The Oil Spill is Affecting Animals, but What About the Government? Essa

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, mankind has increasingly become reliant on fossil fuels such as oil for energy. Oil fuels our car, warms our homes, generates our electricity, and creates a myriad of goods including everything that contains plastic. In our global economy, oil must be transported great distances to reach markets throughout the world. With seemingly increasing frequency, these journeys sometimes end in accidents that result in oil being spilled into the ocean. The most devastating oil spill, The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, occurred on April twentieth of this year. Deepwater Horizon is an oilrig located in the Gulf of Mexico and it is owned by B.P. Everything seemed to be running efficiently on the rig until April twentieth, when methane gas leaked through the rig. The gas was under high pressure and as a result exploded turning the rig into a raging inferno that eventually caused the rig to plummet to the bottom of the ocean floor (Dickinson). The explosion caused a massive amount of oil to gush the Gulf of Mexico. Although there is no exact statistic on the amount of oil that rushed out of the well where Deepwater Horizon stood each day before, â€Å"the median figure for Crone’s independent calculations [of the oil gush] is 55,000 barrels a day† (Dickinson). Approximately three months after the explosion, the well was finally capped, which stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. To put this spill into perspective, if the calculations by Crone on the spill were correct, this means that eighteen times the total amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez incident was spilled total in the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. This is an astronomical amount of oil moving through the Gulf of Mexico. Even... ... an even larger scale than the Deepwater Horizon rig. If past mistakes are not learned from, they are going to be repeated in the future. The federal government needs to reenact the ban on deepwater drilling until engineers are able to assess all components of deepwater drilling rigs. This is the only certain way to prevent another disaster like that of the Deepwater Horizon crisis. Even though this ban may cause gas prices to rise, it is a necessary sacrifice in order to keep the environment safe. Work Cited Baker, Peter. "White House Is Lifting Ban on Deepwater Drilling." New York Times. N.p., 12 Oct. 2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2010. Dickinson, Tim. "The Spill, The Scandal and the President." The Rolling Stones. N.p., 24 June 2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2010. Kaufman, Leslie. "Concerns Up and Down the Food Chain." New York Times. N.p., 12 Oct. 2010. Web. 14 Nov. 2010.