THE full extent of the catastrophe involving the giant Sea Empress oil tanker, which ran aground off the Pembrokeshire coast, has emerged during the past week or so. It makes very disturbing reading.

Up to 70,000 tons of crude oil gushed from the stricken leviathan, triggering Britain's worst environmental disaster, with more than 1,000 oiled birds washed ashore and countless numbers dead or dying as the slick spread across the Bristol Channel.

Few people can have failed to be moved by the harrowing pictures on national TV as it became depressingly obvious that the heroic efforts of clean-up teams and hundreds of back-up volunteers was having a minimal effect on the scale of the tragedy.

During the past few years we have become accustomed to learning about similar accidents. In some cases, immune even. It's not all that long ago that Alaska, the most stunning area of natural beauty on God's Good Earth was ruined by an oil tanker rupture. The people responsible for that little lot should have been executed without trial.

The utter irresponsibility of letting these monster ecological timebombs loose on the high seas defies logic. But then logic never enters the equation when profit is concerned.

Oil is the most precious raw material known to modern man; not for nothing is it called black gold. The world would grind to a halt, literally, if ever it ran out. Personally I wish it had never been found but I could be in a minority of one.

However, balanced against the devastating effect it has had on our environment - air pollution, global warming, sea disasters on the scale of the Sea Empress - wouldn't we all be better off on foot, riding bikes or with REAL horse power.

After all, no-one to the best of my knowledge - man or creature - has suffered permanent damage or died through inhaling or being covered in manure, except the odd unsuspecting bluebottle. It can't be pleasant but fatal? I doubt it.

The uncaring and cynical among you may well ask what an oil slick in the Bristol Channel and the death of a few thousand sea birds has to do with you. Plenty, if you stop and think. The systematic rape of our planet affects us all.

Has anyone sought to find out how much nuclear waste is being transported across the high seas? There will be more than a few thousands dead birds being washed up on shorelines if one of those floating Hiroshimas goes aground.

The apocalyptic predictions of 16th century astrologer Nostradamus might not be all that far off. Think about that, as you climb into your motor and prepare to sit in a traffic jam for the next hour or so, spewing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere.

Great world, innit?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.