What can’t be known
There is a NYT article this morning saying that a determination has been made in the BP Oil Spill that says the area will recover faster than people had anticipated – by the end of 2012 – and therefore compensation for the damages will be mitigated by this good news. I read this almost in disbelief that anyone could in their right mind know when and to what degree the damages from this spill would be over and I will highlight only one reasonable voice quoted in the article:
A key document used to formulate plans for commercial fishermen making claims was a report by Wes Tunnell, a marine biologist at Texas A&M’s Harte Research Institute in Corpus Christi, who has extensive experience studying oil spills.
The 39-page report acknowledges that any definitive assessment at this point is impossible, and that fully understanding the spill’s ecological effects will take years.