A "dispersant," a substance similar in nature to dish soap, is currently being used to try to break up the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Environmentalists are rather silent on its usage, even though it might be harmful in and of itself.
I'm all for the use of this dispersant. Anything to try to mitigate the environmental damage is worth trying in my opinion. However, I am not naive. If the dispersant proves harmful itself, environmentalists will be crawling out of the woodwork to criticize it (or rather, BP, although they will leave the Obama administration blameless).
I have news for those environmentalists who have 20/20 hindsight: Now is the time to criticize. If you do not criticize the use of dispersants now, you do not have any standing to criticize it later. You have just as little information on the effects of these chemicals as anyone else right now. In an effort to stem damage to the environment of the Gulf Coast, this product is being used, even though the information is incomplete. If you are silent now, you are complicit in its use and nobody really wants to hear from your cowardly butts later.
1 comment:
There's plenty of blame to go around. Congress, 3 Administrations and BP. Not much reporting on it, but, in '94 Congress and I believe the EPA made plans for a major spill in the Gulf. Congress was supposed to set up, in different areas of the Gulf, burn booms. If a spill happened, they could be taken out to it quickly, and limit the spread. Of course, neither Congress, Clinton/Bush/Obama, nor anyone else, followed through on the plan. Had they, this may have been contained.
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