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Should we call the BP oil spill a "spill"? Or something else?
Easy Answer: Yes, it's a spill. But that hasn't kept people from trying to rename it.
Maybe it's me. Maybe it's the sheer volume of the oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe it's the fact that oil rises instead of sinks (at least until you Corexit it). But, for whatever reason, I have a hard time thinking of the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico as a "spill."
Spill sounds like a little milk on the floor.
But--the BP oil spill is also a spill. Just a much bigger one.
I asked Professor Ira Leifer from the Marine Sciences Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara our question:
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Should we call the BP oil spill a "spill"? Or something else?
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His response: "I think it is still a spill, it's just that underwater, because of buoyancy (rather than gravity, it falls up). I would call it an ongoing spill, rather than a spill."
Ongoing spill. I like that better.
Other people have come up with even more creative and perhaps descriptive names for the spill. Gusher. Oilpocalypse.
The public radio show "The Takeaway" had a really interesting conversation recently with Ben Zimmer who writes the On Language column for The New York Times. You can listen to it here:
Zimmer comes to the same conclusion Ira did--that maybe spill is an OK way to call what's going on.
But what do you think? Do you have a better name? Comment below or twitter to #easyanswers
Just got this suggestion via twitter @svarka :Since it's a British company, we should call it The Sea Sick
. The man(I mean Corporate!)-made "eruption" has only started its decades-long killing of the gulf & coastal ecosystems. The hidden food chain for all aquatic life has already begun a massive die-off from the bottom up (both figuratively and literally). We have not yet seriously discussed, much less addressed the anoxic effects of the heavy organics & petro-toxic effects of hundreds of different volatile & other toxic leachates from the massive sub-surface bubble of pooling crude (like in a cold lava lamp) which will eventually ensure that most life in the gulf 'down stream' (east & north) and along the Atlantic coast, will be perpetually killed as it flows in from the South Atlantic and the poisoned ocean water flows around north America, eventually to Europe.
. Also unaddressed are the permanent geo-structural & long term climatic effects as the bottom of the gulf drops and water flows are disturbed.
. BP, despite their demure facade of compliance (but unsheathing the wedge of 'legitimate' claims, literally meaning 'You must sue.') is already surreptitiously withdrawing its liability resources from what will become a 'fan-air-man' company, which will eventually be allowed to go bankrupt. While BP and its policy makers divest themselves of the exposure, & blame US enforcement for their failure, like a lizard shedding its tail, & will escape, within the next few quarters.
. BTW: Because we perpetually let the ittl. oil conglomerates get away with 'leakage' in 3rd world areas, and they now have US citizenship rights (to use their unlimited wealth to 'influence' our political & enforcement systems) but not liabilities (a corp. cannot go to jail), they now know they will get away with it for a comparative pittance. Our actual citizens (and future generations) will bear the majority of the actual costs. We have still only mincingly discussed the long-term economic devastation which will spread over & from the outflow areas of the coastal US. We will almost certainly dismiss our (US & BP) liability for any Central and South American effects.
. PS: Per your question: It is an artificial "eruption", much like an undersea volcano, but viciously different in its effects.
It's not a spill. Spill has connotations of the accidental release of a substance AFTER it has been collected or contained. I think "leak" is much more accurate than "spill." And, by the way, BP is not the devil. Stop scapegoating one company for all of the fossil fuel industry's problems.
