This oil spill in the Gulf has had me scratching my head for weeks on end as to what can I do to help. I cannot volunteer to go there as I am handicapped. It also takes 10 weeks just to get certified to handle raw petroleum products. The oil is very toxic and if you mishandle it it will make you very sick. I don’t need to send money, they have plenty of that. I try everyday to ask mother-nature to make the seas calm for the people out there—so they are able to do there job, to keep the oil from spreading. That has not worked either. It is hurricane season.
Our Gulf is being destroyed. Animals and marine-life are being sickened and are dieing by the score. Dolphins, sharks, whales, turtles, birds, fish and even man himself. These creatures are dieing horrible deaths. Man has done some awful things to the planet. Man had tried to deliberately destroy parts of our planet. We even tried to blow Hiroshima and Nagasaki off the freaking map. Through negligence and stupidity we are making Earth uninhabitable one square mile at a time.
These are some of the systems that petroleum effects: Respiratory nervous system (including the brain), liver, reproductive/urogenital system, kidneys endocrine system, circulatory system, gastrointestinal system, immune system, sensory systems, and muscular-skeletal system.
The list pretty much covers every system. Damaging or altering these systems causes a wide range of diseases and conditions. There are two basic types of poisoning that go with these horrors.
Acute exposure- brief exposure at relatively high levels. Irritant effects can range from slight reddening to burning and swelling (edema) pain and permanent skin damage. Effects of acute exposure to crude oil through inhalation of ingestion include breathing problems, headaches, vomiting and infertility. These are more likely to be noticed than potentially more serious effects that don’t have obvious signs and symptoms: lung, liver and kidney damage, infertility, immune system suppression, disruption of hormone levels, blood disorders, mutations, and cancer.
Chronic Exposure- Long-term exposure at low levels. This type should be avoided for the potential of serious health damage is substantial. Chronic health effects are typically evaluated for specific crude oil components (see CDC 1999) and vary from cancer to permanent neurological damage. They cover a range of diseases affecting all the systems listed above.
I feel sorry for the Business owners along the coast who are going broke due to lack of tourism. I feel bad for the people who booked their vacation last October, spent thousands of dollars and are now locked into going or loosing there money. I feel horrible for the fishing community because they can not make enough money to feed there families. Then there are the people who are just stupid with no plans, who say they were going to go to the gulf for vacation, and are claiming now they have no where to go. Go to a different coast. The U.S has lots of coast line. Go to the mountains. Quit complaining and do something else. I will not condone selfishness.
I have seen with my own eyes what an oil blowout can do. I am from Texas and I used to know a lot of people in the industry. Drillers, chain-hands and the like. These are the people that run the rigs. When you have a blowout of any magnitude you better run and run fast. Just trying to put the fire out is bad enough. Trying to cap it is even worse. I cannot imagine working with robots 5000 ft. underwater. What a nightmare.
The bottom line is get it stopped and clean it up. Now. Mother-nature is already mad and she might just completely lose her cool over this. The only thing I can do is create awareness. That my friends is an uphill battle.
