you're not even seeing it on the shores yet.

"But you know one of the greatest source of oil that seeps into the ocean is—is from natural seepage from underground, from subterranean deposits. That's where most of it comes from—not from drilling accidents. So what's badly needed here is perspective on our energy policy, and also on the hard realities of what really goes on when it comes to oil spills."

"The ocean absorbs a lot, a lot, the ocean absorbs a lot."

As mentioned twice before, the oil spreads, it doesn't get 'absorbed'. Furthermore, only 40 percent of this oil is likely to go out into the ocean, the rest is staying in the Gulf. As for the seepage? I've never heard of a natural seepage gushing thousands of barrels of oil into the ocean a day. This isn't just irresponsible journalism, it's downright idiocy.

Hume is right about one thing, we do need a perspective on our energy policies, which brings me to my final point. There has been an effort to portray the spill as 'Obama's Katrina' by Republicans. This is a peculiar charge considering the Republican party's relationship with oil. One does not need to look further than the Bush administration to grasp this obsession. As BBC journalist Katty Kay pointed out in January 2001," What makes the new Bush administration different from previous wealthy cabinets is that so many of the officials have links to the same industry--oil." The United States actually went into the twenty-first century with declining oil production and aging rigs, power plants, and pipelines. This all changed with the Bush Administration and ended with another kind of disaster--the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (The charge that the Iraq invasion was all about oil may be a cliche, but it's legitimate. The United States has not after all had an "Operation Freedom" for every other country that has a dictator. Having a friendly democratic government in a middle-eastern country with lots of oil is a nice advantage on the global stage. George H. W. Bush acknowledged that the first Iraq War was "oil-related").

I understand this particular spill is under British Petroleum, but these disasters are bound to happen in such an industry. Diverting the attention to immediate factors, rather than long-term is a good strategy for Republican politicians to divert environmental disasters away from their current and future policies, and towards their political rivals. Consider the recent statements made by Republican John Mica: "I'm not going to point fingers at BP, the private industry, when it's government's responsibility to set the standards." He further condemned Obama for approving drilling by Deepwater Horizon which "basically [gave] a carte blanche recipe for disaster." This is ironic considering George W. Bush lifted a ban in 2008 to allow domestic offshore drilling. Even more ironic is that only a week after the spill, Sarah Palin, the Republicans vice-presidential candidate, was the only politician still shouting "Drill, baby, drill!" Not, 'clean it up!', or 'let's find new energy solutions!' Using Mica's logic are not these carte blanche for future disasters as well?

But notice the words of Mica, this isn't about offshore drilling, it's about safety measures and Obama's lack of attention to them. It has nothing to do with the overall problems of western reliance on an unclean limited resource, or big business, and it certainly has no relation to the efforts by Republicans to increase domestic drilling.

It's time to face some facts. BP wouldn't be drilling in the Gulf of Mexico if it weren't for the long history of America's thirst for oil. The United States has built a good chunk of its power on this endeavor (like Britain did so with coal centuries before), in the 18th century drilling became synonymous with the frontier. A global shift to new energy solutions could very well mean new leaders in economic dominance.When one ramps up oil production and dependence, one is bound to suffer dangerous consequences; accidents happen, this is human. Obama too has set a bad precedent, he recently went back on his claims to limit America's energy dependence on domestic drilling. Future disasters thus very well may be a legacy of his own policies, but as of right now to pin this all on his administration is a weak argument. (He has further initiated a freeze on the sale of leases in the Gulf in the wake of the spill).

I am not going to make a statement or claim of doom and gloom that our oil resources have been tapped out and we're running out of time. This very well may be true, I'm really not sure. Some experts say we have reached this peak, others warn we only have twenty years left at most. But experts have been saying this for decades, and history is filled with examples of failed prophecies (expert or otherwise). What I'm advocating is that the oil spill is the grim reminder that mass oil production can come at a devastating cost, and that it is time for us to face these facts, not divert attention away from the real problem, or downsize the reality of the situation. But what some politicians like Sarah Palin, conservatives like Brit Hume, and the business men in charge remind us, is that no matter how devastating the environmental damages will be, the dependence on oil will still make them shout "Drill, baby, drill!" and that is a terrifying reality.

Article originally published at http://herrbesserwisser.blogspot.com/2010/05/drill-baby-drill-or-how-i-learned-to.html