A USA TODAY/Gallop Poll taken in late May, for example, found that 73 percent of Americans feel that BP (British Petroleum) is doing a ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ job of handling the crisis, and 60 percent evaluated the federal government’s response in the same unfavorable terms.

It might be an interesting question for debate, with many possible opinions. There are too many variables to make forecasts with any certainty, so prognosticators would have to exclude all but one or two factors. There are these non-textbook questions: Will hurricanes wreak havoc? Will there be migration and refugees from the Gulf? Could a BP bankruptcy result, triggering broader corporate failures? The dismantling of BP or the massive downsizing and selling off of its assets are possible if criminal penalties plus anticipated fines prove as devastating for the corporation as its behavior has been for the Gulf of Mexico.

Most people paying attention to the world at large know that millions of gallons of crude oil have been loosed, still gushing uncontrollably, threatening not only the Gulf of Mexico but beyond. Our report suggests more than clean-up and better oversite: the Committee Against Oil Exploration.