At approximately 9:50 P.M. on April 20, 2010, a well ruptured at the Macondo 252 site, three miles under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and 40 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast. The blowout would kill 11 men, destroy the Deepwater Horizon rig, and, 205.8 million gallons of oil later, constitute the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout is conservationist Carl Safina's impassioned account of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, a tale of industry mismanagement and environmental catastrophe in a region already facing "death by a thousand cuts". Safina recounts the chain of misjudgments and shortcuts leading up to the blowout by Transocean, which owned Deepwater Horizon, and the incoherent, ad hoc response of BP and the Coast Guard. Finally, he considers the inexhaustible thirst for fossil fuels that was ultimately responsible for the disaster, and the even more devastating effects of oil that didn't spill into the Gulf.  I spoke with Carl Safina spoke on the one-year anniversary of the spill. Our conversation about his just-released book touched on recent developments that show us that this story is far from over. This interview also appeared in The Atlantic. I wanted to start by getting your reaction to a few recent news flashes: Transocean executives get bonuses, despite massive Gulf spill; company lauds 'best year in safety'. AndTransocean to donate safety bonuses to rig victim fund.  I hadn't heard the latter. That blunts my former reaction. To say in any un-nuanced public statement that they had their best safety year in history is despicable beyond comment. Here's another: BP to Restart Deepwater Drilling in Gulf of Mexico; London-based oil giant promised to abide by rules stricter than guidelines set after Deepwater Horizon blast. I think that if we look at the big picture, it seems that for the moment we are completely painted into a corner regarding oil and oil extraction. In the chess game of our energy needs the king is being chased around the board by an increasingly tightening circle of pawns. We basically have very few choices because we have built very few options. When I was in high school in the early 1970s we knew we were running out of oil; we knew that easy sources were being capped; we knew that diversifying would be much better; we knew that there were terrible dictators and horrible governments that we were enriching who…

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