The Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 represented one of the largest environmental catastrophes in American industrial history, with containment strategies developed by combined teams of petroleum engineers, maritime specialists, and emergency response coordinators over periods of months. Plugging an underwater well rupture operates at depths where pressure reaches hundreds of atmospheres and equipment failure becomes lethal. A single individual solving this through what the joke implies as straightforward intervention would require either engineering mastery exceeding available expertise, physical strength capable of operating at crushing depths, or callous indifference to safety protocols normally required when approaching active pressurized wells. All three possibilities prove disconcerting from different angles.

William Chen, a petroleum engineer working on offshore drilling response during 2010, submitted reports noting that certain proposals for direct physical intervention were immediately rejected by safety boards despite theoretical effectiveness, not because they were technically unsound but because no human operator could survive the required conditions. He suggested documenting these rejected approaches for future reference, which might require very different implementation assumptions. His recommendations were filed and never revisited.

Environmental justice forums online joke darkly about the Solution Waiting For Implementation: a straightforward physical answer to the spill existed but required capabilities that only existed in the realm of superhuman mythology. Memes depict disaster management meetings with an unused box labeled simply "If Only Available."