No matter which argument is correct concerning the size of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, I think that we can all agree that it’s too freaking much. It’s enough to pollute too much ocean, kill too much wildlife, despoil too many beaches, and ruin the tourist industry across too much of the South Eastern states. Would you like to visit any small Oceanside community, when there is the chance of baseball-sized oil globs washing ashore from now till September? In a good economy, tourism businesses barely scrape by, but now communities will have to pay out for at least some of the clean up, as well as live on a smaller amount of visitors. We could actually see the end of some small towns already looking at fewer visitors thanks to the big banks’ greed.
If all of this isn’t enough, what is going to happen to Louisiana and especially, poor old New Orleans? Apparently about two-thirds of all domestically eaten fish come from this area of the States. Is anyone going to trust buying any fish, ever again? So, as they are still reeling from Hurricane Katrina, these poor people are now looking at a polluted wetland area that will not only kill their major economy, it will further weaken that cities’ defences. The last few years have been positively biblical for this city. The Land of Sodom and Gomorrah is more like it. Do we see locusts, next?
Surely, we now see what rampant industrialism leads to. During Katrina we found out that the outlying marshes and wetlands were actually naturally occurring defensive structures that would have been helpful in soaking up some of the energy that spanked the city. They are no longer there, because they were ripped out to allow ever-larger container ship traffic up the Mississippi. Of course, most of this freight was connected to the fuel industry, the nation’s refineries being in easy cartage range of that mighty river.
For the last 50 years or so, we have been destroying the river, the land around it, the mouth of the river, and now the sea it empties into. We are running out of things to despoil in American waters, do you really want “drill, Baby, drill” in Alaska and the arctic? How much longer before we turn Palin’s Paradise into Louisiana North? Especially with the addition of human induced climate change altering the very planet we are killing. Even though they are looked upon as the bad guys, this could well bankrupt British Petroleum, too.
As Oil resources get thinner, nations are going to start stockpiling more and more, because they are scared that everyone else is doing it. Last year’s OPEC meeting showed that when things start getting tough, the members of this cartel could always produce ‘more’. How is this possible, when the only fuel left is getting harder and harder to find and produce? How big are Saudi stockpiles? Worried about gas prices? Well, we had better keep our own. And what will that place look like? To me it looks like another disaster waiting to happen. Enough, already. Do you want every corner of the continent look like Detroit in a heat wave, and be as polluted as the Gulf of Mexico? China will look and feel like Switzerland by comparison.
Stop the drilling expansions now. Start looking at alternative fuels, now. And let’s get the greed out of the fuel industry. If it’s that important to the World, there isn’t room for graft. It only leads to this kind of disaster.
Boom's End 
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