"Go Beyond the Oil!"

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico blew up, causing the death of thirteen men and the biggest and worst accidental oil spills in US history. The crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is far from over. The spill’s impact for endangered wildlife, the region’s ecosystems and its fisheries will only become clear with time. Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship is on a three-month expedition, hosting a team of independent scientists, who will examine everything from the plankton on the surface of the subsurface plumes and the deep-sea corals on the floor of the Gulf.

The root source of reckless oil exploration goes back to our addiction for fossil fuels. We’re addicted to our lifestyles – our homes, cars, and computers and so on. As human beings spread out and populated the planet with each country striving to attain higher standard of living comparable to America’s, the Earth’s resources have seemed to run up against a wall. Earth’s resources are limited … at least the ones that we are addicted to. Our fossil fuel economy is unsustainable if we are to continue exporting the current America way of life to the rest of the world. The oil we use for transportation fuel and agricultural fertilizers is on its way our in the next few decades. And along the way, we will be drilling in more and more risky places like deeper waters, increasing the likelihood of a BP-type disaster becoming a regular happening. If this does happen, wildlife and our ecosystems will suffer.

Greenpeace started an Energy [R]evolution to prevent oil disasters like that one in the Gulf of Mexico happening again. They are confronting reckless oil exploration by sending two ships to the frontiers of the world’s oil problem. Their mission is clear: to tackle the kind of irresponsible oil exploration that keeps wrecking our environment. Scientists aboard the Arctic Sunrise are continuing their expedition, testing the waters of the Gulf while skimming and burning the thousands of gallons of oil they skimmed off the waters. Additionally, clean up crews are continuing their clean up on the coast, picking up tarballs.

To stop enormous oil accidents like this from happening again, it’s our job to stop using dirty fossil fuels and start using the affordable, efficient renewable technologies that are available today.

References:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/Greenpeace-confronts-reckless-oil-exploration/
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/Deepwater-horizon/
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/news/oilspilltruth/
http://www.examiner.com/energy-in-national/fossil-fuel-addiction-processing-collective-grief-part-one
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/wheres-all-the-oil-gone/blog/26554
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/oil-on-the-bottom-of-the-gulf/blog/26510
http://fossil-fuel.co.uk/oil/oil-and-the-environment

Word Count: 388

BioBlogs I have read & commented on:

Kimberley V.

http://bionomen.blogspot.com/2010/09/fighting-human-intervention-with-human.html#comments
Nicole A.

http://nicolesbioblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/greenpeace-activists-occupy-arctic-oil.html#comments