Ecological 9/11? [updated]

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The headline of this post employs a gimmick that I generally despise, namely the glib sensationalization of pretty much everything for the purpose of a catchy "hed." But in fact this thought is seriously occurring to me. BP is officially clueless about what to do now that the giant cofferdam* has failed to contain the gusher. Even if it had worked, I'm guessing the leak has already exceeded the size of the Exxon Valdez, and probably by a lot. Reporting I've heard about the rate of leaking have been ambiguous (i.e., conflicting or vague numbers about the leak rate), but the Alaska disaster involved about 11 million barrels gallons if I remember correctly. But, as I say, the most feasible idea for capping this thing has failed.

Now consider the reason why the cofferdam solution failed, as reported in the linked story from ThinkProgress above: frozen methane. BP had accounted for running into methane ice and had addressed it through engineering. But they found it forming either in much greater quantities or at a much faster rate than projected. Worldwide there's a lot of this stuff lurking way deep in oceans --- giant deposits of methane gas frozen into enormous slushy masses called clathrates. My senior science advisor has told me in the past that methane clathrates are pretty much benign, ecologically, unless they warm up enough to re-enter their gaseous phase and bubble up through the briny deep into our air supply. Methane, as it happens, is a much more efficient greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, meaning ton for ton it traps much more heat than CO2. And guess what can help those clathrates evaporate --- global warming! Ding! I do not know how much methane is venting from the wellhead or how long it will remain frozen in the gulf, but it's not a stretch to say that this spill may have a potentially serious impact on the atmosphere as well as the sea.

Also consider what might happen if the spreading slick were to find its way into the Gulf Stream. I don't know how likely it is that the gulf currents will take this sludge around Flordia and up the East Coast, but it certainly seems like something to be concerned about.

NIMBYism may sometimes, or often, be a hypocritical kneejerk reaction that people have against land or resource uses they would fully support as long as it's not in their back yard. But there are plenty of things that everyone has a right to expect will not happen in their back yard. What happens when a pernicious development happens in the back yard of, say, 5 or 10 or 50 million people? Here's what: Republican Governor Schwarzenegger flipflops without sweating a single bullet. And every law of politics says he was completely correct even though, uncharacteristically, it was also the right thing to do.

Finally, consider just how big this back yard really is when you take into account (1) ruined livelihoods, (2) fatal damage to coastal ecosystems and biodiversity, (3) ruined oceanfront real estate, and (4) destruction of aquaculture and seafood resources. Oh yeah: don't forget skyrocketing energy prices as the good folks at Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips and Chevron and Saudi Aramco (and, yes, BP) go for the jugular of the oil-consuming public to extract the greatest possible return on investment in this holocaust.

The real impact of September 11 for most of us (i.e., those of us who weren't killed, maimed, traumatized, or crazed with grief for someone who those things did happen to at one of the Ground Zeros) was that popular sentiment was manipulated by very bad people into support for two illegal, disastrous wars and one unitary surveillance state. And that act of terrorism --- as spectacular, amoral, and gut-churning as it was --- had no concrete impact on the vast majority of Americans (until our teenagers started killing and being killed overseas, and our civil liberties at home began slumping like a mudslide). I wonder what socio-political witches' brew might start fermenting if the dirt-cheap shrimp disappear from Red Lobster and the sunrise reflects from an oily sheen off Cape Cod.

Update: part of the ambiguity about leakage rates I noted above probably relates to the fact that the media sometimes refer to barrels, sometimes to gallons, and other times to tons. The Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons, not 11 million barrels --- my apologies. The unit conversion for 1 barrel is 42 gallons, meaning that if the leakage rate figure stated here (8th paragraph) is correct, that means roughly a quarter-million gallons ooze in each day. There are two unknowns: one is how long this will go on; the other is whether BP is lowballing the leakage rate for purposes of public appearances. So is the really a possible "Ecological 9/11"? We have to hope not, but the answer is directly related to how many "back yards" are trashed and how many bank accounts are strained as a result.
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* I get to use this word because I've actually written about cofferdams in the past... so there!