Has anything changed since the Gulf oil spill?

What, if anything, has actually changed since the Deepwater Horizon exploded and caused the country’s largest oil spill?

Watching the burning oil rig on television from Bushwick was surreal. The images of oil-coated wildlife, contaminated marshes and barrier islands and tar balls on beaches from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle were horrifying. The partisan back-and-forth over the response to the disaster was infuriating.

There was some concern that oil from the Deepwater Horizon could potentially reach Fire Island if it were to enter oceanic currents. Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy stressed to the Fire Island News last June that his administration was preparing for the “worst-case scenario.” This “worst-case scenario” thankfully did not come to pass on the beach. The Gulf Coast was obviously not so lucky.

One can certainly make the case that the disaster proved the need for this country to further invest in renewable energy sources—although the Japanese earthquake and tsunami clearly demonstrate the calamitous potential of nuclear power. It is crucially important to acknowledge, however, that the Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 people. The subsequent oil spill also dramatically disrupted a way of life along the Gulf Coast. This legacy could last far longer than a country’s collective memory.

An indescribable tragedy

The scenes that continue to emerge from Japan are simply heartbreaking.

I was listening to Christiane Amanpour’s live report from outside Tokyo as I began to write this blog. I also streamed NHK English on my computer throughout the weekend, but mere adjectives and superlatives cannot possibly capture the scope of the tragedy that continues to unfold.

The destruction an earthquake can cause only became clear to me when I visited Chile’s Colchagua Valley in January. Our guide pointed out several vacant lots along the road into Santa Cruz that had been homes before an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Central Chile on Feb. 27, 2010. The earthquake, which generated a tsunami that inundated coastal cities and towns, largely destroyed the church that had stood along the south side of Santa Cruz’s Plaza de Armas. The hotel in which we stayed sustained serious damage during the earthquake, and it only reopened in September.

The Chilean government evacuated low-lying areas along the country’s coastline on Friday, March 11, but the tsunami caused only minor damage. Japan, however, was not nearly as fortunate. And the only thing that seems appropriate at this time is to keep the Japanese people in one’s thoughts.