| Oil spills are clearly a destructive man made tragedy | | | | and consequently, the facts were slow to come. With |
| that has affected our country and world for decades | | | | all of the technology and information now available to |
| now. In light of the recent BP gulf spill, there is tons of | | | | the general public, managing this humongous mess |
| information being written, spoken, and blogged about | | | | becomes much more complicated. |
| by the day making the crisis at hand much more real | | | | Exxon wound up paying around 2 billion dollars to clean |
| to the general public than ever before. | | | | up the spill, not including punitive damages and civil |
| While typically much smaller in nature, oil spills happen | | | | awards. This was in a world where something of this |
| each and every year around the world. Depending on | | | | nature had never happened before, and understanding |
| the location of the incident and the surrounding | | | | the appropriate steps to take in preserving the |
| environment, the cleanup, ecological damage, and | | | | ecological habitat was shaky, at best. This also |
| associated costs can vary. However, even with these | | | | happened in a place that was not largely inhabited and |
| types of incidents being part of the industry, it has | | | | where the entire world could not know the intricate |
| become rare to have one of this size and nature. Most | | | | details at the push of a button. |
| adults recall the last incident of this nature, the Exxon | | | | With information being available at all times, managing |
| Valdez oil spill, which occurred in 1989. That disaster | | | | this disaster becomes a real challenge. BP does not |
| left approximately 250,000 barrels of crude oil in the | | | | have the luxury that Exxon had to take time, assess, |
| bay, whereas, the gulf oil spill, also known as | | | | and mitigate the issues and problems at hand. Instead, |
| Deepwater Horizon, has continually been gushing | | | | they are managing a hotline where anyone that has |
| approximately 100,000 barrels of crude oil into the gulf | | | | any idea of how to fix the problem can call in and |
| per day since late April. | | | | make their recommendation. They have to answer to |
| Deepwater Horizon is a much bigger disaster than the | | | | the president, congress, and people of the United |
| Exxon Valdez spill. However, with the timing being | | | | States in real time, not after the fact. |
| almost 21 years later to the date, technology makes | | | | Whether the influx of information readily available to |
| this catastrophe a different type of problem to deal | | | | the public is a pro or a con will be up for debate for |
| with. | | | | many years to come. However, faced with having to |
| The incredible gap in technology changes how the | | | | manage the general public's opinion and outrage, while |
| information and how the response is managed. In 1989, | | | | at the same time trying to actually stop the gush of oil |
| there were no bloggers; in fact, the Internet was | | | | spilling into the gulf, a difficult situation is made even |
| nowhere near even the dial-up stage. Information was | | | | more so. While technology has, in many ways, |
| obtained and dispersed through the news stations and | | | | become a great aid, progress may actually be held |
| papers. There were no live cams that could show you | | | | back because of the vast amount of information so |
| the exact progress of the spill at any given moment, | | | | readily available. |