Times, trying to sound alarming about spill, actually sounds reassuring

The top story of yesterday’s New York Times begins:

The Coast Guard commander in charge of the federal response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico warned on Sunday that even if the flow of crude was stopped by summer, it could take well into autumn—and maybe much longer—to deal with the slick spreading relentlessly across the gulf.

Huh? I thought that even if the spill were stopped immediately, the effects and damage would last a lifetime. Now they’re saying that if the spill continues for months longer, its effects could be cleaned up by the fall? Then no lasting damage to the Gulf and surrounding areas. Then this is great news. But the Times is not treating it as such. (However, I don’t think it’s at all correct that all the effects can be cleaned up by the fall. That seems to be a huge mistake by the Times.)

The other big news and great news is that the capping of the well seems to have worked, and that the capping device is capturing 10,000 barrels per day—so much that the ship to which the oil is being directed cannot process it all. Are we to understand that BP in planning to cap the leak and direct the captured oil to oil processing ships on the surface did not line up enough processing ships in advance to do the job? They didn’t think of that?

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Jeff W. writes:

In response to what the New York Times has published, I would refer you to this article from McClatchy newspapers:

“BP well may be spewing 100,000 barrels a day, scientist says”

The well-qualified researcher quoted in this article developed his estimate by looking at satellite photos, which would seem to be a good way of estimating the volume of surface oil. There is also, of course, oil and natural gas below the surface.

Regardless of what the Times may say, this is a disaster on a Biblical scale.

Students of the Bible know that God’s wrath has sometimes been expressed as acts of physical destruction, but sometimes also as incapacitating acts where God has clouded mens’ minds. America is on the receiving end of both kinds of wrath in the BP oil well disaster.

LA replies:

100,000 barrels per day is 20 times the 5,000 barrels per day which the government and BP said was the rate of spillage.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 08, 2010 10:48 AM | Send