A little common sense on some of this stuff..

As supposedly written in the comments section of the NY Times
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I have been reading the many comments posted by newspaper readers on the oil spill. It has been most entertaining, in part because it gets me all stirred up. What follows is my recent post to readers of the New York Times. (It was highlighted by the NYT editors as one "of the most interesting and thoughtful" comments.) Hope you enjoy.:

I'd like to offer a few humble answers to the serious questions posted in the past two weeks.

"Why does it take so long?" Because it is hard. This is in the middle of a turbulent ocean. Every operation out there has to be conducted by men on the wind-swept decks of vessels that have, for the last few days, been hurled around by seven to ten foot seas. Any of you folks ever been on a crewboat in ten foot seas? It is not a pleasant experience. Think Deadliest Catch except a hell of a lot more dangerous. There isn't a simple way to kill an out of control well that is in five thousand feet of water.

"Why don't they have the containment dome ready yet?" Because fabricating pollution domes involves welding together tons and tons of steel in a place that can be reached by large transport barges. Those places are a long, long way from the steel mills. The workers in Fourchon, Louisiana have been toiling 24/7 to get this done. I suspect none of you have been to Fourchon, and I am certain that none of you can pronounce it correctly. Trust me, it is a tough place inhabited by tough, hard working people who never whine. They just work and sweat and get it done. None of them are wearing sackcloth or wringing their hands about it, and they live in these coastal wetlands that you all seem to have some fantasy about but very few of you have ever seen, and almost none of you would be willing to inhabit.

"Why did we let evil old Halliburton do this to us again?" Halliburton did the cementing on this well. No one knows if cementing was the problem. Halliburton was cementing wells before Dick Cheney was born. There are thousands of men and women, some of them my friends, who have engineered well cementing for decades and all over the world for Halliburton. They are fine people who had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq. They are just good engineers who make difficult things happen well. IF the cementing turns out to have been part of the problem, it won't have a single thing to do with all the reasons you hate Halliburton.

"Why doesn't the federal government/Obama/Congress/EPA do more?" Like what? Every containment boom in the world is either there or on the way. The federal government doesn't own any drilling rigs, and couldn't drill a relief well if it did. Everyone with the expertise to do these things is in private industry. No one in the federal government has ever built a containment dome. No one in the federal government has ever attempted to use undersea dispersants, or designed the "BOP on top of the BOP" solution that is being considered. I am not knocking the federal government. Heck, I am known around these parts as a big government liberal. But the federal government just isn't in the business of doing these things.

"Why don't we publicly assassinate the CEO of BP?" Ok, I am exaggerating a little about these comments, but not much. BP didn't want this to happen, and BP didn't cut corners. Forget all you read about the lack of redundancy systems. It is just the end product of hay processed by male cattle. People saying that really show no technical understanding at all of what is happening. This was a perfect storm of horrible events. The men on the rig didn't want it to happen, because it put them at risk and cost eleven of them their lives. They train and train and train to keep this from happening because their lives are on the line. BP didn't want it to happen (nor RIG, nor HAL, nor SII, nor CAM), because it has cost it (and them) billions, and no one gets ahead by losing billions.

"Why can't somebody do something?" Every one of you can. But it will not involve going to a place you have never been to and could not possibly understand in order to clean oil from a bird. What it does involve is sacrifice on your part. Ride a bike to work or walk. Turn the thermostat down (or up, depending on the season). Move closer to the office. Eat things that are locally grown. In short, curtail your lifestyle. If you are not willing to do so, then please apply your upper lip firmly to your lower lip and keep it there, step away from the keyboard, and stop griping about the cost of your own addiction to cheap oil.