The BP Oil Spill

Ranking the tragedies.

For 85 days - since April 20, we have heard commentators tell us that the oil spill was a tragedy. Sometimes, I feel, for the wrong reasons. So, here is the way I would rank the seriousness of the various happenings.

The real tragedy was the loss of eleven lives when the drilling rig exploded. That can never be reversed, never healed. If you were a parent, a sibling, a spouse or a child of one of those workers who were killed, you will likely bear the grief of that loss for the rest of your life. For some reason, that is the "tragedy" we hear least about.

The second worse result of the spill is the loss of income for so many people. Whether you own a boat which was the source of your paycheck, but is now tied up at the dock; own a Gulf area business which is now closed, or are a worker idled by the mysterious moratorium the government is determined to impose, the result is the same: How will you make your next mortgage payment? Will you have to forget about that new car you had ordered? Forget about buying new school supplies and back-to-school clothes for the kids? And what about the people who hope to make their living by selling those things? If yours is one of the families so impacted, this is a tragedy - not of your making.

The third is the money lost. Millions of gallons of U.S. oil lost means millions, perhaps billions of U.S. dollars going to places like Saudi Arabia, where those dollars will be used to build madrassas to teach children to hate Americans; or to Venezuela, where the dollars will likewise be used for anti-American endeavors. And what about the pensioners dependent upon the value of BP stock?

Yes, the damage to wildlife and the environment is a tragedy - but that will be the quickest to heal. Pelicans should never die by choking in oil, but like all birds, the species will survive. I've stepped on tar balls on Miami Beach, and on the beaches at Santa Barbara, California. A messy situation, but survivable.

A tragedy that saddens me has been the widespread dissemination of misinformation. Otherwise reasonable news reporters have come unglued over uncertain or downright false and frivolous charges. Every news reporter should know that persons from different parts of the world tend to express themselves differently. But when the BP chairman made reference to "small people", he was accused of insulting Americans. Do you suppose he was simply speaking on behalf of the "little guy" we all seek to support?

BP has been vilified by virtually everyone. Is the company at fault? Was the explosion a result of bad company policy - the fault of one incompetent supervisor cutting corners - the result of an incompetent or uncaring government inspector repeatedly blowing off safety violations... or was it just a pure, out and out accident... one of those things people like to call "an act of God"? We may never know the truth. But we have already tried and convicted BP and levied punishment , perhaps far beyond the Constitutional limits of fair and reasonable punishment.

Hopefully, the well is now being capped, the spilling of oil will end. The eleven lost lives cannot be replaced. But, I wonder, will the other "tragedies" be allowed to end?