The words “oil spill” use to be simply a description of an event.   But since Deepwater Horizon the words “oil spill” for Americans are associated with a massive catastrophe brought about by human and technology failure driven by greed.  The words now have such a negative public meaning that “oil spill” has become the benchmark to compare other disastrous events.

Here is U.S. Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts talking about Facebook’s fall from grace debacle.

“I think that this privacy spill is politically the equivalent of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Markey . . . Because it involves our very democracy, I think [it] is going to draw more attention of the American public to this issue.”

Just think of the other non-petroleum disasters the words “oil spill” can be associated.

In South Carolina we can say the abandoned $9 billion nuclear plant construction project today is the Palmetto State’s economic oil spill.

But it doesn’t have to be a huge event to use the “oil spill” comparison.

How about that Roy Moore, wasn’t he a real oil spill?

Give it a try. Inject the words “oil spill” into your description of disasters large and small.

The words have earned their derogatory place in history right alongside other famous disasters like the Titanic and Hindenburg.

Big Oil wants to convince America that oil spills are a thing of the past.

Mark Green, editor of the American Petroleum Institute’s “Energy Tomorrow”, recently wrote: “The fact is offshore energy development is safer than it has ever been and is continually improving because of technology, new industry standards, safety management systems and employee training.” (March 21, 2018, The Hill)

Ha! We’ve heard all this hollow rhetoric before.  It’s such an oil spill.