Opinion: Oil Spills Are Fine And Everyone Needs To Stop Acting Like The Ocean Didn’t Ask For A Little Shine

I am tired of watching decent people lose their minds every time a hardworking energy company adds a tasteful petroleum finish to one tiny corner of the ocean.

The ocean is already wet. It is already full of slime. It has eels in it. It is not a nursery school carpet.

Please grow up.

For years, environmental activists have trained the public to see oil spills as some kind of shameful disaster, when any reasonable adult with a basic appreciation for industrial beauty can look at that rainbow sheen across the water and recognize a surface upgrade. The sea went from blue, which it has been doing forever, to blue with depth, drama, and shareholder confidence.

That is called improving the asset.

I should mention, before the emails start, that I recently attended a very informative coastal stewardship lunch hosted by several extremely normal men in BP quarter-zips. They did not tell me what to write. They merely served salmon, used the phrase "marine relationship management" seven times, and gave everyone at the table a heavy black pen that makes signing things feel important.

If that is corruption, then corruption has excellent catering.

People keep saying crude oil does not belong in the water. Based on what? Oil comes from the earth. Water sits on the earth. The earth is clearly hosting both substances and has not issued a statement.

Besides, have you seen crude oil up close? Thick. Ancient. Serious. It looks like the kind of substance that knows how interest rates work. Solar panels look like a spreadsheet got laminated and abandoned in a paddock.

One has gravitas. The other looks like homework for a German town council.

Marine animals will be fine. Fish live in complete darkness beside boiling vents, dodge squid, swallow other fish whole, and spend every waking second inside a haunted soup of salt and teeth. I refuse to believe a tuna that survives the open ocean is going to see a little premium-grade fossil sauce and suddenly need a wellness day.

Birds are the same. Everyone posts the sad bird photos because birds are excellent at looking wronged. That is their whole brand. A pelican can stand beside a hot chip and look like it has just been betrayed by Parliament.

A light coating of oil does not make a bird tragic. It makes it aerodynamic and mysterious.

The tourism complaint is also nonsense. Before a spill, a beach is sand, sunburn, warm cider, and some man named Brett trying to reverse a jet ski trailer while his wife pretends not to know him. After a spill, suddenly there are helicopters, command tents, international media, men in white suits, and a slick black mirror stretching toward the horizon like God hired a production designer.

That is not a crisis. That is placemaking.

Coastal towns spend millions begging people to notice them. Then BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, or whichever beloved energy institution happens to be involved gives the shoreline a cinematic limited-time activation, and everybody acts ungrateful.

This is why nice industries stop doing things for us.

I have also heard the phrase "long-term ecological damage" thrown around by people who still order overnight delivery because they forgot to buy phone chargers. Nature is long-term. That is its entire department. Give it a few years, a few tides, and maybe one committee with a teal logo, and it will sort itself out.

The ocean has handled shipwrecks, volcanoes, nuclear tests, cruise bathrooms, medieval sewage, and whatever Australians are putting in sunscreen. It can handle a few barrels of Texas business nectar taking a scenic route home.

The real problem is hypocrisy. Everyone wants plastics, flights, shipping, asphalt, mascara, fantasy football, emergency generators, and the ability to receive a novelty ice machine from Amazon by Thursday. Then the second the supply chain expresses itself visually, the same people start speaking for shrimp.

Sorry, but shrimp do not vote.

Energy is allowed to have texture. Progress is allowed to leave a mark. Sometimes that mark is a glistening film across a bay that makes drone footage look incredible and reminds children where prosperity comes from.

Frankly, I think we should be thanking oil spills for their honesty. Coal hides in power plants. Lithium hides behind lifestyle branding. Wind turbines stand on hills acting thin and morally superior. Oil gets out there. Oil shows up. Oil puts on the black suit and says, yes, this is what the economy looks like when nobody is lying.

At press time, I had not received any direct payment from BP, although a courier did arrive with a tasteful navy vest, two tickets to a "Responsible Energy Futures" breakfast, and a small vial of something labeled "heritage water."

I will be wearing the vest while continuing to make up my own mind.