Posted
5/22/2010 01:39:00 PM
by Douglas
I'll admit I'm a bit of a nerd, but it's a pet peeve of mine with dumb journalists use ridiculous comparisons to explain large numbers. To extrapolate a vast distance by saying it's "1.7 million football fields" doesn't put it in any clearer terms. So what kind of great description can we put on the gulf oil spill? How bout a new unit of volume, the
gymnasium?Using worst case scenarios calculated by scientists, a month's worth of leaking oil could fill enough gallon milk jugs to stretch more than 11,300 miles. That's more than the distance from New York to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and back. That's just shy of 130 million gallons.
If the government's best case scenario is used — and only 5.25 million gallons have spilled — those milk jugs would cover a bit more than a roundtrip between New York and Washington. But the government is revising that number, with a team of scientists working around the clock to come up with a more realistic and likely higher figure.
Here's another way to think of just how much oil has gushed out since April 20: At worst, it's enough to fill 102 school gymnasiums to the ceiling with oil.
Don't they have to take
any science course in journalism school?