10 Consequences of the Oil Spill (Infographic)

• You are totally right. Oil is stupid, just one gallon could effect one wjole food chain

• It takes one barrel of oil to produce 5 barrels, used to be 1 barell to every 100

• All of you using computers to comment on getting off oil. The circuit boards, components, and cases for the computer use... OIL. Oil not only powers the economy it's part of virtually every product you use. How are you going to get food from farm to city without oil? Not only the fuel but lubricants. Even if we completely get off oil an energy sources, what about all the other products made or using oil? You can't make a computer out of sunlight. In 50 years of drilling and production in the Gulf, how many significant accidents with release of oil? Damn few. Any form of human endeavor entails risks. The risk cannot be legislated or mandated out of existence. Wind and solar also have their own risks, as well as require large tracts of land. They also are not consistent producers, night and weather affect the generation. Spain's experiment into renewable energy has cost jobs, cost the Spain and over all be detrimental to Spain. It took 50 years to convert our economy to an oil based system. Oil is far more integral to the economy than coal, steam and water was. Any conversion away from oil is going to take decades and be economically feasible.

• The oil spill is another reminder of the risks we pose to the planet and our environment. Oil drilling is a commercial venture and there was very little we could do to deal with the situation as BP was faced with engineering situations in which hardly anyone else in the world was qualified to deal with.

• how did humans survive w/o cars and ac? we can do it again turn um off

• In the first place the MMS was not ensuring the drilling companies were performing msintenance on critical equipment as required. Next the Chief Engineer on that drilling Platform should have called an 835 Coast Guard violation for equipment being not imspected as his license gives him the authority to do. That would be a "No Sail" Violation. Then none of this would have happened. Also, the media has reported that Blow-out Preventer had failed 280 tests. It alone should have been scrapped.

• the democrat's complain that oil is such a bad thing,let them walk everywhere,then we'll see if they want to stop drilling,..most of them are just too fat and stupid,however.........

• Cars have been invented to run on WATER! Oil lobbyists do not want us to know this fact because will quickly be out of business and we can get into the business of using RENEWABLE energy (water) and start saving this planet for future generations. The dinosares went extinct do to global problems and our future generations will follow that same path also!

• Would it not be great if some idiot would say a 150 year old turtle died from old age, or a bird died because it lived so long it lost eyesight and could no longer find food, or I died from all my laughter from reading this?

• Yes by all means let's promote shale gas development - it only makes local water supplies flammable. Google this: colorado shale gas flaming tap water And then never mention it in a positive light again.

• Investigate HA child porn convict Dave burgess fans Now that citizens have straitened out the hells angels maybe the ATF won't be so scared to investigate further into all the hells angels and their support groups for child porn. I think an investigation is warranted at a Federal level. The citizens of the United States deserve an answer as to Why the hells angels and some groups are so concerned for the fate of a hells angel child porn convict leader Dave Burgess. How far does this Dave Burgess hells angel leaders child porn problem go? Is this a National problem ? Is this an International problem Is there a ring spear headed by the hells angels or some of the support groups? why was this child porn scumbag headed to a national type hells angel event when busted with child porn? was child porn going to get sold or distributed at that hells angel national event?

• Yes, lets stop using oil. Why should we use oil when coal is so much more readily accessible? Clean coal for everyone! Sarcasm aside, wind and solar power are years away from being a baseline power source. As clean as they are, land use efficiency just isn't at practical levels for power thirsty urban areas. That being said, in the mean time shale natural gas is really coming into its own. That along with nuclear should be able to help tide us over from a big chunk of oil demand. P.S. - For the record, I like the idea of clean coal. Most people just don't understand that its either a) not clean or b) not cheap. Therefore it becomes laughable. P.P.S - Next time the majority of your article comes from someone else, can you atleast post it full size? I wanted to read that graphic but the host site is having issues.

• Geothermal is the way to go in places where the earths crust is thin enough to get to it with current technology. And once you start producing power from it, it's very cheap to maintain. When the geothermal runs out, the planet is done anyway.

• @angryrat Stop rationalizing your dependence on oil. Nature will not completely rebound within your lifetime. Hell, there are areas off the coast of Alaska still uninhabitable to fish due to the Exxon-Valdez. Also, emerging studies shows that wind farms kill 80% LESS birds and bats than traditional energy generation mechanisms: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V2W-4VVW4W3-3&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e5ff6861ac0b333363dc9899a7846019 HOLY CRAP. Was that a reference? You're darn right it is.

• One way or another the oil is going to be used. To be burned, made into plastic that'll end up in a dump or end up in the sea, put into roads, car tires, bike tires, clothing, makeup products, plastics for everything. All of it is pollution one way or another. Americans use more oil ONE DAY than what was leaked from the BP oil incident over it's entire course of leaking. 400,000 cellphone are thrown out everyday, millions of plastic bags and plastic bits killing birds and fish, 70 million plastic bottles thrown out EVERYDAY.There's 3 million miles of ROADS(oil product) THINK ABOUT IT.. our dependence on energy is incredibly massive. It's more than we can comprehend. We are the problem, the amount of energy we require is the problem, what we do with that oil over it's entire life is the problem. Look at all the plastic in the ocean and in landfills, look at anything that has ever been built and wonder how it became that way. Where do you get raw metals/materials/minerals, where do you get coal, where do you get food, how is everything transported everywhere. how much change would we need before we are off oil???? it's not just about the cars!

• Yes, it sucks. A lot of animals will die, and a lot of sensitive marshlands will be damaged. But the good thing is that nature rebounds fairly quickly. Surprisingly quickly, in fact. It might be too late for the turtles, but the other species will bounce back. Maybe overfishing will stop for a while, too. As for wind... more birds are killed by windfarms than by BP and Italian hunters combined.

• We need to get off of oil soon. Solar and wind is the way to go. Oils Kills!

• Sources includes Wikipedia provided by travel insurance industry spin? This is hilarious!

TotalComments: 18