how and why of the mess

A lot of people would like to understand better how the BP oil disaster happened and why, to know what decisions caused it, and be able to judge just how desparate we are to satisfy our oil addiction.

I was educated on all these matters last evening listening to Dave Davies' interview with New York Times science reporter Henry Fountain on NPR's Fresh Air. Davies avoided political rhetoric as he quizzed Fountain on the nuts-and-bolts technical processes that went so horribly wrong at Deepwater Horizon. And Fountain responded with technical expertise that was comprehensible in layman's terms. For example, I learned what a blowout preventer actually looks like, and I had no idea.

If you want to know more about the why of the BP oil spill, I'd highly recommend listening to this interview which you can access here. When you get to the site click on "listen to the story," which runs about 40 minutes.

The scariest thing about the spill is that it shows just how insane we've become in pursuing the means to keep our current lifestyle intact. A sane society would have begun reconfiguring cities and towns and re-designing them as walking and biking spaces, like they have in the Netherlands, 35 years ago when Jimmy Carter sounded the warning.