Gulf Oil Spill Disaster: My Take

As anyone who has been paying any attention to the news for the past several days already knows, the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding states are in the midst of an severe environmental crisis due to uncapped oil spurting through an ocean-bottom opening caused by an oil rig explosion off the Louisiana coast. The accident and all of its ramifications should put to death the lie being spread for the past few years that Florida was somehow being "selfish" by not allowing off-shore drilling near its own coastline. The irony is that Florida beaches, heavily dependent on tourism, along with its seafood industry, will still drastically suffer economically from another state's decision in this regard.

I understand, I think, the apparent paradox that high energy demand presents for the public. On one hand, we want energy for transportation, heating, electricity, and a variety of other reasons. And that requires an enormous amount of energy that has to come from somewhere. On the other hand, the very nature of high energy production is dangerous and messy. It matters not where it comes from or how it is converted into a usable form: there are hazards with all kinds of mass-produced energy. Some may argue that this is not the case with wind or solar energy, but I would counter-argue that this is because those forms are not yet being used on a large enough scale to make but a tiny dent in satisfying energy demands. I predict that, once means to greatly enhance energy production from those "clean" sources are developed and implemented, we will discover some nasty side effects from them as well.

Barack Obama, sensing the high demand for energy in America, launched on a policy of encouraging energy from a variety of sources, including nuclear, "clean" coal, and yes, more offshore drilling. It is inevitable that, from time to time, accidents will happen, some of them being disastrous. This Louisiana spill looks to be the worst oil disaster in this country's history. And who will ever forget the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in USSR in 1986? Energy is volatile, pure and simple. If you want to use it, sometimes it will bite back. Sometimes very, very hard.

Since I don't see energy demand dwindling at any point in the foreseeable future, I can only see us continuing along our president's vision about exploring and developing all feasible possibilities for producing and supplying energy for America's needs, while learning from accidents and instituting safeguards to help prevent others in the future. Only now I wonder whether that same president has the political will left to continue on this ambitious quest. Only time will tell, I suppose. In any event, maybe the rest of the country will finally get off Florida's back (although by now this may be a moot point anyway).