Tag: oil spill

Categories
national politics & policies

With Precedents, Very Small

When you hear the word “unprecedented,” look for precedents. 

It used to mean “lacking record of similar events in the past.” Now “unprecedented” seems to mean “very, very bad.”

A few months ago the President of the United States said of the Gulf Coast oil spill that “we’re dealing with a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.”

Apparently, the Exxon Valdez fiasco wasn’t precedent enough.

But hey: When looking for precedents, look to nature. Oil exists in the Earth’s crust. It occasionally seeps out. Naturally. 

How do we know this? I mean, besides the fact that oil seepages were historically recorded, and considered a bane until oil’s industrial utility was discovered, and then considered a boon?

Well, biologists have discovered microbes in the deep sea oil spills, vigilantly eating up oil. And it’s a new species. That is, new to us.

The AP reports how the microbe “thrives in cold water, with temperatures in the deep recorded at 41 degrees Fahrenheit,” and goes on to say that one researcher speculates “that the bacteria may have adapted over time due to periodic leaks and natural seeps of oil in the Gulf.”

Happily, the bacteria does not appear to cause inordinate oxygen depletion (radically reduced oxygen in the seas could lead to massive death, including vast species extinctions). 

Yes, folks: Evidence of a natural order. And something to adapt for our own efforts to clean up from this summer’s biggest government/​business partnership mess.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

The Gulf in the Gulf

CNN’s Anderson Cooper wanted to know why the government wouldn’t let the media fully report on the infamous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Just before Independence Day, the Coast Guard widened the gulf between official policy and common sense — a gulf that has characterized much of the federal response to the catastrophe. A newly concocted rule prohibited camera crews and others from coming within 65 feet of response vessels or booms without obtaining special permission.

The government’s point man on all things BP-​oil-​spill, Admiral Thad Allen, at first defended the rule. This was the same man who, Cooper noted, had weeks earlier stressed that “the media will have uninhibited access anywhere we’re doing operations, except for two things, if it’s a security or a safety problem.”

The blanket 65-​feet boundary arbitrarily inhibited access. And it raised Anderson Cooper’s ire:

“We’re not the enemy here,” Cooper clarified. “Those of us down here trying to accurately show what’s happening, we are not the enemy. I have not heard about any journalist who has disrupted relief efforts.… If a Coast Guard official asked me to move, I would move.”

Anderson Cooper’s criticism of the rule, and its widespread coverage, elicited a backlash. In less than two weeks the rule was lifted for reporters.

Openness? Transparency? Governments don’t like it. Citizens do. 

The lesson appears to be that we are likely to get transparency only after loudly demanding it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency national politics & policies

Absolute Safety Never Assured

There’s this old joke. “How do you know when a politician is lying? He’s moving his lips.”

Regarding President Obama’s recent speech about the ongoing oil spill disaster, Byron York of the Washington Examiner noted “one particularly striking moment …

midway through his talk, Obama acknowledged that he had approved new offshore drilling a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 20. But Obama said he had done so only “under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe.”

York then quoted industry experts swearing on a stack of scientific reports that, regarding oil drilling, there is no such thing as “absolutely safe.” So, the intrepid reporter wanted to know, who told Obama that new deep sea oil drilling would be safe?

Long story short: He got a lot of administrative runaround from the Administration.

But who in their right mind believes anything is “absolutely safe”? Water isn’t. Chewing gum isn’t. As Thomas Sowell has explained in books like Applied Economics, we never choose between the risky and the absolutely safe. There’s risk all around. And trade-offs. 

Assuming that Obama is not a nitwit (a pretty safe assumption), when he spoke the “absolutely safe” line, he simply wasn’t being honest.

Why? Because he looks bad. But this could have been an opportunity for America (and its president) to confront reality.

Of course, for a sitting politician, that’s the furthest thing from safe.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.