Leaking Oil

TAE posits the question: How much oil must leak into the ocean before the entire world's ocean ecosystems collapse? As in, just how much oil can the world soak up? As in, if the ocean were a huge bowl of water, and the oil were food coloring...how many drops of food coloring would we need to add before the ocean was an incurably, irrevocably stained mire?

My guess is quite a bit. Much of the oil will wash up on shores and stay there, or sink to the bottom and be slowly reclaimed by bacteria.

But what if...just what if...this is the beginning of the end for our global ecosystem? What if aliens will visit 2,000 years in the future and find a lifeless, oily tarball of a planet, and using their vast supercomputers they back-calculate and determine that the moment life on Earth was doomed was April 20, 2010 by the human calendar?

The thought that failure to produce a successful relief well might mean the Deepwater Horizon well might just spew oil into the oceans for the next ten years is a chilling thought.


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