Because of the devastation of hurricane Katrina many of the United States oil refineries were damaged, causing a decrease in gas supply. The damage to the oil refineries cause them to be shut down. With many of the United States oil refineries shut down, the supply of crude oil was effect and that is what caused an increase in gas prices. Hurricane Katrina resulted in an immediate loss of nearly 1.5 million barrels a day of crude oil from the
Drowning in Plastic It’s hard to imagine life without plastic. It’s everywhere: covering our food, holding our purchases, protecting our loved ones, saving patients in hospitals and floating along our waterways and oceans. The thought of living in a world surrounded by toxic chemicals and pollution is a thought which many would rather not think about. Plastics have revolutionised the world in which we live, but with dire consequences. The production of these toxic-filled substances continues to lead the human race on a path of natural destruction; with thousands of animal sea-life dying annually from plastic consumption.
It would interfere with millions of migratory birds that feed on its tundra plains. It would kill plants and animals that are native to the Beaufort Sea area and the environment would take two decades to recover. If there were a major oil spill, it would decades for the ecosystem to recover, since so many organisms would be contaminated and eventually die. Remember the 1989 catastrophe when the Exxon Valdez spilled 35 million gallons into Prince William Sound? The
In other cases, the algae blooms from eutrophication turn out to be incredibly toxic species (National Academy of Sciences 696). One particularly nasty algae is Pfiesteria piscicida which emits toxins that break down the skin of fish, causing bleeding and sores and ending in mass fish death (Howarth 39). In August 2005, a dairy farm in Western New York experienced a manure lagoon collapse, which resulted in 3 million gallons of manure funneling into the nearby Black River, where it killed as many as 250,000 fish, brought all recreation to a halt, and forced the city of
They claim that this has been going on for 30 years. PCB’s are very dangerous. It is said that some of the fish were deformed or adnomoral. PCB's can be very harmful to humans, especially pregnant woman. If pregnant woman eat a large amount of contaminated fish from the Hudson River their children are more likely to be born with birth defects.
In 2010 ,172 million gallons of oil spilled from a whole on the ocean bed in the Gulf of Mexico. There are four major and significant ways of how the oil is transported to the ocean. The four ways are, oil seeps, consumption, transportation, and extraction. All the ways listed above are harmful and waste our limited amount of oil. Oil seeps accrue when natural seeps emerge from below the sea floor.
The Great Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan and sent a thirty-three foot tsunami raging down the coast to devastate their towns even further. To make matters even worse, the earthquake also triggered a nuclear emergency that has been compared to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. (McCurry, 1) This earthquake was the worst earthquake in Japan’s recorded history. (McCurry, 1) It would not be surprising if people will still talk about it for centuries to come. The earthquake began off of the north-eastern coast of Honshu and caused catastrophic damage.
This is an analysis on what is known to be the largest earthquake and biggest tsunami ever to hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The earthquake and tsunami Japans coast lies in ruins after the earthquake hit followed by the tsunami picking up everything in its path like cars, houses, and warehouses. Seismometers, strain gages, and title gages records the disaster. P-waves travel at four miles a second and within seconds warnings flash across the country. The S-waves shake the ground making earthquakes so damaging and the reactor core is shut down (Kerger, 2011.
Factories create equipment that destroys species in the ocean. When these species are destroyed the food chain is ruined and this threatens the ocean. Over Fishing is also harming the ocean. Entire populations of fish are being killed. Over fishing occurs when there are more fish caught than fish in the ocean to sustain fish stock.
Oil spills have a number of effects on the environment and economy. On a basic level, oil will damage waterways, marine life and plants and animals on the land. An oil spill can also ruin the infrastructure and economy of a particular area with the long-term effects being felt for generations. Cleaning an oil spill is very expensive and the costs get spread to government agencies, non-profits, and the oil transport company itself. There is no set science for an oil spill clean-up.