The ocean floor is known to release numerous natural gases. The release of these gases is not normally caused by manmade disasters but by natural events. Because the ocean and the world’s land mass are plush with natural filters alleviating risk to human lives, we have not been truly affected until now.
One of the most dangerous natural gases released under the ocean floor is methane gas.
Today, because of the horrific Gulf oil spill that continues to affect the lives of all persons, an unfathomable amount of methane gas imposes grave danger to the entire world. Recent scientific research identifies the Gulf disaster as a potential mega killer.
BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years.
There is no question that this disaster could have been prevented. Most intriguing is the fact that this disaster, even after it occurred, could have and should have been stopped long ago. Unfortunately, prevention, preparing, responding, and recovering were simply not planned and enforced appropriately.
Risk Management planning is a fundamental principle that the U.S. Government has been instilling in private and government sectors for many years now. State and federal Homeland Security Departments have spent billions of dollars of your tax money to ensure all identified critical assets have executable risk management plans in place.
Very simple in nature and very easy to create is a risk management plan which entails four fundamental sections: prevent, prepare, respond, and recover.
It is likely that a plan was in place for British Petroleum; however, such a plan was not executed. Short cuts were made to save cost of operations and oversight appears to have been non-existent. Private organizations do not want to spend the time, money, and resources in creating and following such plans.
Most recently, two separate natural gas companies conducting operations deep in the heartland of the Northeast United States were asked whether they had risk management plans in place and they stated that they did not. Simply put, many federal, state, and private organizations do not care about crises until they happen. This means as a society we have become accustomed to being reactionary in nature. This leads to utter mismanagement and improper decision making.
Today, out of pure laziness and private companies sleeping with government oversight, the world faces the similar situation it faced nearly 250 million years ago that nearly wiped mother earth out of the atmosphere. While that which occurred over 250 million years ago is strictly theory; that which occurred in 1986 Cameroon killing over 1,700 persons through natural gas exposure serves as fact.
Simply put, the BP oil spill has potential even now with a cap in place to cause a greater catastrophe than any media outlet will ever inform.
Kerry Patton served in the U.S. Defense and Justice departments, and as a contractor within the Homeland Security and State departments. He has worked in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, focusing on intelligence and security interviewing current and former terrorists, including members of the Taliban. He is the author of “Sociocultural Intelligence: The New Discipline of Intelligence Studies.” Currently, Mr. Patton teaches for Henley Putnam University and is the Northeast Regional Director for Stand Up America www.standupamericaus.com.