NOthingyoumissed

My apologies if this is not this blog’s standard fare but I need to vent my frustration.

Today it finally came out in the national news that the Macondo Oil Gusher is pouring an order of magnitude more oil per day than the previous estimate and two orders of magnitude more than BP’s initial statement. The people who have been tracking this disaster obsessively since it first went public were not surprised.

Why? Because at every single level every single part of this disaster has reeked of optimism and under-valuation of risk.

I don’t think I’m unreasonable. I think BPs engineers are probably the most qualified to be dealing with this. I don’t think that BP executives are eating pelican stew and shrugging off the serious ecological, economical, and health-related implications.

I do think that there is a suspicious lack of well warranted hysteria. The estimates of worst-case scenarios are seriously lacking in imagination. An issue we’ll have to deal with for years? Give me a break. Barring some miraculous technological advancement (which I hope for daily) the amount of oil that has *already* been pumped into the gulf will not stop being a problem within our lifetime. What is the real worst case scenario? Well the flow can be far worse than reported…check. It can decimate one of the region’s strongest economies…ah. It can be an especially bad hurricane season…hmm. It might prove impossible to clean oil out of the wetlands…oh. Oh, and what if there’s some horrifying toxic air effects from the giant oil slick…shit. Want more? What if the oil in the wetlands causes their complete and utter disappearance within a year or two? Then New Orleans becomes a barrier reef. What if the relief platform fails? What if (the rest of the US pay attention – this concerns you) it gets in the gulf stream? Let me be clear:

THE EARTH IS SPEWING
HUGE AMOUNTS OF BLACK POISON
MILES FROM WHERE WE LIVE

Hey, that’s a haiku!

How the hell are people not panicing? Is it perhaps that we’re optimistic and underestimating the risk? It’s friggin’ tragic.

And what the hell is BP doing anyways? My understanding is that they’re following along with the stop-a-blowout playbook. I don’t have any problems with this except they’re being too damn optimistic. Why on earth did it take so long to get the first dome into place? It seems because there was a lack of preparation based in poor risk assessment. When it failed and they decided to try a smaller one why the hell was it not already on the way? Because they were so damn sure the first one would work. There are dozens of different high-quality ideas pouring in (my favorite: bunker buster aimed right at the pipe). What are they going to try next? How close are they to pulling that off if the current attempts fail?

Under current law, BP liability is capped at 75 million dollars. This is a number that they have already reached and surpassed. Easily. If I was a cold-hearted, hand-wringingly-evil executive I would tell my engineers to stop trying so hard. Why expend more money and effort? Why take risks and keep the story in the limelight. I would say let ‘er rip until we get that second rig into place. We’re paying the 75 mil already anyways.

I don’t think that anyone at BP is actively this evil. I’m a strong believer in that there is no “they”. Corporations and governments don’t have plots and opinions. I am always the first to point out that “they” are always just people, usually with contrasting motivations, goals and ideas. I think “they” are all concerned and consciencious. But I also think that they have a clear conflict of interest and a poor track record of correctly assessing risk.

So why in the world are “they” still in charge? I’m not saying that everyone should be canned. I do not think that Obama needs to park himself over the pipe and try to figure out how to clog it (chucking executives and regulators at it sounds like a decent enough idea). But I do think that the urgency of the situation warrants new incentives be introduced. I’m a fan of putting the military in charge. They have actual experience running things when lives are on the line. They know that being optimistic is anathema. Give them the keys to the kingdom.

Obama has never expressed much kinship with the Bayou though I do believe that he is trying to make the best decision for the situation. I think eventually he will declare a natuional emergency and command the military to take over. I think he is delaying because he doesn’t want the Federal government to be in charge of an operation that might be doomed to failure. I think he hopes that BP can stop this. I think he’s being optimistic. I do not get a sense of urgency from him.

I think its high time that we all panic.