On April 20th 2010 a huge explosion was seen in the Golf of Mexico. It was a Methane gas fire in the oil platform belonging to British Petroleum (BP) which later made the entire platform exploded. The fire lasted for three days, and eleven workers died while they were working on the platform.
Although this is by itself a tremendous catastrophe, the most complicated problem was yet to come. After the fire was extinguished it was possible to see a large oil slick surrounding the destroyed platform, and it was spreading from the rig site.
The following weeks and months BP was trying to stop the continuous oil spill, but all effort seems unsuccessful. BP losses were enormous, and also the amount of oil that was spreading in the ocean; moreover, the oil spill was killing many birds and ocean life in a way never seen before. This had become one of the worst world disasters, made by man, in all human history.
Later, the oil spill reached the coast of Florida making damages in the tourism, and also many coastal cities were suffering a loss of jobs based on fishing. As soon as people knew about the disaster, the environmental groups started into action; they are helping with the cleaning task, and doing anything they can for save the wildlife
On the other hand, BP is facing charges for negligence. The company has been paying large amount of money in compensations, and cleaning work. The company is also being accused of corruption because it was found that one of the owners (Goldman Sachs) sold his part of the company just days before the disaster, and it was found that the company bought shares of the oil dispersing chemical which was used in the affected place. In addition, it is very strange that the government did not ask for the truth reasons of the explosion, nor made them pay more for the effects of the oil spill.
Currently the oil spill has been stopped, and the government has approved a legislation to improve the safety standards for offshore drilling. However, to overcome the damages in the wildlife will require a lot of time and effort.
I have chosen this subject because the oil spill disaster is a very serious problem that affects everybody in different ways. As you can see in the news the life of many animals has been affected, and even the water is contaminated in the places close to the oil spill. Besides, the oil disaster has economic and political consequences in many countries; for example, in my home country consequences are in the economy. Despite the fact that Chile is far away from the disaster place, people are suffering the high prices of the gasoline. This situation makes me wondering why is so hard to implement alternative sources of energy; if the fossil fuels were not the main source of energy, this price increases would not exist. On the other side, I think the US government took a lot of time making safety legislation for petroleum platforms; if the quality standards had been done before, maybe this tragedy could have been avoided. This also makes me wonder how much power have the petroleum companies and the investors in the political issues; then I remember Bush father and Bush son who have a family oil business at Texas ,"the petroleum state". Finally, I really hope this legislation helps keeping safe oil platforms, and we never hear again about this kind of disasters.
Please, tell me what do you think about the oil disaster in the Golf of Mexico.
I am very interested in knowing your opinion and your thoughts.
Leave a comment!!
By Claudia
Dear Claudia:
ReplyDeleteYou bring up many interesting questions and concerns in this "official" blog post. I do agree that it is a shame the U.S. government had to mostly "react" to this oil spill and environmental hazard when, perhaps, they could have already put in place stricter regulations about off-shore drilling that might have helped prevent this tragedy to begin with.
I also think it is outrageous that one of the owners or shareholders of BP (Goldman Sachs) sold their share in the company right before the disaster hit--as if they knew something that they were hiding from the public or from the international community. Moreover, that BP would try to profit from this disaster (that they caused!) by buying shares in the company that made the oil dispersing chemical used to deal with the environmental catastrophe is distasteful and an example of corporate greed that should be exposed and stopped. You also posted some powerful (and heartbreaking!) photos.
--Alexandra
Hi Alexandra
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment.
I think that the petroleum business have something behind, in other words, I think this business is dirty with corruption. The alternatives sources of energy are still far away of been used; I think the powerful people (big guys, as Goldman Sach) do not want to develop such kind of energies because they are not profitable. As result, the use of fossil fuels is still our only source of energy; despite the fact that everybody knows that these source are not renewable
Claudia
Dear Claudia:
ReplyDeleteI agree that alternative fuels should be much more focused on and the status quo, as we say, has an investment in keeping things as they are so as to continue to reap the benefits from the fossil fuels we seem so dependent on. President Barack Obama has supported research into alternative sources of fuel--let's see how far he is willing to push that.
Alexandra
DearClaudia,
ReplyDeleteYes it is really a disaster.
I do remember in 1991, When Iraqi forces withdrew from Kuwait, they set fire to the fields and oil wells along the northern coast of the Arabian Gulf. The area has become fully contaminated,so the smoke arrived in neighboring countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Hello Amir
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this story. I hadn't hear about this before. I think this tragedy is even worst since it is one of the many consequences of the war. Can you tell me how is the situation now, regarding the enviromental contamination?
Claudia
Dear Claudia
ReplyDeleteI do think that you brought up a very serious and important issue to the class blog. In today's technology people can manage to produce the products that work with alternative energies as you know however they still have a hard time to change the oil into those alternative energies completely. So I agree with you we need to get ahead on this issue as humanbeings. I also started not to believe many things I read or hear on the news because the media uses us in a very smart way. Anyway, thank you very much for informing us about an important issue by sharing your post.
Damla
Hello Claudia,
ReplyDeleteI have just heard about this disaster ( thanks to you),and it is absolutely horrible and terrible. Thank you for sharing this news with us. I hope there wont be happen any disaster like this again.
ASLINUR
Dear Claudia:
ReplyDeleteIt is a very interesting story, I have heard about this disaster, but I never know the oil spill killed many birds and ocean life. As we know the oil is important in our daily life, however, overusing the oil could give us disasters that you talked,I hope it won't happen any more, thanks for your sharing.
For Claudia:
ReplyDeleteI'm very sorry to hear this news from you because this happened in your homecountry. I was shocked looking at this pictures although I have heard this news before. I didn't know it is such a big problem that the whole Gulf(I think you mean gulf in your post) of Mexcico was influenced by this event.
Just like what happened in Mexico, a terrible oil spill event happened in Dalian, China because of pipeline explosion. And the consequence is also terrible. The petroleum company paied a lot of money to solve this problem; animals are suffering and dying; people who live there have a bad time.
I think it's not possible for human beings to stop using the fossil fuel at least in decades, so what we must do is to guarantee the safety and stability of these equipments related to petroleum. Otherwise such disaster like what you talked about will happen again.
At last, thanks for sharing.
Dear Claudia:
ReplyDeleteI didn't know this serious situation until I read your post.Thank you very much for informing me this affair.Most pollution is caused by human.Along with the advanced technology, we destroy the natural environment as well.This is really a great issue everybody must face.I think the government should set laws to have enforcement.
beautiful claudia.=)
ReplyDeleteI'm also so sorry to see this disaster. In Korea, there was same disaster at 2008. A huge Oil export ship was cracked on the middle of west sea. Oil problem in the sea is very hard to recovery, because it needs enormous number of people's hand works. We had to get rid of the oil on the rocks on the beach, surface of water. It took long time and much effort.
However we can't revive the dead lifes.
We should not see again these disasters include all over the world, very nice post, eventhough it's not happy matter.
I knew the news of BP oil spill from the newspaper before coming to the State. Actually, I did not have strong feeling with this event until I came here. I saw abundant of news from the New York Times, ABC news, and opinion colums. This is a really severe disaster to the world. Even though my home country is far away from the Golf of Mexico, I believe that there is a butterfly effect of this oil spill. That is, the oil spill will not only affect nearby countries but also influent other countries which are far away from the pollution because the ocean is fluid.
ReplyDeleteEverything has two sides. In my opinion, although many citizens who live in coastal cities would loss jobs of fishing, some people would benefit from this event. For instance, businessmen could storage the oil and then raise the oil price later in order to earn more profits.
Governemnt needs money to run the whole country, so the authority usually does not take an action to disobey BIG companies.
Dear Claudia,
ReplyDeleteI am really sorry to get to know the oil disaster. Actually, I already know how serious the accident is because the similar accident happened in the west sea of my country last year. Until now, although government spent lots of money and effort in order to clean the sea, we cannot use the sea. Of course, lots of animals and plants have been dead. I heartily hope that we can see the clean sea again in the near future.
Like Jin Woo said there is similiar disaster in Korea at 2008. Many people tried to rid of oil from the coast at that time. Fortunately we could clean the coasts, but not whole area. Maybe some of the oil still flow on the sea. Besides that event is getting disappear from people's memory because two years passed. People can make mistake, it's very natural thing. However the disaster like this, nobody can assume the responsibility. Even though he is a rich or have power. I think this is very complicate problem. As I said anybody can make mistake, but what if the mistake is too big to take the responsibility? People try to find someone to blame when this kind of disaster happen. Ofcourse we find person who made a mistake. However before we blame someone, we have to put into action. I think government and companies will not put into action. They always like speech better than action. Hm... I was sarcastic, but it is good topic. Thank you for your post.
ReplyDeleteThis is really a disaster for the wild animals and the natural environment; however, the state of human movements of undertaking responsibility for beings other than human may not reach the level which the news report indicated. The human nature concludes arrogance and selfishness, especially inflated for those who have great powers and proporties. They may tend to control, manipulate and manage the whole situation for the benefits of their own. As they have their "invisible hands" through the Media, it may turn out that the news reports are possibly just frauds used as advertisement strategies. In this case, I would probably say they were "stealing" our sympathy!
ReplyDeleteIn other respect, from the view of common people, they read about these news and absolutely get affected more by their emotions than by their reasons, which may be the main difference between people reading these news reports and people creating these in big companies. We, common people, when getting strong emotional influences, get inspired and motivated as soldiers. In contrast, they at the top of the social pyramid using their intelligence create the blueprint for the human race. (In fact, this can be simplified as Plato's philosophical model of human society) Consequently, we work hard to improve our surroundings and enhance the quality of our lives and they putting efforts into paving the paths attain "the biggest piece of the cake".
-----------all above does not stand on my any political view or anything so official, but a result of sticking to my own personal ways of thinking.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey claudia,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your posting!
It is no doubt that this event is not only a strong hit to Mexico or BP, but also a disaster for the human-beings. The oil spill is destroying the balance of ecosystem, which could lead to a very severe result that may even endanger the human. So we can know from our common sense that no one should ever expect this to happen.
I've already actually read about this event several days ago, and to be frank, I've never found out that this was not only an accident but a complicated plan related to corruption, benefits and money until today. They should really feel ashamed.
This just reminds me of ''Fahrenheit 911'', an incredible documentary about the 911 and it's famous all over the America. It is said that Bush and bin Laden are actually really close friends. At that time, Bush knew that America was in a bad situation and would soon reach an big economic crisis. So they made 911 together. Actually America could gain a lot from 911, since it would provide a lot more working places. Moreover, America could use anti-terrorism as an excuse to send army to Afghanistan for some other reason. And this promoted the weapon industry and other related business. I'm not going to comment on this because god know wether it is true or not. But it gets us to think.
Filmmaker Spike Lee is calling a "lie" a U.S. government report that 75 percent of the spilled Gulf Coast oil is gone. See more: http://bit.ly/dkMJsK
ReplyDeleteEvery day the world we live in seems to get blacker. Although the British Oil gaint had spent a large amount of money to clean up the millions of the oily liquid, there still contained the spread of oil spill on the ocean.
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of their own benefit, they destroyed and endangered the ecological and human sucurity. They also accelerated aging of the ocean and the economic recession. This deepwater horizon oil spill effected on economy, environment and sea life habitat. The oil spill reached the coast of Florida making damages in the tourism, the west coast has a number of popular beaches and large coral reefs, at the same time nourishes the local fishing industry. The disaster cut off the fishing industry chain and offshore living although the offshore drilling had been suspended. The loss the natural resource and fading life would never return.
BTW,I got some pictures from Jane Fulton Alt, the photography in Chicago. Shall I post on Profile??
Actually i've seen this new before on television. But at that time i did not concern about that untill you post on blog...I realize this is a hard , seriouly situation in the world. Although this has been controlled, but that dosent mean done. We still worry about the next place. The oil spill can effect a lot of situation and something will be changed. So we should protect our environment, our world. Somt government need develop more stringent requirements that make some business standardly. We need more step to prevent the oil spill.......
ReplyDelete