Whether it happened in US or not, or whether it concerns my job or not, my concern is more of the chronic effects of the (any!) oil spill, which predictably could last your life time. Take Exxon Valdez for example - happened in 1989 in the Alaskan waters - its effects on human livelihood and ecological effects can still be felt today - 21 years after the incident. Not like I am US citizen ke ape ke, but I ade empathy untuk sea creature-sea creature sekalian kat dunia ini. I was not aware of the spill at the Great Barrier Reef as I was enjoying my weekend in Singapore until someone highlighted it to me :) However, the fire at Deepwater Horizon was more of my concerned as the pollution impact is comparatively bigger.
I work directly with processed crude such as diesel. The smell of diesel itself could overwhelmed the whole greenhouse and ppl like me who come in contact day in day out with such chemical. I swore I suffocated even under a face mask. It's the benzene in the crude that concerns me most - a cancer-causing agent which is also deleterious to our genes (zombies babies, mutants, X-men will come to mind). I was just wondering how fishes and sea creatures could 'take in' crude oil spewed all across the ocean. And what could be worse than we humans consuming those sea-lings (such word?)? Think food chain...
*A full body check-up provided by my company say I have no (minute) benzene in me. Which was good news. Itu last, last month punya exposure. Dunno lah in the future how...
The murderous explosion and fire in the oil rig which is currently spewing environmental havoc may not end so soon. As British Petroleum (BP) are trying to cap the rig spilling 2.5 million gallons per day to the Gulf with a dome-like structure, even they can't guarantee for sure the spill will be contained definitely. BP brought in the effort of a special dispersant to prevent oil from surfacing and Prison-Break men to save creatures/birds surrounding ground zero (tantamount to 240000 square km). Affected residences continue to fear the consequences from such disaster, relating back to the effects which is still significantly felt by the Alaskan ppl due to Exxon Valdez. Actually, selfishly and crudely, I am more interested in the the dispersant that BP is using to disperse the oil+water (evil laughter) for my current project....
Genrally, Malaysians are not too aware of the consequences of such disasters. We are more appalled by news of snatch theft, political frogs, traffic jams, etc. but of course, these are valid concerns in our lives. Since Malaysians are seldom faced with disasters, natural or man-caused, we are hugely not alerted by ecological news. Awareness of climate change, green-technology, makan shark fin, and simply - recycling, has not been instilled as concretely as in many other countries.
Ehh btw, I realised that nama-nama oil-oil rigs di overseas ni memang canggih-canggih betul! If you google Malaysia punya nama oil rig, the names all sangat tak relevan dan tak sedap dengar....
Okay, this post is getting lame... Sekian saja, terima kasih.
2 comments:
Providing statistical information to compare Exxon Valdez against the Gulf coast leak would open people's eyes to how it could even be worse this time around in terms of ecological impact.
If I am not mistaken, the amount of crude being spewed by the Gulf coast leak is a few times more than Exxon Valdez?
Thanks Kenny. I should have provided some figures:
The Exxon Valdez spilled some 261,904 barrels into alaskan waters. The clean up alone cost around $2.5 billion. This disaster killed approx. 250,000 seabirds and 3,000 sea otters (figures not including litigation filed by commercial fishermen).
Deepwater Horizon's explosion happened on April 22, 2010 and has already spill 130,000 barrels into the gulf TO DATE. Since this spill has yet to be contained, I suspect it the spill may exceed those of ExxonValdez.
Post a Comment