Desperate Oil Companies trick Desperate Cities: the Desperate Underbelly of Oil Spills
Cleaning up oil spills in Nigeria, Credit, Vanguard News
Activists in Venezuela, dedicated to cleaning up the oil-polluted Lake Maracaibo, one of the largest and oldest lakes in the world, shaved their hair, weaved it into panty-hose like nets, surrounded the oil slicks, then strategically placed the hair beside polluted sites.
Members of Kedere community in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta, concerned over the pollution arising from pipeline bursts, tasked themselves with digging pits a few feet into oil spill sites, scooping the oil from the soil and burning it, finally covering it with sand.
Community people near the Maranon River in Peru, persuaded by oil companies to clean up a spill from a pipeline burst, tasked themselves to accomplish the mission, by gathering the oil slicks with their hands and pouring them into buckets, receiving between two and four soles for their effort, with a sol worth around 28 cents of a dollar.
Neglected by Big Oil when spills happen, members of indigenous communities find themselves adopting desperate means - including using their hair or bare hands or digging pits - to fight issues related to the environmental crisis, with climate change worsening their situation.
In an experiment, Phillip McCrory, an American hairdresser, filled a 55-gallon oil drum with 40 gallons of water and 15 gallons of oil, filtered the mixture through nylon bags filled with hair, with only 17 parts of oil per million parts of water remaining, after the water was tested through a single pass.
On the heels of a pipeline burst in Peru on February 24, 2016, Awajun children in the Nazareth community, at the confluence of the Chiriaco and Maranon River, scooped oil slicks into buckets from the spill, threw them away, and not seeing as much oil slick as before, thought they had reduced the effects of the disaster.
In another incident in the Philippine city of Calapan in March, residents gave out their hair when an oil tanker capsized off the coast of Oriental Mindoro province, and seeing the slick dispersing towards the waters of Palawan some one hundred miles away, believed they've provided a solution.
In each and every case at oil spills, members of communities believe that desperate means such as scooping oil from spills with buckets or bare hand, or sinking their hair into the oil, would ultimately mitigate the effects of the disaster, but events later prove that their activities don't improve the environmental crisis around them, instead increasing their vulnerability to climate change.
The Persian Gulf War oil Spill took place in 1991, the biggest oil spill worldwide and releasing anywhere from 380 to 520 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, but desperate and ineffective clean up measures not only failed to restore most of the marshes destroyed in the wetlands along the affected coast, but also failed to protect fifty to 90 percent of the fauna in the area, mainly crabs, amphibians, and molluscs.
Similar results happened in the Bay of Campeche in 1979, when the Ixtoc 1 Oil Spill took place, releasing about 140 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf, with the ineffective clean up operations unable to prevent the elimination of the population of crabs affected.
The same occurrence happened during the Atlantic Summit Oil Spill in Trinidad and Tobago in 1979, when 90 million gallons of oil poured into the Caribbean Sea, with ineffective clean up efforts unable to prevent the underlying water from heating up and preventing evaporation, thereby, along with other oil spills, intensifying climate change by stopping the ocean from releasing the absorbed energy of sunlight.
When oil spills happen, and communities employ ineffective means to clean up the catastrophe - such as scooping the spilled oil or burying it, or using their hair in the process - events that took place in Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, and the Persian Gulf repeat themselves, increasing the pressures from climate change.
Consequently, oil companies should take the responsibility for the clearing up of oil spills. Community people should not be forced to use their hands to contain the incident. Men and women should not be tricked to tackle oil spills by burying them. Children should not be made to scoop the oil with buckets. Though oil spills don't cause climate change, they worsen the fortunes of millions already reeling from climate change, a situation made worse by the failure of Big Oil companies to take responsibilities for their actions.
Top Solar Panel Products
As climate change intensifies with fossil fuel production, new technologies emerge. Solar panel products may be an idea for the future for activists, founders, and investors. Here are a few exploding solar panel products, showing trends 12 months before they take off.
(1) PV Racking and Mounting Equipment
PV racking and mounting equipment refers to the infrastructure that is used to securely mount and support photovoltaic panels for solar energy systems.
The future outlook for the PV Racking and Mounting Equipment Market looks promising, with the global transition towards clean and sustainable energy sources, combined with the falling costs of solar panels.
The photovoltaic mounting system market for example is currently valued at USD24 million in 2023, and is expected to reach USD123.59 by 2033, growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 17.6 percent from 2023 to 2033
(2) Solar Charge Controller
In off-grid or hybrid solar systems, a charge controller manages the battery charging process and prevents overcharging or over-discharging of batteries.
The global Solar Charge Controller Market was valued at USD3.23 billion by 2030, growing at CAGR of 9.18 percent from 2023 to 2030.
(3) Wiring and Cables
Proper wiring and cables are necessary to connect all the components of the solar system and transmit electricity safely and efficiently.
The future outlook of the Wiring and Cable market looks promising. The global market size was estimated at USD202.05 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 4.2 percent from 2023 to 2030.
(4) Solar Monitoring System
The solar monitoring equipment tracks the performance of solar panels and provides data on energy production, allowing users to optimize their system's efficiency.
Companies such as Emerson, Schneider Electric, ABB, and Siemens dominate the market.
The Solar Panel Monitoring System Market is expected to reach USD1370.9 million in 2030 by growing at a CAGR of 15.2 percent.
(5) Solar Cells
Solar cells are the heart of a solar panel. They convert sunlight to electricity. Monocrystalline, polycrystalline, and thin-film are the most common types of solar cells.
The next generation solar cell market is valued at USD3.0 billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 19.5 percent from 2023 to 2028.
What to Eat
Philippines vegan diet, Credit, Plant-based passport comÂ
Adetokunbo, I meant to ask earlier: are you vegan yourself?