American Chernobyl

Chernobyl on my mind. First the parallel with Deepwater Horizon, then Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith, a very well-written novel I am flying through. Now Club Orlov's analysis of Big Oil Spill as American Chernobyl, dated back in May:

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010/05/american-chernobyl.html

The list of similarities is... well, frightening if you haven't caught on yet to which way the wind is blowing.

The concept of  technogenic catastrophe  is mentioned, having come into vogue after Chernobyl:

It is rather more descriptive than the rather flaccid English phrase [industrial accident], and it puts the blame where it ultimately comes to rest in any case: with the technology, and the technologists and politicians who push it. Technology that can and sometimes does fail catastrophically, causing unacceptable levels of environmental devastation, is no good, regardless of how economically necessary it happens to be. It must be shut down.