In the end, the environment loses.

“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.”
- Al Capone (1899-1947) – Famous Mobster, Bootlegger, Entrepreneur (yes, he was.)

Capitalism really sucks sometimes.

That’s right, I said it. Hold it against me, sit me down and try to convince me otherwise. Ask me the question of “If not capitalism, then what?… socialism… communism?” My answer is this… I have no idea, but really, in the end, no matter the form of government, the environment loses (Except in these countries! Top 10 Environmentally Friendly Countries )

What stirs me to say such scandalous things?!? The recent oil spill of course, that has spilled roughly… oh wait, no one really knows how much oil has spewed into the Gulf of Mexico. So first, lets look at estimates.

PBS has a really dandy widget that has been keeping track of Oil leakage, based on various output estimates. Check out the widget here: PBS Oil SPill Widget

According to the PBS Widget that counts oil, you have anywhere from 22 Million gallons of oil up to a high estimate of 191 Million gallons of oil. When I see those numbers, I have no idea what they actually mean. Maybe you know better, but let’s look closer.

Using my trusty desktop calculator, I quickly see that 22 Millions gallons of oil is equivalent to 440,000 Drums (50 Gallons a piece) of oil. WTF?!?! This is a LOW ESTIMATE?!?! Almost everyone knows what an 50 gallon barrel looks like. The upwards number is 3,820,000 Barrels. I can’t even estimate what this might look like if they were spread out in an area. Once again, let’s do the math. For time, lets take the average of the two, to get 2,130,000 barrels (as of 10:00am GMT June 5th).

I quickly found out (thanks google) that a 50 gallon drum has a diameter of 23 inches. So, when you put the barrels in a line, they stretch 4,082,500 feet. That calculates to 773.2 Miles roughly. How does this compare you ask? Well, the state of Texas, is 750 miles wide at the widest point. Ouch. That’s a lot of oil.

Now that I have established how much oil, let’s turn the attention towards the players in all this, mainly the companies and politicians dealing with the clean-up. Today, I read a great article on the website of Foreign Policy magazine. Check it out and read it here: Absurd Arguments about the Oil

In summary, the article picks out a few players, or notable people who have discussed the oil spill, and dissects their quotes and thoughts. While the article picks out mostly right-wingers of Palin, Limbaugh, Hume, and Brown (Katrina extraordinaire FEMA chief); the article also mentions Castro (oh Fidel), and our own President himself, Barack Obama.

The political bickering started quickly after the occurrence of the spill, and continues to this day. Among the issues to be discussed and dealt with revolves around the “who’s to blame?” question, and the more potentially important question of “Who pays for the cleanup?” AND “How much to they pay?” (I would argue whoever is found at fault pay for the ENTIRE FREAKING MESS… For example, if I broke your most expensive watch, and said, “well how bout I pay 50% of the cost”… where did the logic go???)

Throughout all the political bickering, the disaster has been attempted to be contained. Sadly, the pictures coming out of the region look bleak, and the fact that the oil slick will travel via currents to likely Florida and even potentially England will have HUGE impacts. If a Hurricane were to hit the region, it would be devastating to the land, as the storm surge would likely coat everything with a nasty film.

Whatever happens though in the interim, ultimately in the end, the environment loses. Animals and plants and biodiversity will be devastated. Species on the brink of being endangered such as the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle will likely bear the brunt of this, and potentially will collapse. All that work in the 70′s to protect them… lost and gone. Only time will tell though what the effects will be both on the biodiversity and wildlife in the region, but also costs to fisherman and the tourist industry (beaches are already feeling the effects.) Once again, who pays these costs, once they are assessed. I argue that the culprits pay it ALL.

Ironically, I read another article today about oil drilling, this time from Ecuador. It was on CNN, and here is the link: Uncovering Ecuador’s Biodiversity Jewel .

The article discusses a biodiversity hotspot in Ecuador, and how the area sits on a roughly $10 Billion deposit of oil. The Ecuador government has told any would-be developers that half the profit from the oil needs to go back into the area and indigenous populations, so roughly $4 Billion. While that sounds great and noble for the development of a very under-developed region, Once again, the biodiversity and environment loses.

The article led me to other questions revolving around how the oil would need to be extracted, to be as low-impact as possible on the environment. Certainly there are examples of good oil extraction (see some places in Indonesia), and bad oil extraction (Nigeria for example). While the article does not touch these issues, I would hope that for the sake of the environment, certain restrictions and regulations would be met.

Whatever happens with the Gulf Oil Disaster, or the Ecuador Rain Forest, I can help but be fed up by the politics in it all, and how sometimes (I stress sometimes), I absolutely despise capitalism.