Lessons We Can and Must Learn From an Engineered Hole Deep in an Ocean Bottom That Gushes Poisons and Carcinogens

Humans are without doubt the strangest residents on Earth. We are like a swarm of viruses that devour all they infect until the host dies and than the viruses are without a home. Maybe they can find another host to infect before they too die. We humans behave as if we can always find another home if our present one, Earth, is consumed by our own neglect. We seem unable to care until something hits us in our pocket book. The "engineering oil disaster" in the Gulf of Mexico is the latest example of our response to environmental contamination after the genie bites us in the pocket book. Fisherman are losing jobs and income, tourists are staying home as beaches become tar infested and hotels and restaurants stay vacant, amusement events along the shores close, and the hole BP drilled into the ocean floor gushes oil at the rate of 250,000 to possibly 2,500,000 gallons per day into the surrounding seas and shores of the south east USA.

Suddenly politicians who scoffed at environmental pollution and global warming caused by man made contaminants are becoming environmentalists because their constituents are losing their income, jobs, and the environmental enjoyment of clean beaches that they took for granted.Scoffers of global warming now believe that their own backyards must be shielded from environmental harm. They are of course correct. And maybe, just maybe, they will begin to accept the fact that all of Earth is our and their backyard, and the well being of all life on our planet depends upon what is provided by a life-sustaining environment. Perhaps this oil catastrophe will stir the retarded brains of people who claim or think that the Earth's environment is too vast to be harmed by human activities. Human activities generally harm the Earth's vast oceans , air, lands, and near- space atmosphere. Just as the oil gushing out of a giant hole that was drilled into the ocean floor about one mile below the sea surface is now causing toxic contamination of a growing area of land in densely populated parts of our country. We regularly poison our planet's air, fresh water, soils, oceans, and the space our planet occupies and needs to maintain in a way nature intended,without a second thought. Unless of course our source of income is threatened, and then we all become environmentalists. As soon as business resumes we forget the environment and start polluting again. Our memories are short and our interest in the natural environment becomes diverted by the pleasures that technology and engineering offers.

We are now witnessing an environmental disaster that was inevitable. As discussed in a previous blog, engineering as a discipline consists of designing and making things that have a useful life and eventually fail. Everything designed and produced by us has a finite and often unpredictable period of operational use, beyond which some type of failure is absolutely certain. From simple bread toasters to the most technical space ship failure is inevitable if the product is used at all. When failure does occur it can be innocuous or catastrophic. If a toaster develops a shot circuit a home can burn down and kill the occupants. If a space ship hydrogen tank develops a leak and ignites because a simple seal fails all of the astronauts perish in a hydrogen explosion that capture the tears of millions of TV onlookers. When a welded steel gusset used to support the traffic driving across a major bridge breaks, because of accumulated load damage, and the structure collapses killing drives and passengers who happened to be their at the worst possible time it is just the inevitable failure of another engineered product.If a turbine blade in a passenger aircraft engine fails and cause the aircraft to crash and kill all occupants we seem shocked to think how such a thing could happen.

We seem to believe that engineered things are permanent and cannot fail. The bigger they the more permanent they are perceived to be. Often the opposite is the truth. They are not and cannot be permanent. Everything humankind designs and engineers will eventually fail in some manner, and generally unexpectedly. When inevitable failure occurs the consequences may be trivial or disasterous depending upon the engineered thing and its use by humans.

The gigantic hole drilled in the bottom of the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico, about one mile below the surface, continues to spew oil as a result of a component in the towering oil rig. Until the flow is exhausted on its own or somehow plugged, we will probably witness one of the worse "engineered failures" since the industrial revolution began about 200 years ago. It may become the worse failure ever because the consequences are so devastating to all life, plant and animal, human and otherwise. All life poisoned by the organic chemicals contained in the gushing oil will die or become diseased. Death will occurs as plants and sea animals and birds ingest and are coated with the poisons. Fresh water supplies will gradually become contaminated with carcinogenic toxins contained in the crude oil as natural poison and carcinogenic chemicals are released into the environment. The wetlands will become progressively contaminated, and toxic rain water that picks up evaporating toxins from the ocean surface laden with dispersed and wave driven oil will contaminate inland areas as well as the shores. Eventually all life near shores where the oil poisons are washed will become too dangerous to occupy. This scenario is already evident in parts of Louisiana and is also becoming evident elsewhere along the gulf shores as the oil poisons are driven by ocean currents, wind, and poison rain and evaporating vapors.

Perhaps this " inevitable engineered oil disaster" will stimulate our understanding of the fragile nature of our dependence upon the Earth's environment and the sustenance of all life. We cannot continue to ignore or pretend the consequences of our blind acceptance of any technology as if it is always beneficial. Engineering can be and is often beneficial if used appropriately. Risk always prevail, and inevitable failure of all engineered devices and things can and will occur. We must understand the risk and prevent environmental disasters by never allowing the engineering of anything whose failure can threaten our very environment, upon which we all depend. This is everybody's responsibility. Do not allow politicians to tell you what is right or wrong environmentally. Think for yourself and always demand a path toward a cleaner environment where life can flourish and the oceans, lakes, rivers, aquifers, lands, and air can support life.

We must control the spread of technology and engineering for the sake of profit and pleasure and war. We must learn to apply technology and engineering for the benefit not the detriment of life. We all must work to restore our environment to a more natural condition, and prevent stupid and greedy exploitation of the Earth's natural resources for the benefit of the few. We must defend Earth's environment and try to restore it for future generations. If we can learn this from the Gulf engineering oil failure we will see a new day when environmental protection and sustenance becomes the highest human priority! We must, because without a safe and clean environment all life may perish.