As you can see from the picture on my blog, I am a resident of Central Florida located about half way between the east and west coasts. It saddens me when I think about the short and long term effects that the BP oil disaster will cause to our beaches, wildlife and ecosystem.
Although I am not an engineer or ecologist, I have an idea that may help resolve some of the issues involved. Bear with me now, this is a little bit unconventional.
Rather than having the Army Corps of Engineers and the BP engineers looking at this problem strictly from an engineering perspective with their focus on oil spills and their experience with past incidents, I think that the government should retain the services of some innovative inventors who would look at this issue from a totally different point of view.
The first person that comes to mind is James Dyson. According to commercials for the Dyson vacuum cleaner with the ball technology, Mr. Dyson "has been obsessed with vacuum cleaner technology" for over 12 years. At the end of the commercial his name appears and underneath it, his title: Inventor. It is obvious that Mr. Dyson has the ability to focus on a particular product and use his extraordinary problem solving skills and talents to improve that product. Perhaps he would have some valuable input suggesting ways to 'vacuum' the oil off the surface of the water as well as the plumes emanating from the depths.
Another man that thinks outside the box is Dean Kamen the inventor of the Segway. In addition to this amazing innovation, Kamen specializes in robotics often for use in the medical field. If you put Kamen into a room with Dyson and several other inventors, perhaps their 'different kinds of minds' would come up with something totally abstract and out of the realm of an engineer's rigid training and way of thinking. These are the people that should be addressing this problem...in my humble opinion.
Please save our beaches, plant and animal life and prevent Florida from becoming one big tar beach with cans of kerosene at the boardwalks to clean your feet before putting them back into your shoes. This is a memory I have from my childhood along the Jersey shore--cleaning my feet with kerosene. Lovely, isn't it?
