Gaia

The Human Ant – again


Now that the 3 and a half month BP oil rig disaster and spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which began April 20, 2010, has finally been stopped – after spilling 4.9 million barrels of oil – the environmental damage results are – close to NIL.

Yes, the largest oil spill in U.S. history has caused so little damage that scientists are a gasp with surprise, resulting in media coverage in The Globe and Mail, August 5, 2010, B7 and Time magazine, August 9, 2010, p. 35.

All the oil recovery ships and skimming boats – some 4,000 in all -- were able to retrieve was some 2%.

So where did all the rest of the oil go?

Nature, Gaia, did her thing. Evaporation in the hot gulf is credited with up to 40% of the oil’s disappearance, wind and wave dispersion helped and, finally, water bacteria and microbes had a feast breaking down the rest.

According to Time, oil only affected 140 hectares of Louisiana marshland/shoreline, an area that loses 6,000 hectares a year to erosion. Bird loses were only 1% (about 15000)
of the Exxon Valdez totals -- while countless others could be seen safely flying about and perching on booms, etc. without injury or darkened feathers. And just 17 of some 492 dead sea turtles showed signs of dying from the oil spill.

To quote the Globe and Mail, “Despite man’s best efforts, Mother Nature’s ability to clean up the oil in the Gulf of Mexico surpasses our own”.

To quote the Time article, “Mother Nature is resilient.”



Yet another instance of the human ant.