{"id":4835,"date":"2010-06-25T12:09:36","date_gmt":"2010-06-25T18:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/?p=4835"},"modified":"2011-11-14T17:27:50","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T23:27:50","slug":"the-ripple-effect-of-the-gulf-oil-spill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/life\/the-ripple-effect-of-the-gulf-oil-spill.html","title":{"rendered":"The Ripple Effect of The Gulf Oil Spill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gulf shores of Alabama <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The catastrophic nature of the Gulf spill has affected 14 million residents of the Gulf Coast and could ultimately affect nearby Latin American and Caribbean shores.\u00a0 Predictions have been made that the spill could reach the Mexican coast by December, followed by Cuba, the Bahamas and The Turks and Caicos Islands.\u00a0 The Gulf oil spill has far reaching effects beyond the U.S. borders.<\/p>\n

Such a huge disaster has everyone wondering why it happened and how we can prevent it from ever happening again.\u00a0 There are numerous liability issues surrounding the spill. BP’s oil spill cleanup response costs have hit $2.35 billion. It has been speculated that BP could eventually be fined $258 million a day. This would be in addition to payments for cleanup costs and economic damages to businesses.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that the regulatory systems in place for overseeing\u00a0 offshore oil and drilling failed.\u00a0 That system is controlled by an agency called the Minerals Management Service (MMS).\u00a0 It has been reported that they allowed BP to run the oil rig without demonstrating the ability to shut off the flow of gas and oil.<\/p>\n

With fingers pointing to the MMS and pressure mounting, the head of the MMS,\u00a0 Elizabeth Birnbaum, resigned from her position.\u00a0 Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department prosecutor and inspector general, has been appointed by the President\u00a0 to\u00a0 restructure the agency to make it a more effective regulator. There is now an independent commission investigating the Gulf oil spill that has been given subpoena power so that better regulating systems can be developed.<\/p>\n

Is the United States accepting help from other nations?\u00a0 There may be offers made that haven’t been accepted however there are skimming systems and other assets accepted from Mexico, Norway, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. The President has also authorized the use of 17,000 National Guard members to help with the clean up.<\/p>\n

Massive efforts by various non-government organizations have been taken to clean birds\u00a0 drenched in oil. Some question the wisdom in this. \u00a0According to German biologist Silvia Gaus, it would have been better if they put the birds to sleep instead of cleaning them since most aren\u2019t likely to survive long term. Experts from other countries also say that this is a better way to treat the animals since they will be suffering liver and kidney failure after ingesting oil.<\/p>\n

The economic impact of the oil spill in the Gulf is devastating. The fisheries in the area have been declared as a disaster zone making the seafood-producing states lose money with many businesses failing. Louisiana\u2019s seafood industry supplies up to 40% of the United States\u2019 seafood supply and the price of seafood has risen. Apart from this, wildlife in the area have suffered. Tourism is affected as well since many hotels have reported cancellations in reservations.The toll on a wide variety of human health issues has not even begun to be studied.<\/p>\n

Many scientists are hopeful something good will come from this oil catastrophe.\u00a0 Americans have gained a better appreciation for their environment. We have turned to scientists to help answer the questions of why this even happened and how to prevent it in the future. People\u00a0 recognize the importance of\u00a0 a healthy marine ecosystem to our economy, culture and way of life in the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The catastrophic nature of the Gulf spill has affected 14 million residents of the Gulf Coast and could ultimately affect nearby Latin American and Caribbean shores.\u00a0 Predictions have been made that the spill could reach the Mexican coast by December, followed by Cuba, the Bahamas and The Turks and Caicos Islands.\u00a0 The Gulf oil spill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[532],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolchecks.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}