What is the magnitude of the BP oil disaster?

[undeterred]

[undeterred]

1. ...

[Quantess]

2. I accidentally unrecc'd.

Sorry.

[Catherina]

5. Rec'd for you and me both n/t

[blindpig]

3. I fear that we ain't seen nothin' yet

This is a crime against humanity. k&r

[intheflow]

6. Ecocide.

That's the term I've been hearing from my Greenpeace friends.

[blindpig]

7. It is.

There will be a number of individual species which will be snuffed by this. There is no price that can be put on this but BP will try.

[grantcart]

4. an environmental Hiroshima

[Swamp Rat]

10. for New Orleans and most if not all of Southern Louisiana

They killed us, and are continuing to kill us while everyone else just watches.

[Tesha]

8. (Duplicate post removed by author)

[Tesha]

9. Your poll kind of mixes up scope, magnitude, and duration...

...so I picked an answer that approximates my feelings
about all three.

I think there will be severe effects in the Gulf for at least
a decade, and observable effects for hundreds of years.
In the worldwide oceans as a whole, I think there will be
observable effects for a few years to a few decades.

In the Gulf, some species may go extinct.

Commercial life as we know it will change for decades.

Tesha

[undeterred]

11. There are so many possibilities.

We hear about the animals being killed as a direct result of the spill and know that thousands will lose their habitat and die.

There will be an immediate economic hit to fishermen and those involved in tourism.

There is no way to effectively clean this mess up, and so far no way to even stop it.

So the ripples will go out a long way... but how far?

[Tesha]

12. That's not even in the future!

> There will be an immediate economic hit to fishermen and those involved in tourism.

That's not even in the future! If the news stories are to be
believed, tourism dried up even before the beaches were
first wet with oil.

Commercial fisheries, oystering and the like? Gone for
a long tie, decades in many cases.


> There is no way to effectively clean this mess up, and so far no way to even stop it.

I think a lot of people don't understand that some events are
irreversible; they can be prevented, but once they happen,
they're done and we have no choice but to live in the world
we created.

Tesha

[Quantess]

13. kick for more votes