Have you ever seen that Dawn commercial that shows a man/woman with heavy plastic gloves on, rescuing oil drenched baby ducks from contaminated water? It is true that in the past months, the gulf oil spill has led to many concerns as to how one can prevent the spreading of contaminated water and save animals and their natural habitats. Oil can be devastating to humanity and the environment especially when it is gushing out at numerical rates of more than 210,000 gallons per day. Looking into the future, there needs to be some way to avert miss use of oil that will cause thousands of natural habitats to be destroyed, hundreds of wildlife deaths, and even more water pollution. In the July 7th edition of Nature Magazine, the article “how do we defend against future oil spills” depicts a nation of extreme greediness and one who has yet to learn a lesson from its past. The writer gives some of his insight to the amount of money being spent on future prevention of oil spills or lack of. With a contrasting view found in opinion section of a newspaper for California State University, one reads that there has been research already performed it is just the lack of government involvement that has been performed poorly. By researching and comparing the articles about oil spills, I will determine the two thesis statements. Then, extrapolate how these two writers differ in their opinions. And lastly, decide which article has a more convincing argument and conclude how I feel this controversy should be handled.
In the first articled, located in Nature Journal, Arne Jernelov states “that Technologies for mitigating spills are not improving fast enough, and lessons are not being learned; information from the last major blowout in the Mexican Gulf doesn't seem to have been at the fingertips of responding bodies this time around”. In this claim it is clear that Jernelov is concerned that as a nation our technology has not improved at a quick enough pace in order to prevent future oil spills. Jernelov’s goes on to say “more oil profits should be diverted into research to ensure that clean-up knowledge and technologies keep pace with advances in drilling, and are targeted at potential future problems”. I agree with this statement, because this article provides a chart that shows how much money has been spent to prevent oil spills, to how much money has been spent to drill for new oil. It is clearly one sided and I strongly believe in order limit the amount of disasters there does need to be more time and money in the prevention category.
The second article was found in the opinion section of a newspaper for California State University. In this article the writer states, “it is the kind of negligent, leeching attitude that government must correct by enforcing that all oil companies purchase acoustic remote-control devices in order to prevent disasters related to oil spills and protect the environment”. This article is contradicting the first article, because it states that the technology is already there and that the research has been done, but there is no law implementing the use of the new devices. The writer attacks the government for not regulating a shut off valve to be purchased in order to prevent the big oil spill. Therefore, he says, it is the “greediness of our society” that causes these oil spills. The safety devices that the writer alludes to, have been found to be the “most successful and effective option” but was cut out of the plan simply because of its cost. This article supports the first article because it talks about how more money needs to be spent on the prevention of a spill rather than the drilling of oil, but the second article provides more information about the available technology that is already been discovered.
Therefore, the two articles are both convincing provided that the writers gave adequate facts and a common basis of money. The second article provides a more convincing argument when it is stated that there has been research on technology already, but the government needs to provide more research and money in order to prevent and conserve the environment. Also, I strongly agree with the second article and believe that it should be required that oil companies purchase the emergency device before they can drill for more oil.
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