Oil Spill 4/20: An environmental 9/11?

Already into the 46th day of the oil spill, more vitriol continues to pour even as BP struggles to plug the Deepwater Horizon well that gushes about 5,000 barrels (1 barrel = 42 US gal) of crude oil daily. But some have estimated the spill could have been as high as 100,000 barrels a day. That's equivalent to all the water in seven Olympic-size swimming pools!
(Paul Rademacher, engineering director of Google Maps, has put the spill into excellent geographical perspective by allowing users to compare the area of the spill to that of their home town or a city they are familiar with.)

If the loss is converted to money, then it's billions of dollars loss at $85 per barrel. BP has already spent $1 billion containing and cleaning up the oil. Since it owned the responsibility of the spill, the expense could be much higher. President Barack Obama's administration has sent its first bill of $69 million for the US government's efforts in managing the spill response. It's too early to say whether this incident will lead BP toward bankruptcy, but the CEO of the London-based company has assured its shareholders that the company has "considerable firepower" to cover the cost. Amidst this assurance comes the time for BP to disburse dividends about which Obama has shown open displeasure.

In his third visit to the affected region, Obama assailed BP's plans to spend $50 million on an ad campaign to salvage its image and another $10 million on dividends for shareholders.

"What I don't wanna hear is when they're spending that kind of money on their shareholders and spending that kind of money on TV advertising that they're nickel and diming fisherman," Obama said.

Obama's strong words still didn't match with any visible anger that the American people want to see in him. People want to see emotion and rage and finger wagging for some cathartic relief, perhaps much like the way during the AIG bonus saga. But he has acted cool so far.

In the latest Larry King Live interview he said he is "furious." That's it! But that's not enough for the American people who want to see an enraged president taking stern actions, even questioning the corporate as to why BP's CEO Tony Hayward still in charge.

Despite this terrible environmental mess and loss of 11 lives in the rig explosion, Hayward enjoys the confidence of the board. He was apologetic to the shareholders as he continued to assure them.

"We will work tirelessly to rebuild the confidence of the American people, and of the world, in BP," Hayward said in his first update to shareholders after the rig explosion of April 20.

But not everyone can be assured. Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group with its 80,000 members, has started a campaign to boycott BP's products. It has asked people to boycott BP for "at least three months."

On the Facebook wall of Boycott BP page Kristin Royce Barsell wrote, "I went to BPs channel on Youtube and Gave a thumbs down to every one of their videos. Then, I flagged them for being innapropriat. For stuff like sexual content, violence, and a bunch of other really funny stuff. I found it very therapeutic. You should do the same. It will make you feel much better."

As the Gulf of Mexico oil slick approached coastlines and threatened people's livelihoods and damaged the ecosystem, more and more people have shown frustration with the federal administration. The public anger is aggravated further as they see live video feed of the oil spewing from the well. All the major media have given prime coverage of the pictures of pelicans drenched in oil, or images of plumes of partly dissolved oil flowing in the deep ocean.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports, "the mainstream media devoted 38% of its newshole to the spill during the week of May 24-30."

Despite such extensive media coverage and the amount of environmental impact the spill will create, it is still not yet the "environmental 9/11" as Melinda Henneberger of the Politics Daily argues. The present disaster has surpassed the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, or is comparable in cleanup and response efforts to hurricane Katrina, but it is still not comparable to the 9/11 attack that not only took more lives but also pulled the rug of faith for a fellow human being.

The technology to overcome the present disaster is perhaps easier to devise sooner or later, but a soothing balm to heal the impact of 9/11 is difficult to create.


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Here's a selection of media that have given dedicated coverage of the oil spill.

Online: White House, BP, PBS, Google News, Yahoo! News, HuffPost, The Daily Beast
Broadcast: CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, Al Jazeera, BBC, France24
Newspapers: NYTimes, WashPo, WSJ, LATimes, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, St. Petersburg, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Guardian

1. A brown pelican is seen on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on Thursday, June 3, 2010. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon has affected wildlife throughout the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
2. Fire boat crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon late Wednesday. (U.S. Coast Guard)
3. Boycott BP Petition logo
4. May 6. An aerial view of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. (Daniel Beltra-Reuters)
5. Screengrab of "Tracking the Oil Spill in the Gulf" from NYTimes.com Interactive

Images used without permission. Copyright infringement not intended.