Louisiana Superdome
CBS has caused quite a stir with their short article equating the Macondo spill to 3 beers in the Louisiana Superdome:
“How big was the oil spill in the Gulf? It was equal to pouring three cans of beer into the Superdome.”
Beer in the Superdome? How could that be possible? Certainly not during a Saints game! 🙂
I never liked these types of analogies for the following reasons:
- They imply that you are trying to downplay the problem. The Macondo spill was massive, and it is silly to argue otherwise.
- The spill affected only a portion of the Gulf, so using the volume of the entire Gulf as a denominator is unrealistic. If the spill was diluted by the entire Gulf, it wouldn’t have been necessary to disperse it. Is a spill near Cape Cod diluted by the entire Atlantic Ocean?
- Once oil is on the beach, in a marsh, or on a bird, it doesn’t matter how big the adjacent body of water is. The beach or marsh is still soiled, and the bird is still harmed.
- People whose livelihoods were affected by the spill aren’t comforted by the fact that most of the Gulf was clean.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 