I wasn’t born yet when the Exxon Valdez tanker crashed into a reef outside of Alaska and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean. But BP has made up for the fact that I missed that catastrophe by creating one of its own. On April 21, the explosion on the oil rig “Deepwater Horizon” killed eleven workers and created an oil spill the size of Rhode Island. The well in the Gulf of Mexico now leaks 5,000 barrels of oil per day and has posed major environmental and financial problems. Cleaning up this spill is going to take time and money, and many scientists fear that cataclysmic environmental damage has already been done.

In spite of the irrefutable seriousness of this situation, politicians and media figures have been discussing the oil spill as though it’s a debatable issue. They need to realize that oil spills are bad. They are always bad. There has never been one that has been good. This incident has devastated the habitats of fish and the birds that prey on them. The livelihoods of those in the fishing industry have been threatened by the fishing ban in the affected areas. Not to mention that the explosion was the direct cause of eleven tragic deaths. Let me reiterate: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill isn’t a good thing.

Well, according to Rush Limbaugh, “hardcore environmentalist wackos” who think that the current cap-and-trade bill is too weak decided that “blowing up the rig” would draw attention to the dangers of off-shore drilling and gain support for their cause. So, if you’re a “hardcore environmentalist wacko,” then destroying the environment was a plot on your part to … help protect the environment? Something’s not adding up here.

Sarah Palin has also jumped in on the oil spill action. Her advice, relayed via Twitter, was, “foreign oil co’s: don’t naïvely trust.” Thanks, Sarah Palin! It would stand to reason then that American oil companies are fully trustworthy. But Exxon is an American company that was also implicated in a disastrous oil spill. Should we not trust anyone anymore?

Here’s another fun one. Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is claiming that President Obama’s delayed response to this crisis has been for political reasons because “he has never supported big oil…and now he has an excuse to shut it back down.” Now, maybe it’s just me, but if my claim to fame was the fact that I was the director of FEMA during its failed response to Hurricane Katrina, I would never speak publicly again. Ever. I would especially not speak publicly about a government response to an environmental disaster for fear that the hypocrisy would cause the world to implode. But, again, that’s just me.

Needless to say, not all responses to the Deepwater Horizon disaster have been equally constructive. But considering the fact that the oil well has been spouting millions of gallons of oil into the ocean for weeks, I think it is safe to say that all verbal responses are nothing short of pointless. Talking about and debating this problem doesn’t stop the leaking oil well.

Today’s political climate has become so partisan that many public figures have lost sight of the fact that some things are universally bad. Regardless of your political orientation, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or what have you, environmental disasters negatively affect everyone. Politicians and media figures alike need to abandon the useless blame game because it isn’t helping anything. Once the spill has been cleaned up, go ahead and point fingers because it’s a slow news day. But right now, this is a serious problem that no one is benefiting from.

Environmental dangers don’t lean left or right — they affect everyone equally. As such, politicians and members of the media need to form a united front on this issue. They should dedicate themselves to efficiently cleaning up the oil spill and supporting the people whose lives have been devastated, not letting politics take over once again.

Michelle DeWitt is an LSA junior.