In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf, and Ending Our Oil Addiction

Peter Lehner gives us exactly what we need to know about the BP oil catastrophe. After a vivid retelling of exactly what happened when the well exploded, Lehner presents essential information about how BP cutting corners opened the door to disaster. He demonstrates how anti-government rhetoric and policies crippled the regulatory oversight that is required whenever a profit-making enterprise endangers the public welfare. And he documents the fragile state of the Gulf ecosystem before and after the blowoutas well as the incalculable damage done to the well-being of the people of this region. Fortunately, Lehner also shows very practical ways, ways that are immediately available, that would allow us to wean ourselves from our addiction to oil.Except for some small redundancies, the book is very well written.

Pretty good book! I also liked  A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout50 Ways to Save the Ocean (Inner Ocean Action Guide)The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World  Carl Safina and David Helvarg complement this book. If you want to be an activist, these great books to start your education of the ocean and the effects of drilling and other pollution.

as advertised

I read with interest this book. I have read one other book about the disaster, but I wanted to see the environmentalist stand is on this.It descibes the disaster and what BP did wrong. They rushed decisions, and didn't use the right equipment. They made decisions that other oil companies wouldn't have done. After the disaster, both BP and the other oil companies did not even have an alternative on how to clean up the oil. In their plans, they even listed the walrus as an endangered species in the Gulf, when clearly this was a form they used for all their oil drilling spots. The authors show the neglect of the oil companies in their quest for riches.It also offers suggestions on how to end the oil addiction here in America. It makes suggestions like better gas mileage, smaller cars, wind and solar farms. These are all good suggestions.As with all environmentalists, they want to cordone off the wildness, and prevent oil drilling from being done anywhere. I agree that huge mistakes were made, but simply to suggest that we can't do this more carefully in the future in also not doable or viable. I wonder how or where the authors expect us to get oil in the future. There was no easy short term alternatives and simply not drilling in not a very viable option.Overall, this book did a good job of detailing why the risks are great at deep oil drilling.

The disaster of the Gulf oil spill was a perfect storm of lax government regulation, a corner-cutting global energy titan, and an unthinking energy policy by the United States. This book by Peter Lehner and Bob Deans of the Natural Resources Defense Council skillfully and lucidly weaves together these strains to produce a compelling "first draft of history" that reads like a combination of investigative journalism and Greek tragedy. The book makes clear that many misguided decisions led inevitably to the worst environmental disaster in American history. Filled with telling detail and hard facts, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know the causes and the consequences of the blowout at BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, America's richest aquatic ecosystem. It includes compelling human stories of the fishermen, shrimpers and other watermen whose deeply ingrained way of life has been devastated by forces far beyond their control. Most importantly, the authors offer important prescriptions to avoid another Gulf disaster.