Options are running out for our friends south of the border trying to stop the largest oil spill in U.S. history. For the past five weeks in the Gulf of Mexico, up to 100,000 barrels, or 16 million litres of oil per day, are gushing into the sea, creating untold environmental, biological and economic devastation.
It all started on April 20, when an oil wellhead under the Deepwater Horizon exploded and led to a massive fire, causing eleven deaths and seventeen injuries. The oil spill area has become just as shocking. Currently, it has fouled 125 miles of Louisiana’s coast, washed up on the Mississippi and Alabama coasts, and is within a few hours of the pristine Pensacola, Florida beaches.
This isn’t exactly the best way to celebrate World Environment Day (WED), taking place this week. WED was started by the United Nations in 1973 and is hosted every year by a different city, aiming to stimulate discussion and awareness on environmental issues all over the world. This year’s theme is “Many species. One planet. One future.”
Ironically, there are many species of wildlife under attack in the Gulf of Mexico. 400 of them that live in the islands and marshlands of the region, including the already endangered Ridley turtle, are at risk. Experts say that upwards of 34,000 birds are threatened, and that it could take the ecosystem decades to recover from such an infusion of toxic chemicals from the oil and gas. In addition, the spill has caused massive oxygen depletion within the ecosystem.
Blame is being put on the companies responsible, British Petroleum (BP) and Transocean, as well as years of environmental deregulation and lax standards by the federal government. But the most important issues right now are how to clean it up and ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again. The first issue is difficult to handle, and the second may be even harder.
To date, BP engineers have attempted almost a dozen techniques to control or stop the oil from gushing from the well leaks, all of which have been unsuccessful. Some leading experts now say it might actually be impossible to stop it – until, of course, the entire well is depleted. The cleanup efforts throughout the Gulf have also run into serious problems.
The only fact is that no one really knows what the full damage of this environmental disaster will be. What we do know – and have known for years – is that if we invest in environmentally-friendly forms of energy, such as geothermal, solar and wind, and start using energy more wisely, we can steadily reduce our dependence on oil, especially that which comes from highly sensitive ecosystems.
The United Nations Environment Programme, which administers World Environment Day, already estimates that the cleanup of existing pollution throughout the globe, above and beyond that in the Gulf of Mexico, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Believe it or not, this environmental disaster may actually lead to something good: greater awareness about the dangers of offshore oil drilling and a stronger commitment to environmental sustainability.
Only time will tell.
“Together We Can Make A Difference”