Preventing Oil Spills

What can be Done to Prevent Future Oil Spills?

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has once more brought the issue of the dangers of offshore oil drilling, both to humans and to the environment in general, back into sharp focus. The effort to even stem the flow of oil from the sunken rig involved a number of different measures from the slightly strange - trying to mop up oil with tonnes of hair donated by barbers from all around the world- to massive and somewhat untested measures like the “top kill “procedure set into motion by BP on Wednesday May 26th, 2010.

Whatever the end result of the efforts, there will still be massive damage done to the ecosystems in the areas affected by the spill. Perhaps the hardest hit will be the delicate coastal areas around Louisiana which were only just beginning to bounce back from the damage Mother Nature inflicted upon them during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

However given that this far from the first devastating oil spill to wreak havoc on the world’s waters what else should be done to prevent these incidents from ever occurring at all?

Many environmentalists suggest that offshore drilling should be slowed and that companies like BP and Exxon should shift more of their focus to developing alternative energy sources. They encourage people to cut their own consumption of fossil fuels by driving less or trading in their older vehicles for more energy efficient models and taking advantage of the alternative energy supplies being offered by many local electricity companies.

As they have after previous oil spill accidents the US Government will of course launch inquiries into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico and it is also probable that once the finger pointing between the companies involved in the latest incident has died down they will no doubt make a great many promises about making greater efforts to be environmentally conscious (as they have in the past) However it may just be up to the man in street to help prevent another oil spill from occurring by consuming less fossil fuels in their everyday lives, reducing the need for offshore drilling at all.

To learn more about the devastation caused by an oil spill and how you can help visit Tip the Planet , a leading green wiki