History's most devastating oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico is jeopardising the survival of marine life. Due to the density and composition of the crude oil released into the gulf, most of it remains submerged undersea as compared to common oil spills where the oil rises to the surface of the ocean. This has hampered the authorities from clearing the oil effectively. Due to the introduction of harmful and toxic chemicals, many aquatic creatures such as corals, sharks, dolphins, sea turtles and shellfish would all face obliteration. With chemicals coating around planktons and tiny shrimps (the basis of life for the marine creatures), larger fish would consume their prey with the chemicals leading to what we call bioaccumulation, which would essentially affect us humans directly. With no ability to control this catastrophe, authorities had to resort to preventing the spread of the oil, instead of removing it. I feel that this would not have happened if ships carrying such dangerous crude oil were better protected. With proper training conduced for the tanker sailors, functional anomaly is not a valid explanation. The authorities should investigate the causes of the disaster and trace back to what went wrong. With that said, the tanker companies whom are in charge of transporting the oil should take full responsibility of this matter. What is lost will never come back, no point fretting over spilled milk. We should quickly resolve the problem and find out the reason behind it to prevent such disasters from happening again.
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/oil-spill-creates-huge-undersea-dead-zones-1987039.html
Once again, this is another case displaying the butterfly or domino effect (although I feel that all of these articles display it either directly or indirectly). Crude oil that has been escaping from ruptured oil pipelines would, to quote the article,"dismantling the food web, piece by piece" through the poisoning of various wildlife. As species who are directly affected by the oil spill start to die off. The ripple will start to spread out. Species that were not directly affected by the oil spill will most likely face food shortages or loss of environmental habitat, possibly causing endangerment or extinction.
ReplyDeleteThe way the authorities, especially BP, seemed to handle this environmental disaster appalls me as they seem to be worsening the situation instead of trying to stop it. They seem to show complete ignorance towards the future implications of such an effect on the environment. The least we can do is at least ensure that future generations will still be able to enjoy the luxuries we have in our environment.
Lucas Chia