Oil Spill in the Gulf: ORT Reacts

By Anna Gogala
June 23, 2010

Since April the United States and other countries in the world have been bombarded with the news about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Over the past few months people have been questioning what the government and President will do to control the spill. Others want to know what they can do to help.

The controversy in conversation is whether President Obama has done enough. Some think he isn’t doing anything at all. The public is speaking out on radio shows, sharing their devastation amid the current situation and lack of success in stopping the spill.

Many of the ORT students have their own opinions about the oil spill. Most of them think that it is very hard to say what we should do or what can be done. They also don’t know what can be done to prevent this in the future. Most of the students that I’ve spoken to said that maybe people should stop the ocean drilling because an oil spill of this magnitude or worse can occur again.

One student from the Philippines said “if we talk about big companies and big money, we cannot expect that they will care about the environment because they think only about their profits.”

One Korean student said “we had a similar situation in 2007 when a ship sunk and many volunteers from all over the county came to clean it up. I think that Americans should be more active and try to really do something more than just talk about how angry they are.”

Now that they say 90% of the spill has been contained by a cement cork, we should seriously think about what to do next. The people are demanding that the government and the BP Company clean up their mess at any and all expense. This spill has caused irreversible damage to people near and far for many years to come.

The country should revisit the controversial conversation on ocean drilling. During the Presidential campaign of 2009, Obama sided with stopping the drilling off the coast of Florida. The country should now back him in his fight and should find more energy efficient and environmentally safe methods of fuel.

Personally I don’t believe that we can do a lot when we are speaking about such a big business. We can just believe that common sense will win over and that the U.S government will use their power to watch over BP so that they will use safer methods of drilling. This will make it safer for people, ocean creatures, and the environment.

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