Blog #4 Personal Statement

“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”- Russell Baker, a quote that reminds me of today quite often. Reason that I will always remember this quote is today’s current event of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The BP oil spill is a current event that interests me as it brings up many questions. Such as how are the people that live along the gulf coast affected? How will it affect the environment? How long will it take to fully restore the environment?

How are the people that live along the gulf coast affected? Well many people are affected as the oil spill has made many fishermen lose their jobs. Since the oil slick is too thick killing much of the wildlife in the gulf. By affecting the fishermen it is also affecting local restaurants that depend on the local fishermen. Tourism to the Gulf States is also affected as many of the beaches have been affected as well by the oil. Not only is commerce and tourism affected by the oil spill but the local marine environment as well.

So how will the oil spill affect the environment? Well it has destroyed a lot of marine life making parts of the gulf inhabitable. Fortunately some animals where saved but had to be cleaned off as much of the wildlife was covered in oil. The bad news is that many of these animals can’t be released back into the wild as if they where they would be covered in oil again. Now the question is how long until the oil leak can be stopped?

How long until the oil leak can be stopped and how long will it take to fully restore the environment? No one knows exactly when and how the oil leak will be stopped since there have been many attempts and all have failed to successfully stop oil from coming out of the well. For the environment not much can be said either but that it will be a very long time before it is even restored or even fully cleaned up. It will probably be generations to come before the planet can recover from this oil spill.

All in all, the BP oil leak is one of the worst disasters up to date on oil spills. I know that it is difficult to stop and people are getting impatient. I believe that this issue can be resolved if BP can just delay any more oil from coming out and during that time close the well. I hope that this issue can in fact be resolved as I don’t want to hear in the news that we have entered day 365 of the oil leak and the consequences due to the leak for that huge amount of time.