What made the gulf shine?

Oil... Oil and MORE oil!!!

Loss of wildlife, people, small companies, coasts!

BP really screwed up didn't they?

200 million gallons of oil was dumped into the gulf in April 2010

Animals - Our dear friends the bottle-nose dolphins and sea turtles are declining in numbers, and evidence undoubtedly links deaths with the effects of the oil spill!
3,000 birds dead birds were found with evidence of oiling. Birds lose their buoyancy when exposed to oil and they fail to regulate their body temperature. - you can imagine that a drowning freezing bird wont survive for long!
Finally, eggs and larvae have lowered spawning success when exposed to oil. Overall, not a great result.

Poor birdy

Controversy - long term impacts on humans. Four years later and people in New Orleans are still showing symptoms from the chemicals in the oil dispersants they came in contact with on beach cleanups.

Impacts on humans

$25 billion has already been spent on compensation and cleanups of the oil. But is it enough? If we are still seeing impacts upon wildlife and human health then shouldn't more be done? Responsibility taken?

BUT, it's not only BP that claimed they were going to fix everything, Obama whilst on visit to the beaches affected in May stated:
 “I’m here to tell you that you are not alone, you will not be abandoned, you will not be left behind,” he told people in Grand Isle, where the beach has been closed by gobs of oil. “The media may get tired of the story, but we will not. We will be on your side and we will see this through"
---- so many promises!

To conclude, human's demand for energy and power has resulted in the murder of wildlife which depends on the ocean. Additionally people attempting to clean up the problem have had to deal with serious health problems. Another oil spill must be avoided at all costs.

Which is the greatest threat?

Air Pollution
First thing you see when you Google Air Pollution is the corresponding Wikipedia page, where the first sentence states the death and destruction which it brings to people and ecosystems.
So obviously air pollution is bad, and the less pollution there is the better, BUT

How much pollution is too much? 

Which countries/cities suffer worst from it? 

What is truly the effect of air pollution on our climate? 

All these are questions which I will attempt to answer over the following weeks.

Air Pollution can cause difficulties breathing and even lasting lung problems.

A lot of effort has been made to decrease air pollution in most developed countries around the world. Policies such as the Kyoto Protocol bound most European countries into decreasing their emissions by at least 5% between 2008 and 2012 based on a 1990 baseline.

Oil Pollution impacts on wildlife

Water pollution on the other hand, in my opinion has drawn less global attention. As its immediate impacts are mainly upon wildlife and not humans, it is safe to assume that people don't worry about it as much, and will therefore invest a lot less money and time in trying to prevent it or cleaning it up. However, they don't always consider that 71% of the earths surface is covered with the worlds oceans and 97% of the earths water. As I will explain in further blogs this volume of water could be crucial to the sustainability of the Earth and humans.

This seal is not adapted to deal with plastic in its habitat.

I was born and raised in Greece, so to hear that while 18 year old Boyan Slat, was scuba diving in Greece a few years ago he was astounded to find more plastic bags than fish, is a bit of a blow. He tells us that his scuba diving partner, turned to him and said "Boyan, I cant believe how many jellyfish there are here, I must have seen thousands!!" ... there were no jellyfish according to Boyan.

Below I've found a Ted talk by Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau discussing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and why water pollution can be detrimental to wildlife. I love how passionate he is!

So what do you think is a greater issue? Water or air pollution? Tell me what you think in the poll on the top right.

See you next week :)