If It Was My Home - Visualizing the BP Oil Disaster
DVR has changed my life! With a few clicks of my remote, I can program my digital cable box to record my favorite shows whenever they come on. They are all just magically there, waiting for me. I can watch a 2-hour show like “Dancing With The Stars” in 45 minutes by whizzing through all of the commercial breaks and unnecessary chatter. Not only do I never miss anything, but also it frees up my schedule because I can watch things when I want to in less than half the time. I don’t know how I survived, or got anything accomplished before, without it!
I have this “HOT-Norwegian-X-Boyfriend” (who I still speak to on a regular basis and desperately wish I could remove the “X” factor from that equation!). We used to work on a cruise ship together. After working on the ships, he got a job on an oil rig in Norway with the same company that drills for BP. I don’t watch the news on a regular basis, and I had heard about the oil spill in the Gulf but didn’t think much of it at the time. Life keeps you busy focusing on different things. But after I spoke with my Hot-Norwegian-X-Boyfriend last week about his job, I suddenly became more curious about this whole BP thing that I kept hearing about.
There is this show called “Dateline” that is an investigative news report that talks about different things happening in our world. Most of the time it features serial killers or mysterious crime cases, and I record it. Sometimes it covers things like the City of Detroit and the economic impact of GM Motors and other car factories that have had to shut down from the economy, the lives of people it has affected. Well, I finally watched last week’s episode and it was all about the BP oil disaster. I had no idea what I was in for.
I am completely ignorant in the workings of the oil industry. I know they drill, I know they make tons of money, and that is the extent of my knowledge. This show was an eye opening experience. Apparently what happens is, they build this oil rig somewhere in the ocean and start to drill down into the ocean floor until they hit oil. Oil is surrounded by pockets of methane gas, which makes things very dangerous because the gas can escape and cause various problems…like explosions! This is basically what happened in the BP disaster. The gas traveled up the big pipe thingy and instead of getting cut off at certain checkpoints in the mechanical system, it continued up to the surface. They believe the gas hit a spark somewhere, causing the explosion and shooting fire into the air, the likes of which members of the coast guard and rig workers said was nothing like they had ever seen. The entire rig was engulfed in flames and would burn for a day and a half before crumbling into the ocean.
I have this “HOT-Norwegian-X-Boyfriend” (who I still speak to on a regular basis and desperately wish I could remove the “X” factor from that equation!). We used to work on a cruise ship together. After working on the ships, he got a job on an oil rig in Norway with the same company that drills for BP. I don’t watch the news on a regular basis, and I had heard about the oil spill in the Gulf but didn’t think much of it at the time. Life keeps you busy focusing on different things. But after I spoke with my Hot-Norwegian-X-Boyfriend last week about his job, I suddenly became more curious about this whole BP thing that I kept hearing about.
There is this show called “Dateline” that is an investigative news report that talks about different things happening in our world. Most of the time it features serial killers or mysterious crime cases, and I record it. Sometimes it covers things like the City of Detroit and the economic impact of GM Motors and other car factories that have had to shut down from the economy, the lives of people it has affected. Well, I finally watched last week’s episode and it was all about the BP oil disaster. I had no idea what I was in for.
I am completely ignorant in the workings of the oil industry. I know they drill, I know they make tons of money, and that is the extent of my knowledge. This show was an eye opening experience. Apparently what happens is, they build this oil rig somewhere in the ocean and start to drill down into the ocean floor until they hit oil. Oil is surrounded by pockets of methane gas, which makes things very dangerous because the gas can escape and cause various problems…like explosions! This is basically what happened in the BP disaster. The gas traveled up the big pipe thingy and instead of getting cut off at certain checkpoints in the mechanical system, it continued up to the surface. They believe the gas hit a spark somewhere, causing the explosion and shooting fire into the air, the likes of which members of the coast guard and rig workers said was nothing like they had ever seen. The entire rig was engulfed in flames and would burn for a day and a half before crumbling into the ocean.
Luckily, there was a ship docked at the rig with 13 crewmembers aboard. The ship was attached to the rig by a big rope. Suddenly, the Captain heard the explosion and saw mud had sprayed all over the windows on the bridge. He called for all hands on deck to separate the ship from the rig. They had to sail a far enough distance from the rig to keep the ship safe if they were going to be able to rescue anyone. They got to a safe location, and sent out smaller boats to collect the rig workers. The men began jumping from 70 feet in the air, off the rig and into the water - which was ON FIRE, by the way - cause everything exploded and was burning and oozing all over the ocean, and these guys were jumping in and trying to swim for their lives under it all to get to other boats and to safety. This was the point of the broadcast that I decided I no longer liked my Hot-Norwegian-X-Boyfriend’s job. Too dangerous! Eleven men died, but thanks to the 13-crewmembers on the ship, the remaining rig workers were saved.
But that’s just the beginning of the story. The tip of the iceberg. Now we had an oil spill, but we had no idea how incredibly bad it was. James Cameron, who filmed the movie “Titanic”, was actually called upon because of his knowledge of underwater cameras. When we finally did see how bad it was, that’s when the shit started to hit the fan. The oil was spewing out of the pipe like a volcano erupting – huge amounts pouring into the sea. And they couldn’t stop it. Scientists were called upon for their knowledge, methods were tried to plug it up, to no avail. Finally, a cap was lowered into the sea that would fit over the broken pipe. The pipe was cut, the cap put in place, and like attaching a faucet, the cap was supposed to fit over the pipe and filter all of the oil into a big ship on the surface, which would collect everything. But they have another problem – the cap is on crooked, allowing only a portion of the oil (less than half!) to be collected and the rest is still pouring into the sea. Oil has been spewing into the sea for almost 2 months now, and will continue to do so until they build 2 more rigs, drill down and across to the original pipe, and are able to plug it with mud and cement. These will not be completed until at least August, three more months of contamination and pollution for our waters, our ecosystems, our fish, our wildlife, and the ruination of people’s livelihoods.
Even worse, the main spot being affected is where??? – Louisiana!!! - where a few short years ago they had Hurricane Katrina. Can’t these poor people catch a break? Most survive off of fishing and tourism. Now they can’t fish for food or income, they can’t swim at their beaches, the clean up is virtually impossible. This kills me. We’ve heard about oil spills throughout the years, but this is the worst. And it makes me reflect back to our past election when the Republicans would chant “Drill, Drill, Drill!” and Obama would speak of green technology and not being so dependent on oil. And now he is being criticized for not doing enough when he has to rely on the oil people to fix the mess. Where do we go from here? This could be a huge turning point in our society - a larger motivation to create cars and machines and products that don’t rely on this exhaustible resource and motivate foreign wars. But do I see this possibility happening? No. I don’t because there is too much greed, too many people influencing our politicians, and too much laziness of being satisfied with the status quo. This sickens me. It is during times like this, that I wish I were rich. I would use my powers of influence to do something good, to create change, to make things better. I wish I could walk away from my job and go help clean tar babies off of beaches, something, anything, to help. We need to grow some balls, and instead of pointing the finger of blame as to whose fault it is, we need to fix the problem. The health of our environment and our people are at stake. Living in New York, we don’t drive, but if I did, I would not be pulling into a BP to “fill her up!”
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/29/interactive.spill.tracker/index.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-454727 (this last video shows thousands of dead fish washing ashore in Alabama. Birds are swooping down to eat them out of the water, and people are fishing on the dock...SERIOUSLY??? How stupid can you be to even think about eating those fish?)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/29/interactive.spill.tracker/index.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-454727 (this last video shows thousands of dead fish washing ashore in Alabama. Birds are swooping down to eat them out of the water, and people are fishing on the dock...SERIOUSLY??? How stupid can you be to even think about eating those fish?)
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