… a debate was going on about the language of the environmental disaster in the Gulf. One person on Twitter suggested that a more appropriate hashtag than #oilspill was #oildisaster, one Gambit‘s Kevin Allman supported. “This isn’t a spill, like the Exxon Valdez, but a pipe far below the ocean surface continually spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico,” he wrote. A pipe, incidentally, that they expect to pump oil into the Gulf for at least another week.

Of greater concern is the attempt by some media outlets to call this a natural disaster, as if a disaster that occurs in nature is a natural disaster. Of the political fallout of the emergency, the New York Times‘ Helene Cooper wrote, “Natural disasters provide great opportunities, or great peril, for presidents.” CNN also used the phrase, writing, “The Coast Guard was conducting a flyover Friday morning to see if oil had reached Louisiana’s coastline as federal, state and local officials scrambled to avert a natural disaster threatening to surpass the Exxon Valdez disaster 20 years ago in Alaska.”

Kevin Allman underscores the issue at stake with this bit of linguistic shorthand/subterfuge (depending on how conspiratorial you feel): “Because a natural disaster could not have been prevented, and because no one and no organization is responsible for a natural disaster.” Blaming Mother Nature lets BP and Halliburton off the hook.

Former OffBeat food editor Todd Price questioned the New York Times about the use of the phrase “natural disaster” and got this response, which seemed to miss the immediate point:

We are aware that many people want us to make the distinction between Katrina and the flooding.

But Ms. Cooper did not call the flooding in New Orleans a natural disaster. She called the hurricane Katrina a natural disaster. And that is correct: a hurricane is a natural disaster.

I think all the families who were displaced and who lost loved ones would agree that a hurricane did exist.

Best regards,

Greg Brock
Senior Editor/Standarde

After this exchange, Price wrote:

I wondered if Mr. Brock’s failure to address Ms. Cooper’s implication that the oil spill is a “natural disaster” means that the New York Times stands by the characterization?

I also wanted to point out to Mr. Brock that a hurricane is actually a storm and not a natural disaster. Hurricanes often make landfall without causing damage that anyone would call disastrous. In fact, if our levees had worked as designed, that’s exactly what would have happened in New Orleans.

In the end, what’s the point of a response? I don’t have the impression Mr. Brock is looking for a conversation.

In other language-related news, Jeffrey at Library Chronicles found a new blame-free phrase introduced into the lexicon by the oil leak: “oiled wildlife.”