Oil spill damage not related to size

I’VE just read that in the US, Hurricane Alex has pushed a huge oil slick towards Grand Isle on the Louisiana coast, already in imminent danger of inundation from BP’s Deepwater Horizon which is pumping between 50,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea.

It has, so far, discharged two million barrels.

I received pictures of Grand Isle last week from an old friend of mine, the American writer, Peter Nichols. He ironically calls the photos ‘Holiday Snaps’. They show a coastal field marked with crosses like those in the cemeteries of The Somme. Each simple, white wooden cross is marked with the name of a species of flora or fauna, or of a human livelihood or tradition damaged or lost forever as a result of the oil.