I've heard this argument several times over the past month from the "DBD" crowd (drill, baby, drill).
"Why stop all off shore drilling? If a plane crashes we don't ground every plane, do we?"
From AM Talk Show hosts to Oil Company execs to politicians who get a lot of state (and possibly personal) funds from oil companies, this same argument has been repeated.
I have just one word to say to them...
ok. I have a lot of words, but we'll start with this one....
"Hindenburg"
1937... engineers with a large international firm have developed what they say was a safe and foolproof flying machine. Sure, hydrogen was a dangerous gas, but every safety precaution would taken... nothing could go wrong.
Except it did go wrong.
And when it did, we grounded every hydrogen based blimp and that was the end of them.
Some won't be convinced by this story. Their argument was airplanes, not blimps.
So lets try--
"Concorde"
The crash in 2000 grounded every Concorde for years until they found and fixed the cause of the crash.
See, that is what the FAA does. They don't ground every plane, but they ground every plane of a certain type until the problem can be discovered and safety can be installed.
That is what the halt on off-shore drilling is about. Trying to find out what went wrong--what Accident happened--then making sure it can't happen elsewhere.
But some won't be happy with this answer. They want all airplanes equated with all off shore drilling.
Well here is a secret.
If an airplane were to crash into a forest and kill 11 people, we wouldn't stop all air flights.
But if that wreck caught the entire woods on fire, and for months continued to spread that fire over several states, and we thought there was even a small chance that any other plane could do the same--yes, we would ground them all.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:But if that wreck caught the entire woods on fire, and for months continued to spread that fire over several states, and we thought there was even a small chance that any other plane could do the same--yes, we would ground them all.
No, I don't think we would.
But yeah, you make a good point.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Well, the most recent example is that crash in India. Every plane with the same GE engines was grounded world wide.
To make the comparison fit, I would say that a moratorium on all BP contracts and BP actions would be a fitting analogy, since it's not necessarily fair, if this is a human error and not a technical one, to punish everyone when one company made a colossal mistake.
Besides, it isn't a moratorium on current operations, just on future drilling. The analogy only holds if dropped the BOP on every well in the Caribbean and stopped all the oil from flowing. The problem is that if you create a direct analogy, it works perfectly. When a test plane crashes, we do ground test flights until the problem is discovered and fixed, and that's exactly what we're talking about here.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
On the other hand, if only one plane (crash) could cause a level of devastation that could cover several states, I think 9/11 probably would have grounded planes for years, at least in the US.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Maybe the most apt comparison is nuclear power. Look what happened after Three Mile Island.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
What happened after Three Mile Island was a knee-jerk hysterical overreaction.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Perhaps, but it seems a pretty apt comparison for trying to make a guess at future reactions to man-made catastrophes. Also, perhaps this is a knee-jerk overreaction as well. It should be more targeted.
I don't think it's a good example of what we SHOULD do, for that, see my test flight analogy.
[ June 02, 2010, 11:13 PM: Message edited by: Lyrhawn ]
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Maybe the most apt comparison is nuclear power. Look what happened after Three Mile Island.
I agree, that is an apt comparison. Some people think that was an overreaction as well.
Edit: I let this reply sit for a while because I got distracted, but I wrote the reply prior to MPH's response and Lyrhawn's response to that. So, MPH basically already said what I wanted to say, and Lyrhawn already responded to what I'm saying here.
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
The environmental damage caused by this oil spill will far outweigh the damage done by Three Mile Island.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
By orders of magnitude.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Agreed.
Short of an asteroid hitting the earth though, I think you've sort of eliminated the existence of a usable analogy then. Not without delving into a Michael Bay movie.
Also, the thing about knee-jerk reactions, we tend not to think things through like that when we're making snap judgments. Otherwise, they wouldn't be knee-jerk reactions or snap judgments.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: On the other hand, if only one plane (crash) could cause a level of devastation that could cover several states, I think 9/11 probably would have grounded planes for years, at least in the US.
But I don't think if that had been the case to begin with, the planes would have been so easily hijacked. But then they would also have been a bigger target for hijacking.