The Antiplanner’s previous post about the Gulf oil spill featured a streaming video showing the underwater plume of oil. When I checked it after the post went live, the video showed no oil, so I suggested they had stopped the leak. But that turned out to be optimistic; now the video stream just shows a test screen. (BP has other live feeds if you want to look at one.)
In the meantime, we’ve been treated to hysteria about the spill from all sides. Curiously, most media reports measure the amount of oil released in gallons, when it is conventional to use larger units, such as tons (which are a little over 300 gallons), when describing large amounts. In terms of tons, the spill is in the tens of thousands; in terms of gallons, it is in the millions. Millions sounds bigger, so that is what sensationalists would use. (I suppose they could use ounces.)
The last major spill in the Gulf required 10 months of effort to plug. That was in 1978. I suspect that the current spill attracts more attention because we have better video, and television news today is defined by what they can put on video.
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That’s as absurd as measuring the spill in ounces. As a colleague of mine points out, oil is priced on a world market, and there isn’t enough oil that the U.S. hasn’t placed enough oil off limits to drilling to significantly influence world prices. Thus, whether drilling were allowed in ANWR or not, other companies would still want to drill in the Gulf.
I also recently read a libertarian journal in which someone asked why anybody worries about oil spills. After all, they said, oil is a part of the natural environment. There is even a lake in the Mideast that has so much oil in it that it was once called the Asphalt Sea. It’s current name, said the writer without irony, is the Dead Sea. I think that should have answered his question about why people worry about spills.
I understand this spill will be costly in many ways, but I remain confident we will be able to pay those costs. My real point is that many people are trying to use it to promote their preconceived agendas. This isn’t a surprise, but the rest of us need to be wary that we aren’t swayed by rhetoric over reality.
Hear hear.
The Antiplanner wrote:
> I also recently read a libertarian journal in which
> someone asked why anybody worries about oil spills.
Though it is pretty nasty stuff, just like some other things that we find in nature.
> After all, they said, oil is a part of the natural
> environment. There is even a lake in the Mideast that
> has so much oil in it that it was once called the
> Asphalt Sea. It’s current name, said the writer without
> irony, is the Dead Sea. I think that should have
> answered his question about why people worry about
> spills.
We do not need to leave these United States in order to find bodies of water with oil “contamination” by Mother Nature. I think it reasonable to assume that most readers of this blog have seen (or at least heard of) the La Brea Tar Pits, located near Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, Calif.
CPZ, your use of the tar pits as an equivalent made me laugh. Thank you for teh lolz.
And thank you all for any future apologia to try and hand-wave away from our culpability in this catastrophe. Our addictions surely cause us to make excuses for them.
DS
People can visualize/understand gallons better than they can visualize tons (or even ounces). I can see why gallons are used in simple media reports because people are familiar with them. Now if it were a scientific paper, there might be an issue.
I don’t know about the geological history of the Dead Sea, but I’m guessing that the oil has been a part of the water’s environment for so long that the surrounding environment has adapted to the presence of oil. Of course, the fact that no animals (except for bacteria and whatnot) LIVE in the Dead Sea may also signify that the high volume of oil in water DOES NOT SUPPORT LIFE. Therefore, while the environment in the Gulf may ultimately adapt to the oil spill, the current state of the Gulf does not seem to suggest that everything is hunky-dory, and even if the environment will recover, different animal populations might not. I think that is why people worry about oil spills. Just because a substance is part of the natural environment does not mean that that substance can exist or be present in any volume without changing the natural environment.
Antiplanner, you say that you’re confident that “we will be able to pay those costs.” Can you describe who the “we” is and how “we” will pay those costs?
“CPZ, your use of the tar pits as an equivalent made me laugh.”
It made me roll my eyes and then skip ahead to the next comment.
“…the Gulf may ultimately adapt to the oil spill, the current state of the Gulf does not seem to suggest that everything is hunky-dory, and even if the environment will recover, different animal populations might not.”
I agree. O’Toole and other libertarians are not admitting this fact.
“Antiplanner, you say that you’re confident that ‘we will be able to pay those costs.’ Can you describe who the ‘we’ is and how ‘we’ will pay those costs?”
I would also like to know. Additionally, how will “we” pay for the environmental (not economic) costs? In other words, how will the Gulf be restored? Is it even possible?
As a libertarian environmentalist, I am shocked and dismayed at so-called libertarians’ “apologia to try and hand-wave away from our culpability in this catastrophe.”
BP’s credit rating has been adjusted. With any luck, they’ll go bankrupt. But the government will probably bail ’em out. Too big to fail and all.
This isn’t a catastrophe except to the innumerate and those with an ax to grind. Globally, the size of this spill ranks only in the top twenty. There have been much bigger spills in the last thirty years.
The Gulf of Mexico is quite big and the spill is relatively quite small. The gulf of Mexico has 6.43 x 10^17 gallons of water and a total of 2.565 x 10^6 gallons of oil has leaked into it. The ratio of oil to water has increased by 2.5 parts per 10^11. That’s a one followed by eleven zeros. Puny.
The US Gulf shoreline is 1650 miles long, not counting bays and inlets, 16,000 miles counting them in. the actual amount of damaged shoreline is a tiny fraction of one percent. What is not reported in the media is the natural seepage of 20 to 30 million gallons of oil and tar per year, all of which is readily absorbed by the ecosystem in the gulf.
What would we do with the leaking oil if it weren’t leaking? We would turn it into fuel and burn it in the atmosphere or turn it into fertilizer and put it in the soil or turn it into plastic and polymers which would eventually find their way into a land fill.
In spite of my prior statement, which I resolutely stand by; I do consider myself a conservationist. I live a mile from Galveston Bay and I am concerned about the Gulf. But I don’t believe that deep water drilling or leaks are a problem. Most of the damage to the Gulf shoreline comes from the channelization of rivers and bayous, the creation of jetties and bulkheads, sport fisherman and hunters in the estuaries, the Old River Control Structure, the Army Corp of Engineers, the federal flood insurance program and the various state wind insurance programs in each of the Gulf coastal states.
The state funded insurance programs are the worst offenders since they enable all other development. Elimination of federal flood and state funded wind insurance would do more to restore the Gulf Coast than any other single measure.
Gardener, your silliness has already been addressed in another thread. Repeating it here won’t make it any more true or any less silly.
DS
Dan, If you could eliminate the oil spill or all the other threats to habitat which I enumerated which would you choose? The other threats are the direct result of government action or government planning.
Why argue with a false choice? Is it to distract away from arguments from faulty premises?
DS
“Additionally, how will “we†pay for the environmental (not economic) costs?”
The fact that we see the environment and the economy as two rather exclusive aspects is where the problem lies. Put another way, all cost get paid. Sometimes with the lives of marine wildlife, the livelihood coastal residents, etc. But hey, whose to say that if we had internalized these costs the leak wouldn’t have happened? I tend to think it would at least be less likely.
Dan, it’s not a false choice. The threats which I enumerated are governmentally created and the direct result of political action. Political action, that means each and every one of us can choose to further enable or change.
The leak in the gulf is not the result of political action but of a private actor utilizing his own capital. This same private actor faces both tortious and criminal liability for his actions. Justice will prevail for him regardless.
In another post you named “numerous indicators of decreased resilience in the Gulf – hypoxic zone areal increases, overfishing, eutrophication, rising water temps, wetland loss, decreasing species richness and diversity,” Those are the direct effects of the threats I enumerated. They are not the result of offshore drilling.
It seems you would rather perseverate on the private actor and the relatively little, long run harm to the environment he does and not own up to the very real, long run, permanent harm, the governmentally created threats I named are doing to the gulf coastal ecosystem.
Jardinero1:
I don’t disagree with your sentiments. The Army Corp of Engineers have done a number on the the South with its channelization projects.
The government has aided the development of Southwestern cities with their huge, capital intensive water infrastructure projects. These booming cities would not have even been possible. Los Angeles with Owens Lake, Las Vegas with the Hoover Dam, and Phoenix with the Central Arizona Project and Salt River Project.
I agree completely that government has aided a lot of environmental disasters, but mostly before people knew the affect these massive projects would have on the environment. Ecology is a fairly new word, afterall.
With that said, we’re all talking past each other. Government and private entities have both done a number on the environment, and neither is guilt free. I will say that the government is at least trying to stem the tide of its past ways to comply with better environment regulations because we simply know more than we did before. While my honest opinion is that private enterprise fights (and lobbies) environmental regulation at any cost because they don’t like to pay for their pollution.
Private industry is dragging its feet a bit, imo. Hopefully strong public/private (cliche, I know) bonds are created whereas environmental regulations is stringent but fair, and that the the government does not promote some its past policies of creating massive environmental problems.
“The leak in the gulf is not the result of political action but of a private actor utilizing his own capital. This same private actor faces both tortious and criminal liability for his actions. Justice will prevail for him regardless.”
The courts are rigged just like politicians are. Anyways, there’s a 75 million dollar cap on economic compensation set up after the Exxon case.
Whoopie, especially for such a vibrant industry that got screwed.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64O75Q20100526
Lawyers will be at this for a while.
It seems you would rather perseverate on the private actor and the relatively little, long run harm to the environment he does and not own up to the very real, long run, permanent harm, the governmentally created threats I named are doing to the gulf coastal ecosystem.
It seems you wish to project your wishes on me as asserting these things, despite my having asserted, implied, averred exactly zero times causality or blame.
I am merely perseverating on your ignorant or mendacious glossing over of the disaster to and effects on ecosystems. Ignorance or mendacity smacking of apologia.
DS
“BP’s credit rating has been adjusted. With any luck, they’ll go bankruptâ€
No, if we’re lucky, their other operations will endure and create sufficient value to pay damages. Bankruptcy shifts the cost of damages to taxpayers.
“Most of the damage to the Gulf shoreline comes from the channelization of rivers and bayous,â€
Wonderful that someone else recognizes this! I’ve been wondering how much of the oiled marshland was already dead from saltwater intrusion.
You can’t really kill what’s already dead, but the gullible Yankees want to see oil on something. Don’t tell them that so far only 3/100ths of a percent of Plaquemines is oiled, or that 5/100ths of a percent of the pelican population is oiled. Context really messes with their righteousness.
I like how the oil/exploitation/externality apologists try and use current numbers in some sort of weak BS strawman numerical context.
DS
It’s a strawman to blame the oil companies for the destruction of the coastal ecosystem when the numbers don’t support it. It’s also a serious error, policy wise to focus so much ire on BP if you really care about restoration and reclamation of the gulf coastal ecosystem.
Here’s why: By the middle of August the relief well will stop the leak. By this time next year the mess on the beaches will be cleaned up and long forgotten. Nobody will even care about BP or the spill at that point. The small percentage of the Gulf Coastal ecosystem affected by the spill will recover over a period of years.
So, right now, while the public is crying about dead pelicans and dirty beaches there is a very narrow window of time to focus the public’s attention on what’s happening in the benthic zone and why it’s important. I am referring to the government created programs, policies, and infrastructure which continuously destroy the bays, beaches, marshes and estuaries.
I agree and I see no one here doing it.
Nonetheless, a good first step to restoring lost resilience in Gulf ecosystems would be to end farm subsidies that reward lavishing petrochemical fertilizers on soil. Second would be to end subsidies for roadbuilding and home building near water. Third would be to end oil subsidies that have helped pollute vast stretches of marsh in TX, LA, MS, Nigeria, Amazon, Baltics, and so on. Fourth would be to make polluters pay. Fifth would be to place strict limits on fishing. Sixth would be to defund the Corps to preclude dredging and riprapping and so on (subsidizing transport and economic activity).
That would go a long way toward building resilience to resist major disturbances exactly like the BP rig is causing as we speak. There is no hand-waving or mendacicizing away from the fact that the BP rig is borderline catastrophe. None.
DS
I am very surprised by the pro-planners response to the spill.
Every activity has its cost and benefits; risk and reward. The Corps of Engineers projects had huge rewards and huge risks. They might have misunderstood the risk-reward analysis in the past, but then that was a mistake by their planners or decision makers at that time.
Describing a potential risk is easy. Describing a potential benefit is easy. The hard part is quantifying them so that decision-makers can compare the risk and reward.
If the profession of planning has any purpose, it has to be to lay out objective analysis. If planners resort to emotional arguments then they are admitting to significant limitations of their profession.
“That’s as absurd as measuring the spill in ounces. As a colleague of mine points out, oil is priced on a world market, and there isn’t enough oil that the U.S. hasn’t placed enough oil off limits to drilling to significantly influence world prices. Thus, whether drilling were allowed in ANWR or not, other companies would still want to drill in the Gulf.”
They would want to drill in the least risky, most productive areas, would they not? Those could be in 5,000 ft. of water in the gulf…. but don’t you think before going there they’re rather drill in 300 ft of water off the coast of Florida? 500 ft. water off the California coast? Operating in such deep waters presents huge challenges. After all, if didn’t why wouldn’t we have been drilling there 40 years ago instead of spending billions on a oil pipeline across the permafrost?
“Here’s why: By the middle of August the relief well will stop the leak. By this time next year the mess on the beaches will be cleaned up and long forgotten. Nobody will even care about BP or the spill at that point. The small percentage of the Gulf Coastal ecosystem affected by the spill will recover over a period of years.”
So there’s no risk of, let’s say, this spill nearly wiping out the breading grounds of the Blue Fin tuna?
Tuna are breaded in the kitchen, so, no, there is no danger to that from this spill. Unless the Krusty Krab adds bluefin to its menu.
The actual problem with the thought is the qualifier “nearlyâ€. With that word, I’m not sure what you’re arguing. Like “nearly missed by an asteroidâ€, or “hit so solidly by an asteroid that nearly no terrestrial life survivedâ€?
Pick the right timeframe and even the asteroid is a recoverable event.
To support the contention that people will soon forget—what’s the latest from Haiti? Have they recovered? Are they getting any headlines anymore?
Crying about environmental damage is luxury afforded by low-cost energy.
So there’s no risk of, let’s say, this spill nearly wiping out the breading grounds of the Blue Fin tuna?
Exactly on point. Arguments from ignorance are rarely – if ever – compelling, viz:
We can only hope disinterested corporations somehow act proactively in the future, and now the spinning hard disinterested corporation somehow gets the cap to work and the spill ends ASAP.
DS
Dan, I work in the insurance business and I believe you might be impressed with the role insurance, especially taxpayer subsidized wind insurance plays in coastal development. You can’t fund construction and development without insurance. And you can’t secure a real estate loan without obtaining coverage on the secured property.
In Texas, nearly ninety percent of property in the first tier coastal counties is insured through the state windstorm pool. Private insurance carriers, long ago, rightly abandoned the first tier coastal counties because of the high probability of catastrophic loss. The legislature created a state subsidized wind insurance pool to guarantee that real estate development could continue. This is true along the rest of the gulf coast to florida.
I firmly believe that without the state wind insurance pools, there would be little or no real estate development in coastal counties. This is supported, historically, by the fact that the most intense coastal development in Texas occured after the state wind pool was created. I wish that more attention were focused on the role that taxpayer subsidized wind insurance played in coastal degradation.
Yes, I agree on the excellent point. I didn’t even get to important state and local policies that contribute to ecosystem degradation in the Gulf.
DS
Borealis said: “If planners resort to emotional arguments then they are admitting to significant limitations of their profession.”
First, I would say that arguments made here by professional planners are not necessarily in the realm of the planning profession (i.e. on a wildly hyperbolic and bombastic blog, why hold the planners to a higher standard?).
Secondly, I think good planners do admit the significant limitations of their profession. Planning only in the arena of hyper-objective and ultra-rational practice is cold and often results in brutal policies and projects (see kelo v. new london, kick people out of their homes because the numbers make sense?). Subjectivity, words and feelings matter. To account for them does inhibit the profession from being completely objective and swift, but it also results in better plans, usually built upon more consensus than the “rational planning” alternative. Planning aint perfect. Any practitioner that claims otherwise is a dope.
foxmarks said: “To support the contention that people will soon forget—what’s the latest from Haiti? Have they recovered? Are they getting any headlines anymore?”
Not on any “right leaning” media outlets. Still all over the commie-lefty-treehugger outlets. I just read an article today about Haiti. I would bet that mother jones, the huffington post and the NY Times will be covering the oil leak for a long time. But yes, cable news has probably already forgotten about it (I wouldn’t know).
p.s. Haiti has not recovered and it’s dire down there.