We've said it before, and we'll say it again: The Gulf was under enormous environmental pressures before April 20, 2011, the date that the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up and killed 11 workers and then spewed so much oil into such a vital body of water. Let's face it, the reason that environmental protection is so important is because our wonderful ecology is so fragile. Even in a perfect world, unseasonably cold or dry weather or tropical storms like Hurricane Katrina can destroy marshlands or cause high rates of death or disease for certain species. But we don't live in a perfect world: Everything from high levels of nitrates in the Mississippi River basin to overdevelopment to rising sea levels from global warming has led to alarming conditions such as dead zones in the Gulf. This is the world that was overwhelmed by 5 million barrels oil two years ago. Here's the thing: The stress factors in the Gulf are so many and so great that the BP apologists -- and there are far too many of them -- have pointed to every other possible factor, except Macondo oil, for everything that's gone wrong in the region since the spring of 2010. ...
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