The World Is Blue by Sylvia A. Earle

Author:Sylvia A. Earle
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Published: 2009-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Perversely spilled oil blackens Saudi Arabian marshes in 1991.

Worldwide, more than 4,000 rigs are now working in depths up to 1,830 meters (6,000 feet). The deepest offshore rig, Shell Oil’s Perdido Spar, is operating in nearly 2,400 meters (8,000 feet) of water in the Gulf of Mexico. Standing as tall as the Eiffel Tower 350 kilometers (220 miles) offshore, the giant spar supports 150 workers and two long-range helicopters, and supplies meals worthy of a four-star hotel.

Largely because the action occurs underwater, out of public view, little attention has focused on what actually happens on the ocean floor where drilling takes place, or what creatures are displaced by the thousands of miles of pipeline laced across the bottom to transport oil and gas once they are extracted. Until the concern about the burning of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—as the basis for increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and thus global warming, ocean acidification, mercury contamination, and more, the greatest problem most people had with the development of offshore oil was the spilling of it.

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