Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Jealous of Gulf Of Mexico Oil Blowout Publicity

By John DeCock, President, Clean Water Action
July 2, 2010 05:50 PM

 COMMENTARY

In an interview this morning with Clean Water Action, the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone complained that the Gulf Of Mexico BP Oil Blowout is overshadowing his many years of success in destroying the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. "I mean I’ve spent years building up nitrogen fertilizer runoff and pesticides to erase life in a huge area", the hypoxic menace said "and this guy comes in and in a month he’s become the big star of the Gulf."

Mr. Dead Zone went on to explain that he believes he should be at least equally vilified since so much of his success is due to a poorly conceived scheme to grow corn for ethanol. "Hey, fossil fuels have had the edge on destroying water for years, but I’ve carved out a nice little living here with corn ethanol agriculture that pollutes the entire Mississippi watershed and fails to reduce greenhouse gases at all", Mr. Zone explained, "I mean, the gusher keeps on chundering out crude oil. I can’t argue with how awesome that is, but how much effort does that really take once you’ve ignored safety regulations and violated your permit?"

Mr. Zone points to the long, slow destruction of wetlands and fisheries, the massive algae blooms and the complete absence of a viable ecosystem in an area that could reach 7,800 square miles in 2010. He compares his work to a sculptor who takes his time chiseling out a statue versus a factory that stamps out thousands of cement garden gnomes. "Sure you can get the coverage, but where is the art? Bad things sometimes take time."

Speaking under condition of anonymity, an executive for British Petroleum spoke on behalf of the gusher. "We congratulate the Dead Zone on his enormous accomplishment and we are sure that bogus alternative energy schemes like corn ethanol will continue to play their part in destroying ecosystems. However fossil fuels, by virtue of their ability to damage watersheds and marine environments so much more rapidly, are really the future of killing the Gulf. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m late for an endangered turtle burning cruise."

As of press time, no reliable figures were available to compare the size of the devastation from the BP Oil Disaster to the Dead Zone. "They’ve got three multinational corporations and the U.S. Government holding their cards close to the vest. I’ve got scientists and do-gooders crawling all over me every day." Mr. Zone muttered as he walked away.

When asked to comment on the dispute, Catastrophic Climate Change, who we caught up with having coffee at a Starbucks with Satan, called for peace between both parties. "There’s plenty of planet out there to destroy, we all have a part to play," the Formerly Avoidable Problem remarked as his friend nodded knowingly.