A Sea in Flames - Carl Safina [38]
Another scientist from Texas A&M University says, “The threat to the deep-sea habitat is already a done deal, it is happening now.” He adds, “If the oil settles on the bottom, it will kill the smaller organisms, like the copepods and small worms. When we lose the forage, then you have an impact on the larger fish.”
Yeah, maybe. But “a done deal”? Really? How much oil would have to settle? How densely?
I’m a professional environmentalist and conservationist; I’m really angry about the recklessness that caused this, and the inanity of the response; I am deeply distressed about the potential damage to wildlife and habitats—but I find myself becoming uncomfortable with all the catastrophizing. “A done deal”—that’s not very scientific. Especially for a scientist. Many scientists—and as a scientist it hurts to say this—are being a little shrill. Cool heads are not prevailing.
But it’s not a time of calm. With the situation out of control, everyone wants to know what’s gonna happen. Even the normally cautious are prone to overspeculating.
And then there are those never burdened by caution. Enter the crazies. Some say this was done on purpose: Obama and BP have conspired to make money from this; someday, they claim, we’ll get to the bottom of how. Some believe this will merely kill the entire ocean; others think it will kill the whole world.
Something called Yowusa.com posts an article based on warnings it says are from an Italian physicist. (The site also features predictions made by Nostradamus, including his “proven” prediction that a giant tsunami will destroy New York City.) We read, “The Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled as a consequence of the BP oil spill disaster. The effects have also begun to spread to the Gulf Stream. If natural processes cannot re-establish the stalled Loop Current, we could begin to see global crop failures as early as 2011.” Yow, indeed.
The Web begins amplifying a blogger-posted article called “How BP Gulf Disaster May Have Triggered a ‘World-Killing’ Event.” In another post the same blogger writes, “The giant oil company is now quietly preparing to test a small nuclear device in a frenzied rush against time to quell a cascading catastrophe.” On the same site (whose slogan is: “Where Knowledge Rules”) we find several entries under the heading “How the Ultimate BP Gulf Disaster Could Kill Millions.” The first click gets me “A devastating eruption of methane gas, buried deep beneath the sea floor, could absolutely decimate the region. Even worse, this eruption could inundate the low lying coast line with a tsunami.” The entry unleashes a tsunami of speculation and dire conclusion that surges across the Web.
Sparked by very legitimate fears and fanned by wild speculation, a certain simmering siege mentality, peppered with panic, begins bubbling across the region. The sky begins falling a little.
As gallop horsemen of the Apocalypse, so also ride a few doubters of disaster. “The sky is not falling. It isn’t the end of the Gulf of Mexico,” says the director of a Texas-based conservation group. While many are predicting a thousand ruined miles of irreplaceable wetlands and beaches, fisheries sidelined for seasons on end, fragile species shattered, a region economically crippled for years, and tongues of oil lashing beaches up to Cape Cod, others shrug.
It’s still the first inning in a nine-inning game. “Right now what people are fearing has not materialized,” says a retired professor and oil spill expert from Louisiana State. “People have the idea of an Exxon Valdez, with a gunky, smelly