The United States government recently released a report pertaining to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Serving as a status report, the paper offered a very positive perspective on the efforts to clean the oil. According to the results, 75% of the oil had been cleaned up and the spill was will on its way to becoming negligible. However, people didn't trust these results for a number of reasons.
The first major question pertaining to the report by the United States government was that they used questionable measurement techniques. According to descriptions of the study, the same techniques were used to quantify this oil spill as the Exxon Valdez. However, the two spills are of very different types. The Exxon Valdez was a tanker spill and so the bulk of the oil spilled onto the surface. The new situation occurred in an oil well, meaning the oil leaked from within the ocean, and so the presence on the surface is a gross underestimate.
Second, the report comes from a very biased source. The United States government is in an election year, and also under a lot of pressure to take care of the situation in the gulf. If the government report said minimal amounts of oil were cleaned, it would look terrible for the government. As such, they have an incentive to say the spill has been cleaned, and so, every result they offer needs to be looked at with scrutiny.
Finally, other reports seem to offer a very different analysis of the oil spill. Many scientists describe a devastating amount of oil still present under the surface of the water, oil that will take years to clean. We can't let this oil continue to stay and we have to put pressure on the people in charge to make sure this oil gets cleaned up.
Martin Fister is an active product blogger, writing for web sites includinglaura ashley bedding and Nook Vs Kindle. In his spare time, Martin also pursues his interests in the music industry as a journalist. |  |
