A Better Future for the Next Generations, Essay Example

The modern stage of humancivilization’s development has created a new dilemma for humanity– how to get as much energy resources as possible and to survivein order to use them in the future. In this context, at the modern stage of development humanity had substituteda healthy and harmonious life in the balanced ecosystem with an artificial existence in the system where human activity and growth cost environmental distortion and eventual extinction of living environment as we know it today. In this context, humanity has two options. The first one is to follow its current path and end up as the last species on the planet. On the other hand, humanity might still stop for a moment from its rush of global development and economic sustainability and explore what the implications of China’s fast economic growth and American desire to become entirely oil-independent are. In the framework of the second option, an individual should start his overview from thelocal perspective. An individual can understand the whole scope trough gradual exploration of the human influence on the environment in his community or geographical region. From all mentioned above, it becomes clear why the topic of the present paper is exploration of oil impact on the environment and population of Southern California. The aim of this paper is to explore how oil influences on the local ecosystem.

Historical perspective and continental extraction

Particular feature of Southern California is that oil is an inalienable part of its geological and industrial history. From geological perspective, oil was always present in various parts of the local eco-system. Before the beginning of industrial extraction of oil, continental oil spill were taking place, resulting mainly in fires and relatively small contamination of the surrounding environment with chemicals and products of combustion (Mancini 5). Influence of such spills on people was minimal; Native Americans used oil after-products for tarring canoes or maintaining fire (Merchant 65). On the other hand, with development of the industrial oil extraction, starting in the end of 19^th and taking place through the whole 20^thcentury, the landscape of Southern California began to change. Where once deserts and steeps were, networks of oil wells were appearing. The new industry contributed to economic development of the region. More sources of energy boosted American economy, new working places were created and economic growth achieved, which was particularly crucial during the Great Depression. Local people were becoming wealthier and more self-sufficient. In certain way what is known as “Californian lifestyle” and Hollywood looks were conditioned by successful development of the oil industry (Lee & Normak 39). Subsequently, from the socio-historical perspective, oil extraction can be seen as beneficiary for the development of the local wealth and economic strength.

While social aspects of oil industry development were relatively successful, environmental implications were slightly different. Any extraction of natural resources has its unturning impact on the ecosystem. The first implication is destruction of the natural structure of the local soils and their fertility characteristics (Merchant 69). While most of the oil businessmen would say that moving soil a bit would not harm its structure or chemical consistency, ecologists would argue that, by extracting oil, layers of soils shift and mix, creating entirely new soil matrix, not to speak of the fact that surrounding soil was contaminated by by-products of oil extraction and presence of the transport in the area (Committee On Oil 32).  The reason why the structure of soil is essential for the Californian environment is that stability of layers contributes to the preservation of the underground waters closer to the ground; thus, the surrounding eco-system is more likely to withstand high temperatures and severe draughts (Merchant 72). On the other hand, when natural matrix of soil is disrupted, underground waters are going deeper to the ground, decreasing the level of moisture in the local soils. Thus, plants and animals are more likely not to withstand severe draughts (Lee & Normak 65).

The deepening of the underground waters is extremely important under the conditions of Southern Californian dry climate, which under the influence of global climate change is becoming hotter. The decrease of moisture in the soil is also one of the factors contributing to the increase of annul fires in the region (Lee & Normak 50). In this context, contamination of Californian soils with oil products of both artificially (because of industrial activity) and naturally origin contributes to high level of inflammability in the region (Committee On Oil 81). Those issues become even more complicated in the framework of potable water scarcity and further spreading of draughts and deserts in the region. Although a direct connection between century-old, oil industry and spreading of deserts in the region was not completely justified; soil erosion is one of its reasons, and oil extractions contributes to it (Lee & Normak 55). From all mentioned above, it can be concluded that in a long-termed perspective, oil extraction had contributed to the development of Californian wealth and increase in annual number of fires and decrease of underground water resources. We will be able to see final implications of these aspects on human activity already in the next decades.

Off-shore oil drilling

While continental oil extraction implications are rather long-termed, oil extraction from the seabed has entirely different characteristics. The implications of this activity and catastrophes connected to them are immediate and felt by every member of the local ecosystem. After the Mexican Gulf’s Oil Spill, the off-shore oil drilling is associated with massive ecological distortion and hazards. In case of Southern California, those implications are not abstract or new. The example of distorting impact of oil spill is Santa Barbara’s blow-out of 1969, when around 100,000 barrels of crude oil entered to the Channel and spread in the surrounding water areas and beaches of Santa Barbara County (Merchant 174). This oil-spill showed the most vivid example of how oil may influence Sothern Californian environment. First of all, the impact of oil release into water was distortion of the marine life. The immediate effects of oil on living organisms depend on physical characteristics of oil or its chemical components.  In the first case, oil spill results in physical contamination and smotheringthat leads to death of marine creatures (Lee & Normak 72). Due to this effects around 3,686 birds, uncountable number of sea lions, elephant seals and dolphins died (Spoolman  & Miller 231). The actual number of marine life damages is unknown since no sufficient account was conducted at that time.

The second impact of the oil is due to its chemicals, which usually have a long-termed effect. They usually have a sub-lethal implication, meaning they diminish living organisms’ abilities for reproduction, growth, feeding, or any other life supporting activity which is affected by high oil or its chemicals concentration in the water or seashore area (Spoolman & Miller 251). In case of sedentary animals in the near seashore waters, such as clams, oysters and mussels, they are the first to accumulate large amount oil chemicals. This is conditioned by the fact that in order to feed they need to filter large amounts of sea water (Committee On Oil 115). This implication might cause physical dysfunctions in the living organisms and influence humans. People might be contaminated with sea food containing high level of oil chemicals (Committee On Oil 118). In along-termed perspective, oil spills change the structure of marine ecosystem, resulting in spreading of one species and extinction of others. Scientists still do not know what might be long-termed results of massive misbalance in marine life or which new species might develop as a result of destruction of others. At the moment, it is that concentration of oil-consuming bacteria in the local seawaters is very high. It is high because of natural high number of underwater oil seeps in the local waters, but implications of their significant increase due to the oil spills are still unknown to the science (Spoolman & Miller 132).

The impact of oil spill on people

The impact of oil spill on the local population had three dimensions: economic, healthcare and moral. From the economic perspective, oil spill and subsequent water population influences fishery industry and seashore tourist, recreation resorts (Merchant, 76). During Santa-Barbara oil spill, local fisheries suffered from damages of their boats and fishing gears. Many local businesses were closed because of market loss due to public fear of contaminated fish consumption (Lee & Normak 112). Subsequent negative economic influence was felt in all ocean-connected industries. The prices for sea-shore real estate were low for the next five years, distorting the local market of real estate. Overall, economic retributions paid by company estimated $35 million (Merchant 165).

Healthcare implications of  the oil spill are not entirely understood mainly because at that time no specific research was conducted. What is known is that contaminated fish still managed to enter the local food market mainly in the poor districts of the regional cities. The main implications of oil chemicals poisoning include deterioration of chronic diseases, cancer, respiratory and digestive dysfunctions (Lee & Normak 125). Particular feature of the oil spill is that the most harmful elements are immediately disposed to the air, so their impact is more ruinous for the respiratory system. In this context, of specific concern are people who work on the cleaning sights, especially if their work exceeds the time of 4-5 hours (Spoolman & Miller 207). Even during the last oil spill in Gulf of Mexico, exact implications of the contamination on workers of the cleaning sights remain unknown. What is definite, their health condition will not improve, just as condition of the marine animals affected my oil chemicals.

From the moral perspective, oil spills contribute to public reactions and active involvement in environmentalist campaigns. The result of Santa Barbara’s oil spill was adoption of new environmental legislature and development of new programs of oil spill treatment and prevention (Spoolman & Miller 21). In this context, more safety measures were developed, at least it seemed to be before the Mexican Gulf catastrophe. Though government and industries might be more unwilling to change something in oil extraction and development of American oil independence, ordinary people become more environmentally conscious, especially in Southern California, where results of oil extraction had been seen in their most diverse implications on the ecosystem and life of the local people.

Some thoughts instead of conclusions

Overall, the impact of oil on Sothern California is immense in environmental damages conditioned by a long history of oil industry activity in the region. On the other hand, natural oil spills and high activity of underwater seeps were present in the region for centuries, human activity had only increased it and used for its own benefits. It is an arguable issuewhether Southern California would benefit more from the use of an alternative source of energy instead of continuous exploitation of the natural resources of such high cost as destruction of all living in the surrounding environment. For instance, would it be more justified to use nuclear energy instead of oil resources, how safe that option might be? Most likely it would have even worse effects on the living world than oil extraction. So what choice do we have? In fact, we have a huge variety of choices how to live our lives in harmony with nature. The main element of this is ability to give up some aspects of our comfortable lifestyle for the benefits of the next generations.  Our grand-children would be also able to drink fresh water and swim with dolphins or enjoy fresh ocean breeze, without fear that their children shall not see those miracles of the world.

Works Cited

Committee On Oil In The Sea. Oil In The Sea III: Inputs, Fates, and Effects. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2003. Print.

Lee, J.H. & Normak, W.R. (Eds.). Earth science in the urban ocean: the Southern California continental borderland. Boulder, CO: The Geological Society of America. 2009. Print.

Mancini, E.R. Fate and Effects of Crude Oil in a Sothern California Stream Drainage. Web. 25 Nov. 2011.

Merchant, C. (Ed.). Green versus gold: sources in California’s environmental history. Washington, DC: Island Press. 1998. Print.

Spoolman, S. & Miller, G. Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions. New York, NY: Cencage Learning. 2011. Print.