A BP Bankruptcy?

First, Ned would advise his readers to, as a general rule, avoid reading any article with a question for a headline. But he hopes they will ignore this sage advice in this particular case.
In today's NYT, there was an article which, for poor structure and misleading content, was at least in Ned's most recent memory, unparalleled. It had the headline "Weighing the Possibility of Bankruptcy for BP" and featured the "analysis" of someone identified as "associate dean for environmental programs at (wait for it) Florida State University College of LAW."
Ned would ask what expertise a lawyer would be likely to have on this complex environmental subject and his readers would no doubt reply, "who might sue whom," and Ned would concur. But the article dealt not with suing people so much as with the idea that the environmental impact of the accident (for accident it was) might be so devastating that the company could not financially survive the liability. And here was one of the statements from the article: "My bet is that BP will finally go bankrupt from the tort liability and the environmental liability." Her reasoning? If oil were to enter the Gulf Stream, and pollute Florida, the East Coast, the Caribbean and even Britain, lawsuits "COULD (Ned's emphasis) mount to levels BP could not handle." And the best part, "Hypothetically, a blue fin tuna farmer in the Mediterranean could end up with a claim against BP."
With all due respect to Ms. Craig, the "expert" in question, Ned would like to use her logic to posit an equally likely scenario: "If the Moon could ultimately be shown to be made of green cheese, as some contend, then the entire Moon exploration program can be shown to have been an elaborate hoax."

Here's why an oceanographer should have been consulted before this preposterous quote made its way into the pages of the NYT: First, water from the GOM does not go south into the Caribbean, it generally flows north if it leaves the GOM at all, or evaporates. to be replenished by water from the Mississippi and other sources on land. Second, as Jane Lubchenco, administrator of NOAA and a first-rate oceanographer has said, in the unlikely event oil gets to the Atlantic, or even to the Keys, it will be so diluted that it will cause no harm, and might probably be impossible to measure. Furthermore, if oil in concentration on the ppb range did get into the Gulf Stream, it would take this water about 14-16 months to reach Britain. During that time it would have evaporated, and water would have been added along the way from countercurrents, further diluting the "oil." So there is about as much chance of any measurable oil reaching Britain as of a British city being seized by aliens and held for ransom.
But what about those "tuna farmers" in the Mediterranean? Well, blue fin tuna is about as endangered a species in the Mediterranean as you are likely to find, due to local pollution and overfishing. And anyone who looks at oceanographic charts would see that only an infinitesimal amount of water inters the Mediterranean from the Atlantic, and by the time any "tainted" water would get to the mouth of the Med from the GOM(!), it would have had an oil content reduced to zero.
That's what an oceanographer would say, but that wouldn't have made as good a story, now would it?
Ned wishes you all a very good day.