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Amidst the chaos of the oil spill, a bit of perspective is needed regarding just how big of a disaster this is, as well as how much of a disaster it is NOT.
There are 660 quadrillion gallons of water in the Gulf of Mexico. If not a single drop of oil from the spill by the end of August, that will be a total of 108 million gallons of oil.
That means there will be only 1 gallon of oil per 6.6 billion gallons of water by the end of August, or 0.00000000001 percent of the gulf. That's less than a half a drop of oil in a bathtub full of water.
This is not to downplay the catastrophe at hand to the estuaries and beaches, nor the people so gravely impacted by this spill. But there's this notion that the gulf is going to turn into one big soup bowl full of oil, which is hardly the case here.
There are 660 quadrillion gallons of water in the Gulf of Mexico. If not a single drop of oil from the spill by the end of August, that will be a total of 108 million gallons of oil.
That means there will be only 1 gallon of oil per 6.6 billion gallons of water by the end of August, or 0.00000000001 percent of the gulf. That's less than a half a drop of oil in a bathtub full of water.
This is not to downplay the catastrophe at hand to the estuaries and beaches, nor the people so gravely impacted by this spill. But there's this notion that the gulf is going to turn into one big soup bowl full of oil, which is hardly the case here.