Uncertainty was king five years ago in the Gulf of Mexico, from the moment the BP Deepwater Horizon rig blew, killing 11 men, and for the next 87 days, as hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil spewed into the Gulf. By late June I had grown sick of other people telling the story, so I picked up an assignment from an environmental magazine and headed off to see the disaster for myself. For the next month I toured the tar-balled coasts, hitched a helicopter ride with the Cousteau film team to see the rig and the giant oil slicks, and talked with local fishermen and politicians while observing the media circus that I was part of. Traveling along the marshes and barrier islands, I had the deep sense that no one knew what the hell was going on: not BP, not the government, not the scientists, not the media, not the stunned locals, and certainly not those who captained the cleanup boats, the Orwellian-named “Vessels of Opportunity.” After weeks in the Gulf, I was feeling...