The oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico must be a lesson in humility for all human activities, not only for the energy industry, a Vatican spokesman said.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, spoke on the latest episode of Octava Dies about the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico following an April 20 well blowout on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform.
“It is difficult to calculate the dimensions of the disaster, but they are certainly enormous and continue to grow,” he said.
“There come to mind other grave environmental disasters connected with human activity,” the priest observed, “like those of the chemical factory in Bhopal, India in 1984, or that of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, which caused a number of deaths and serious harm to people.”
He continued, “What is striking in this case is the sense of impotence and slowness in finding a solution in the face of the disaster, on the part of one the largest and most well-equipped multinational oil companies in the world, but also on the part of the most powerful country on earth.”
For a truly frightening take on the oil spill see: http://m.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/worst-already-true-BP-well-now-unstoppable
Basically the article says that the oil is eroding the entire well structure and the whole thing may collapse resulting in the leak continuing through the ocean floor until the entire oil pocket is drained of all the oil.