| The
threat of pollution is an important side-effect of our thirst
for oil. Burning oil in power stations or using petrol to
run cars and other forms of transport adds to atmospheric
pollution. The transport of oil over enormous distances by
pipelines and tankers means that oil spills on land and at
sea are always a risk.
Why do oil spills
happen?
The United Nations Convention for the prevention of pollution
from ships (‘MARPOL’ for short) has helped to
reduce oil pollution in the oceans, but of the 30,000 tankers
that enter British waters each year many fail safety standards.
Depending
on weather conditions, the equipment available, and the type
and size of the spill, major spills can still ruin the local
environment and the people that depend on it. Nevertheless,
coverage of oil spills in the media can be misleading. Click
on the icon above for an example.
Oil spills make
big news stories. Research one to find out:
- The language used
to describe the oil spill
- How long the oil
spill stayed in the news
- How much news looked
at who was responsible and how lessons could be learned
for the future
- How much news looked
at the recovery of the area
To get you started, visit
these websites that look at the world’s major oil spills
and the different ways to deal with them:
©Julio
Etchart/Still Pictures |
What
rarely make the news are small spills that happen every
day. Only 5% of oil pollution in the world’s oceans
is from big spills. Oil running off roads and down drains
and sewers in a city of five million people each year
can match the amount of oil lost in one large tanker spill. |
| During
the first Gulf War in 1991, oil spills of 7 million barrels
in the Gulf were twice as big as any in history and twenty
times bigger than the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in
Alaska in 1989. Air pollution from burning oil added to
the environmental catastrophe. At the end of the war,
Saddam Hussein’s forces set light to over 800 oil
wells in Kuwait. At their peak, the oil fires released
one million tons of sulphur dioxide and 100,000 tonnes
of nitrogen oxides every month. The smoke from the burning
oil blotted out the sun and the gases caused acid rain
on a massive scale.
|
©Sipa
Press/Rex |
Along with carbon dioxide,
the nitrogen oxides are also greenhouse gases, contributing
to the problem of global warming. If you want to find out
more about global warming, visit these websites:
- www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/schools/index.htm
-
http://globalwarming.enviroweb.org/games/index.html
- www.epa.gov/globalwarming/kids/index.html
|
