"At the risk of making you more depressed, I'll say that I don't think the fucking oil that can be fucking boomed is the biggest part of the fucking problem. It is far worse than that, I fear. This oil spill is like no other--because of the depth and temperature where the oil is leaking.
One of the reasons that there is a big disparity in the estimates of how much oil comes from the science. (Some of course comes from people with agendas making biased estimates.) Some of the heretofore reasonable ways to estimate how much oil is coming out rely on the fact that most of the oil is visible on the surface. They can account for evaporation, spreading, foaming etc to estimate what is there.
This case is unique because the oil has to go from cold water a mile down to the surface, it appears that MOST of the oil is not actually reaching the surface. It is dissolving in the gulf water column. . Oil, being mostly made up of, well oil, does not dissolve in water, but it can emulsify--which means there tiny droplets mixed into the water and they are so small that they are invisible and get carried with the water. Parts of oil that would evaporate or be on the surface in a more conventional spill are winding up in the gulf waters
Somebody who knew what they were doing went and measured for this and there is lots of stable oil in the water column. Right now it is mostly below 1000' but if it rises to the surface it will reek havoc with the ecosystem. At high concentrations it will be toxic to the plankton etc. At lower concentrations it will not be, but it will enter the food chain and get concentrated as it goes. This will likely have devastating effects on gulf marine life for a long time. There has been no survey of the hundred cubic miles of water that is likely at risk; so we don't know for sure how big the risk is, but it actually makes fucking booming look good.
Of course, the visible oil is all that will be on the news. People won't get excited about chemical analyses. When the shrimp and fish and oysters don't come back, they'll think it was because of bad fucking booming.
Now for the Henry Kissenger side: Off shore drilling has been Three-Mile Islanded. The only people who will favor it are those who live in double land-locked states and don't eat seafood. It will give ammunition to those who favor investing in energy efficiency and renewables. The "drill baby drill" politicians just took a big hit in the polls.
P.S. BP is saying the "missing oil" is all natural gas and therefore does not stay in the water column. Methane is 16 times more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, so even if true that is huge ecological hit--but fortunately for BP it gets spread over the whole world. Tougher to sue."