Light On Dark Water

Maybe you've wondered why I haven't said anything about this disaster in progress. I think it's mainly because I feel somewhat stunned and fatalistic: it's totally out of my hands, and I'm just waiting to see how bad it's going to be. So far the effects have been less obviously catastrophic than one might have expected, because the oil has mostly stayed offshore. It's only within the last few days that quantities of actual crude oil have begun to come ashore in Louisiana marshes, and the effect there has been pretty terrible.

This article is a pretty good a summary of where things stand today. Naturally, people are pretty angry, and a lot of them want to lynch BP. Being the judicious and fair-minded soul that I am, I've been hesitant to assume that BP was grossly negligent. It was obviously not in BP's interest for this to happen, still less for
it to continue for so long, and I don't usually buy the
evil-corporation-will-stop-at-nothing view. But neither do I buy the
benevolent self-portrait that the corporations paint. And at the moment I care most about getting the leak stopped. But I'm beginning to lean toward the old Western approach: give 'em a fair trial before we hang 'em.

The big question in my mind is whether this truly was culpable negligence, or an event so far out of the ordinary that there is some excuse for the failure, first of the supposedly fail-safe mechanisms that should have shut down the well immediately, and then of subsequent failures to stop it. And has BP been lying about the real quantity, or have they honestly miscalculated? I'm not sure we'll ever know. What I do insist upon is that this must never happen again.

They're going to try again this weekend to shut it down. I'm praying that they'll be successful. I invite you to join in that prayer.