Vicki Jan
Troy, Michigan
2016, Junior, Creative Writing

Oil can be great for many things, but not as a new coat for animals. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, oil spills have been happening and harming our oceans. Every year, thousands of animals are harmed and millions of barrels of oil are spilled. Oil spills have been harming animals, humans, and the economy. What we are putting in the ocean is also what we are drinking in. Disasters like oil spills are caused by humans- and in the long run, they also harm us.

Oil spills are slowly killing not just the physical things such as organisms, but the economy as well. Millions of dollars are spent trying to clean up our oceans each year. One example is the Deepwater Horizon which occurred on April 20, 2010. The company responsible for the spill, British Petroleum (BP) spent twenty-seven point eight billion dollars cleaning up the areas that were affected, and also for 21 years of rehabilitation for animals. BP lost a lot of money from that spill, and many people were unemployed. Once shrimp, clams, oysters, shellfish and mussels are oiled, they are not edible. Also, when oil affects one small organism such as plankton, it could end up collapsing the entire food chain! Whatever eats the plankton is affected, and so on. Many fishermen suffer from this loss of produce, and may end up unemployed. Why do you go sightseeing? To see the beautiful views and animals of course! Prince William Sound, Alaska used to be a beautiful place thriving with life. Thousands of tourists visited every year, but when the oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez, it killed of hundreds of animals and plants. Today, Prince William Sound is covered in oil and the economy is also wrecked. We humans have been hurting not only ourselves, but the entire ocean. We are so selfish that we care more about our own little bodies than the oceans which make up more than seventy-one percent of the entire Earth. Do you know why? Because we have been interfering with nature, and the result is not pretty.

One of the greatest things ever created was animals. And what have humans done to protect and save them? Almost nothing compared to what we are supposed to.  Other organisms were here before humans, and we have not respected them. Due to human activity, millions of marine life are harmed every year from oil spills that most of the time, are caused recklessly by humans. One of the many animals effected is the otter. Many of them suffer from blindness and damage to their organs, and twenty-eight hundred have died from the exposure to oil. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill, Brown Pelicans, which had just come off from the endangered species list, were among the most affected. When oil covers an animal’s fur, it ruins their insulation, or their ability to keep their body at the right temperature. They freeze at night and bake under the sun. Birds also can’t fly if their wings are covered with thick, grimy oil. Animals can’t shower like we do, so they clean themselves up by licking what’s on them. What makes oil even more deadly is it contains a lot of toxic materials that if consumed, can lead to cancer or death. “Experts believe that oil-tainted ocean environment probably recover eventually, although not all species may return to their pre-spilled status.” This shows that even though us humans can bounce back, most animals can’t. Humans are the smartest organisms on Earth. We can help ourselves, but many of us choose not to help those who can’t. Animals have given us so much, and we have not been generous and returned the help.

Have you ever heard the saying “big things come in small packages”? Well, it’s the same for oil. The extra oil and gas dripping from your car or the oil from luxury and fishing boats end up flowing into our beautiful oceans. “Scientists have known since the 1970s that accidents account for only a small percentage of the oil entering our waters”. This means that the big spills that make global headlines every year- is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the small drips of oil, dripping and dripping, and finally running off into the ocean.  From 1990 to 1999, the major spills such as Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon only make up nine point eight percent of all the oil in the ocean! Annually one million tons of oil are spilled. That is the weight of about 20,000,000 elephants! Sometimes, oil is spilled purposely. In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi government spilled two-hundred million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf. However, there is something we can do to stop this. Bike when you can, and try to clean up your car as much as possible. Humankind must stop our horrid activities and bring back what was created- before everything gets destroyed.

Our oceans are thriving ecosystems filled with life and beauty. But humans have been slowly killing and polluting them. We have been careless, dumping everything into them, spilling oil and not caring about all the homes that we have ruined- to save ourselves. Nasty oil spills that harms animals, humans, and the economy, and caused by human mistakes- can be helped. Step by step, we can slowly repair what we have done. Many volunteers and organizations from all over the world are helping to clean up what we have done. The U.S. Coast Guard has been using helicopters and booms, which are long, orange blocks that absorb and block oil. Volunteers have also been moving turtle eggs from Florida and Alabama to states farther north so they can hatch and live in oil-free water. But you don’t need to do something huge to make a big difference. Something as simple as riding you bike instead of driving a car, or properly disposing oil can make a difference. You can also donate to organizations such as Greenpeace or Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Oil spills are caused by us, harms us, and one day may destroy us. We can be the change that helps our oceans- if only we try.

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Oil Spills: The Death Coat