It's Like Oil & Water

I was taken by the discovery recently that not all of the oil currently floating on our oceans is the result of a tanker spill or the discharge from the bilge of a passing container ship. In fact most of this seepage is the result of a natural process.


You see, it turns out that that most oil doesn't like staying under the ground. Instead, it would rather rise to the surface. We have known about this since the 1860's, when it was noticed in areas as diverse as Pennsylvania and Azerbaijan. 

In fact, in a study published in the 90's by BP among others, it appears that there is seepage in 75% of the "petroliferous basins" (places where there is oil underground for those unwilling to pick up a dictionary or too lazy to follow the enclosed link). This fact is also true when the oil is under the ocean floor, and because oil is lighter than water, when it seeps out of the from these areas, it floats to the surface. This sub-surface seepage in the oceans can actually be detected by oil companies using a satellite-based Synthetic Aperture Radar, and is used as a indication of where they should be able to successfully drill for oil on the ocean floor.

Now if you believe (and I do) that oil floating on the ocean is a bad thing, impacting the fish and wildlife of this watery habitat, you must therefore agree that drilling for it and pumping it out from beneath the ocean's floor may be the only way to prevent this pollution of the world's oceans from continuing. It is not only environmentally sound therefore to do this drilling; but as good "Stewards of the Earth", it is the only compassionate thing to be done for the life of the planet. Please write or call your elected Representatives to make sure that any prohibition, regulation, or impediment to this off-shore drilling is removed immediately. This may be the last chance that we have to save Mother Earth.

Note: The fact that the actions described above will bring down the price of oil, stimulate the economy, and make us energy independent of a bunch of Third World despotic "hell holes" who would rather see us all dead should play no part in this argument. We are not talking here about feeding profiteering oil companies simply to promote the lifestyles of an uncaring American bourgeois class driving their SUV's. We are talking about saving the very planet that we live on.