Too small to risk
By Thomas Kostigen
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a drip of a mess — compared to the environmental catastrophes coming.
In fact, the oil leak from BP PLC’s (NYSE:BP) offshore drilling operation, which is releasing some 200,000 gallons into the ocean per day, is a microcosm example of the dangers climate change pose. The risk, the disregard, and the lack of regulatory action frighteningly show us how things play out when the “I-told-you-so” ramifications become, well, “so.”
No one wants environmental destruction. No one wants a massive oil spill (despite Rush Limbaugh’s and, of all people, former FEMA director Michael Brown’s conspiracy talk to the contrary). But we should at least let the oil spill serve as a lesson: a risk, no matter how small should be avoided. Or, as former Vice President Dick Cheney noted, that even a 1% chance should be treated as a certainty.
People who disavow global warming and climate change data as well as the forecast environmental destruction should heed Cheney’s advice. Claiming the chances of disaster related to climate change are small can no longer be a line of thinking. Indeed, we need a new line of defense.
An explosion that killed 11 people and caused BP’s rig off the coast of Louisiana to sink has unveiled a series of regulatory and engineering lapses. President Obama may have put a moratorium on offshore drilling for the moment, but last month he had said he’d allow it.
“We’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration,” Obama said. “We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security. And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence.”
I’m not sure what “scientific evidence” Obama had to support the safety of offshore drilling. Many environmental activists weren’t either. Repower America, a coalition of environmental activists including Al Gore, issued a statement at the time saying, “Solving the climate crisis and making America energy independent means harnessing clean energy, not reviving the dirty energy policies of the past.”
So when it comes to the “chances” of oil spills, nuclear power accidents, or other catastrophes caused by unsustainable sources of energy we should do more than take stock; we should stop.
Logic needs to be employed. The cost of oil and other fossil fuels when you include exploration, cleanup, and the health and environmental hazards they cause is astronomical. Alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydropower look downright cheap by comparison.
Putting the billions of dollars just blown on the cost of the Gulf cleanup into solar and other “clean energy” research would have made far more sense. I bet the coastal residents who will suffer with the spill’s consequences for years to come would bet the same. (I’m not saying we shouldn’t spend the money to clean the spill. I’m saying we shouldn’t have spent money to “drill, baby, drill” to begin with.)
That is hindsight, however.
We are playing games with our future, and we can’t afford to lose. Even a tiny “chance” is a risk too big to take. If you doubt that, just take a good look at the oil patch heading toward, and in some areas already at, the Louisiana coast. The patch may not be the size of Texas, but it’s the size of Delaware and growing. And that’s big enough for me.
We need to change our way of thinking, whether it’s “too big to fail,” or “too small to risk.”
Thomas M. Kostigen is the author of “The Green Blue Book: The Simple Water-Savings Guide to Everything in Your Life.”
