Drilling for Oil

Ok, so the picture is pretty poor quality. It was taken way back in 2000 before I owned a digital camera. So, I took a picture of the picture to post it. Basically, it is oil sludge. This picture was taken on the Padre Island National Seashore which for those not familiar with the area is near Corpus Cristi, Texas on the gulf coast. It was taken on a part of the island between Laguna Madre and the Gulf of Mexico.

I have several other pictures from the beach that day that really disturbed me at the time. One was of the signage to the beach. The sign stated:

Caution
Drive and Walk with care
Marine Debris Possible
Hazardous Waste on Beach

Also at our hotel there was a "Beach Tar Removal Station". I have pictures of both of these but as I said, they were taken on 35 mm film and it is really hard to not get the words to come out blurry with a digital picture of them.

What I learned that day from the view of the Oil Platforms that were left (no longer being used), the oil sludge and the general state of the beach was that we as a people can really screw things up. There was debris besides the oil sludge on the beach as well. Just general junk.

Growing up here in North Carolina and visiting our beautiful coastline, I never knew how really nice the beach that we visited really was. As a kid, I remember visiting the 'busier' beaches of North Carolina and finding cigarette butts and being disturbed about these.

Now, the federal government in its infinite wisdom wants to open our coastline to offshore oil drilling. Needless to say, I am not amused by this turn of events. The question really is, what can I do to keep this from happening? Fortunately, North Carolina's current governor is against any offshore oil drilling of our coastline. Unfortunately, our Senators are both for the drilling. (One recently flip-flopped on her position)

I believe that oil drilling off our coast no matter how 'careful' the companies are (yeah right), will result in some spills, and just the increased marine traffic off our coast will result in more pollution and more 'trash' being washed ashore.

Of course, I don't have all the answers for our 'addiction to oil' but I don't think the answer is to drill for more. I learned a long time ago that oil was a 'non renewable resource'. The 8th grade I think. So, eventually it will run out. We need to have other options beyond drilling. We have creative people in this country, let's put them to work!