BrianGarst.com

In the midst of the BP oil spill, hysterics were common place. Even though the Gulf had survived a previous such oil spill decades earlier, the BP spill was all but portrayed as the coming of the apocalypse. It would take decades to recover. Things would never be the same. We must stop drilling for oil, now and forever!

Of course, things were bad. There’s no denying that the spill severely disrupted Gulf coast economies and harmed the environment. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as many claimed. In other words, the environmental reactionaries did their usual overreaction:

After BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico blew out a year ago today, many feared that the resulting oil spill would turn the Gulf into a dead sea, destroy its beaches, kill its vibrant seafood and tourism industries and mortally wound the economies of states from Florida to Texas.

The spill’s long-term effects on the environment are still a serious question, but the Gulf turned out to be surprisingly resilient, and so far the news has been unexpectedly good. Most of the oil is gone. Fishing has resumed, the beaches are clean (with some exceptions), tourist bookings are up and Gulf seafood is safe to eat.

Let’s keep this in mind as they move on to preach environmental doom elsewhere.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill