Oil Spill Hide 'n Seek

Oil Spill Panel Cartoon, originally uploaded by rbtenorio.

A panel investigating the BP oil spill has criticized President Obama for downplaying the effects on the environment. Satan reassures him in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It"!

Merci to my muse for the idea...

The Barbour of Mississippi

Barbour Cartoon, originally uploaded by rbtenorio.

If the Gulf oil spill made a hero out of anyone, you could argue that it was Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. The former Republican national chairman did a creditable job helping Mississippians deal with the spill. Yet are Haley's hopes for the 2012 GOP presidential nod as unrealistic as his "come on in, the water's fine" attitude towards Gulf tourism? Read more in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It"!

In BP We Distrust

BP Forgiveness Cartoon, originally uploaded by rbtenorio.

Open question, dear readers: Now that the Gulf oil spill has been contained, would you ever use BP products again?

For Gulf, Greatness Inaction

Oil Spill Inaction cartoon, originally uploaded by rbtenorio.

Despite the devastation wrought by the Gulf oil spill, Mother Nature might be able to show some surprising resilience -- thanks to some of her smallest creations.
"(The) sea floor in the Gulf is rich in `cold seeps’ -- communities of tube worms and other organisms that live off oil naturally seeping from beneath the seabed," British writer Matt Ridley notes in The Times. "Hundreds of these clusters of clams and tube worms have been found since the 1980s in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, living off the microbes that eat the oil."
This -- coupled with evidence that human attempts to clean up spills often worsen things -- might suggest that President Obama leave the cleanup work to Mother Nature. Or at least, that's Satan's advice in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It"!

Divine Intervention in the Gulf?

God Gulf Cartoon, originally uploaded by rbtenorio.

After three long months, it seems that the BP oil spill has finally been contained. Was there a little bit of divine intervention in solving the problem? God guest-stars in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It"!

Forget the Gulf, Tap the Arctic!

Gulf-Arctic Cartoon, originally uploaded by rbtenorio.

In his speech on the Gulf oil spill on Wednesday, President Obama noted that oil companies are running out of options to drill undersea. He said that due to American demand, "oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water."
Well, Satan has a simple solution for this conundrum: Tap the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He explains this strategy to the president in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It."

Start Snorkeling, Stop Future Spills

The Seven Seas Beach in Puerto Rico presents an array of beautiful sights to snorkelers. Brightly-colored fish swim past undulating plants in coral reefs. Some of the fish swim in schools, others are more solitary, but they all seem to coexist peacefully, navigating the ridges of the reefs somewhat more expertly than the land traffic on Route 3.
My muse and I enjoyed these sights while vacationing in Puerto Rico last week. The variety of ocean life just a few feet from the shoreline is stunning, and tourists only need a set of goggles, a snorkel and fins to experience it. And there is one group of people that particularly needs to experience it: Anyone who works for an oil company.
The inspiring scenes we saw beneath the sea contrasted sharply with the sad images of marine life destroyed by the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Based on what survivors from the blast are saying, the spill was caused at least in part by a corporate philosophy that focused too much on keeping costs down and too little about the risks of such a policy. For instance, an argument allegedly broke out on ill-fated vessel Deepwater Horizon because BP wanted to save time and money by using lighter water instead of heavier mud to keep oil from floating up.
BP and the Obama administration are now exploring proposal after proposal to contain the spill, and yet it seems something has been missing since the crisis began: An appreciation of the undersea world affected. When the cleanup work is done, BP should hold mandatory snorkeling trips for anyone who draws a paycheck from the company -- and other oil companies should do the same. Fostering an appreciation for the underwater world they work in might make companies more sensitive to avoiding future spills.

Humanity Still Stuck on Oil?

Gulf Oil Spill Cartoon, originally uploaded by rbtenorio.

What a sad sight to see in the Gulf of Mexico: The pollution caused by an oil spill that has dwarfed the impact of the Exxon Valdez catastrophe in 1989. (There has also been a human toll: the 11 BP employees who lost their lives in the explosion that caused the spill.) Is mankind condemned to such sights because of the car-crazed culture of the United States? Read more in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It"!