Thou crusty batch of nature

Magnet #810 - Shakespeare's Troilus & Cressida

I haven't read Shakespeare's Troilus & Cressida, but I am really, really enjoying this Shakespearean insult. I like the idea of yelling it out loud, while like shaking my fist in the air.

I know, I know, you think I'm angry at something again.

And while I am, I'm conceding that there are bigger problems in this world right now. Like for example, Tar Balls on Louisiana's coastline. As each day goes by, and the more pictures I see online, I find myself conflicted about the oil spill and how we've offended Mother Nature with our need for black gold.

On the one hand, we need the oil. The human race has no choice but to mine what we can from the only Earth we have - because clearly (unless they're really building ships in the mountains of China or some such thing), we're not going anywhere. We have to do it.

Other energy alternatives are great, too, but I'm totally fine with drilling. It's not fair to rely on other regions to supply the oil, and then not allow it off our own shores. Mind you, don't get confused, I'm not joining the Drill, Baby, Drill coalition. Politics aside, that's just how I feel.

On the other hand, this oil spill is clearly a wake-up call to regulate and monitor our offshore drilling better. We shouldn't have needed 5,000 barrels a day pouring into the Gulf of Mexico to push folks into thinking about that.

And still on the other hand, if you've ever seen a map of just how much offshore drilling is taking place just in the GOM (never mind the North Sea, Africa, etc.), you'd understand that it's a miracle that this kind of disaster doesn't happen more often. As it is, it's been 40 years since this kind of drilling incident has occurred in the U.S.

On the other, other hand, there's sad little wildlife involved, and I find myself wondering if I've bought enough Dawn dishwashing detergent to help them out any. There's whole families and businesses and industries that will suffer tremendously in the aftermath of this catastrophe, and I find myself wondering if all of that drilling is worth the such a high cost.

I don't know. This is a magnetblog, not HuffPo. Clearly, I've run out of hands to solve this riddle.

And, of course, we don't yet know half the lessons we'll learn from this last month.

In the meantime, I'm just anxiously following all the industry Twitterfeeds for the latest news, while steadfastly eschewing Sunday morning television, where I've learned that all they do is talk, talk, talk and place blame...but never really solve anything.

And perhaps from time to time, I'll quietly...

*shakes fists* Thou crusty batch of nature!!!


eta:
Interesting. So I found this Foreign Policy article on the five biggest oil spills worldwide. When all is said and done, Deepwater Horizon's spill might be only in the top 15 in the world. Whoa.