Yes, Oil Spills Are Terrible. but the Truth Is They're Not the Calamity Doom-Mongers Tell Us They Are

Byline: by Michael Hanlon SCIENCE EDITOR

A FEW names stand out as symbols of Man's profligacy and carelessness in the environmental hall of infamy. These must include Torrey Canyon, Amoco Cadiz and Exxon Valdez -- huge oil spills that led not to massive loss of human life, but, we are told, to ecological destruction on a scale never before seen.

To this list we must now add 'Deepwater Horizon', the huge BP drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico which exploded on April 20. Since then, around 10-12million litres of crude oil have been gushing every day from the broken wellhead, a mile down on the seafloor. Despairing environmentalists, together with politicians and scientists, say that this has led to the greatest ecological disaster in U.S. history with thousands of tonnes of oil set to ruin the pristine shores of the Gulf, kill millions of seabirds, fish and marine mammals, and decimate the lucrative fishing industries of America's swampy underbelly.

Already, green campaigners have pointed to the spill as yet another sign that modern Man's dependency on oil amounts to a Faustian pact …

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Publication information: Article title: Yes, Oil Spills Are Terrible. but the Truth Is They're Not the Calamity Doom-Mongers Tell Us They Are. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: Daily Mail (London). Publication date: May 20, 2010. Page number: 14. © 2007 Daily Mail. COPYRIGHT 2010 Gale Group.

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