Paige Oliver- Love Canal

Paige Oliver

Love Canal and the 2010 Port Arthur Oil Spill

                I posted a report concerning the Love Canal incident and I also posted an article reporting on the 2010 Port Arthur oil spill that occurred. I decided to just post it as a status on Facebook and see how people reacted. It was really interesting! There was a list of comments that were posted, some of them were random and useless such as

-This posts proves you are from Seattle, you hippie 

-Recycle and love the environment, time to wear chocos and eat granola

 But there were several comments that were actually really exciting and interesting to read. Some of them included:

-This is so interesting! I had no idea.

-Why do we not focus on these things more in the News instead of killings and rapists on the loose!?

-Shedding light on this is very interesting, I think more people need to educate themselves on the matters.

-Things like this really impact our daily lives, and people don't notice it.

-That is crazy, the birth defects of the Love Canal make me crazy, something like that deserves a law suit! It is also very interesting to see what problems derive from oil spills and how quickly people react to fixing it.

                Those were the most relevant comments from Facebook. In my Ethics class we were discussing what should be told to the public and what should be hidden. I decided to bring up whether environmental tragedies was something that should be known right away. There were a lot of differing opinions on the matter and it was really interesting to see what people thought. Most agreed that things like that are huge and should be known to the general public because it could impact so many people. But there were still people who thought some things would cause more harm than good.

                1- Do you believe that environmental crises affect you/your family today? Absolutely, environmental tragedies and crises affect everyone. It can affect those in that specific environment greatly depending on the situation. In the case of Love Canal those families were physically affected and suffered lifelong affects. It can also affect me and my family apart. In the case of the oil spill it affects not only the environment but the animals and habitats as well. Those can affect other animals which can lead to food and possibly even foods that I can come into contact with.

                2- Environmental tragedies still exist today; what can we do today to mitigate these problems. I think environmental tragedies can be smaller and less of a risk if protocol is followed closely. Rules and such are implicated  to help to prevent these. Along with communication that is the best thing to prevent them.

                3- In your opinion are environmental hazards something we should be concerned about on a daily basis. I think an environmental hazard is something that should be concerning, however it should not control our thoughts and affect our lives on a daily basis. It is not so prevalent that it should overwhelm our thoughts on a daily basis but it does need to be a consistent thought.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/motiva-crude-oil-refinery_n_1675843.html