Reading an article this morning from Naomi Klein (author of The Shock Doctrine) about the absolute propensity of big business for self deception. In this case,  it’s BP and the spill.  This portion speak volumes:

These priorities go a long way towards explaining why the initial exploration plan that BP submitted to the federal government for the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well reads like a Greek tragedy about human hubris. The phrase “little risk” appears five times. Even if there is a spill, BP confidently predicts that, thanks to “proven equipment and technology”, adverse affects will be minimal. Presenting nature as a predictable and agreeable junior partner (or perhaps subcontractor), the report cheerfully explains that should a spill occur, “Currents and microbial degradation would remove the oil from the water column or dilute the constituents to background levels”. The effects on fish, meanwhile, “would likely be sublethal” because of “the capability of adult fish and shellfish to avoid a spill [and] to metabolise hydrocarbons”. (In BP’s telling, rather than a dire threat, a spill emerges as an all-you-can-eat buffet for aquatic life.)

Best of all, should a major spill occur, there is, apparently, “little risk of contact or impact to the coastline” because of the company’s projected speedy response (!) and “due to the distance [of the rig] to shore” – about 48 miles (77km).

via Gulf oil spill – A hole in the world Naomi Klein Environment The Guardian.

This is staggering.  It is,  in the end,  blasphemous.  It is a perfect example of the hubris of which the Tower of Babel portends.

I have actually heard conservative/Republican pundits try to minimize the catastrophe by comparing the spill to the total amount of water on the earth,  as if the spill instantaneously dispersed itself evenly across the earth upon contact with the water.  One look at oil-soaked pelicans or spoiled marshland SHOULD be enough to render that notion as the absolute absurdity that it is.  And yet,  we have people agreeing with that idiocy.

I’m not even done with the article yet,  but I am so angry at the hubris and the selfishness that drives that hubris,  which is pushed upon the mailable masses as some sort of an excuse for science

My friend Eric brought this article to my attention on Facebook yesterday.