Deep Sea Oil Drilling

Deep Sea Oil Drilling

Today oil is being used to power most of our vehicles, making us all dependent on it in some way; to get food to see loved ones or to go on holiday. There are millions of cars, buses, ships, planes moving around our cities that all require oil. All of the vehicles need millions of liters to keep them running every day, that's taking a toll on the air we breathe, on our energy security, our economy, the environment and our climate.

The giant oil fields that the industry hoped would last forever are starting to run dry. Faced with increasing demand on access to oil companies are pushing into areas previously considered too inaccessible, expensive or risky to exploit. This means going to greater extremes to squeeze the earth of it's last drops of oil, from the tar sands in Canada (Tar sands can be mined and processed to extract the oil-rich bitumen, which is then refined into oil.) the Arctic and now the pristine coastlines of New Zealand.

At the moment millions of dollars of our money is going into subsidizing risky oil, keeping us stuck in the oil age. Our governments are propping up the oil companies with tax breaks. They're allowing oil companies to exploit our natural world. If we do nothing,climate change will cost us around twenty percent of total gross domestic product (GPD) over the next half century (greenpeace.org). That is more than the cost of both world wars and the (great) depression put together(stuff.co.nz).

New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals, the government agency responsible for managing the country's oil, gas and coal resources is seeking comment from the local authorities and iwi on its proposed  2015 block offer, which includes a large offshore area stretching from South Canterbury to Banks Peninsula. The city council opposes the move and is particularly worried that the offshore great south Canterbury block is too close to Banks Peninsula Marine Mammal Sanctuary and Department of Conservation reserve land(stuff.co.nz). This plan should not go ahead as near by the sanctuary holding the last fifty five dolphins of the extremely endangered Hectors Dolphin. If there was an oil spill this would be catastrophic to parts of the ecosystem.

New Zealand is completely and utterly unprepared to deal with a deep sea oil spill. The risks of the environment and the economy are too high. Residents already feel like their heritage has been lost. Now we’re opening up our coastlines to a very different type of disaster. One that threatens our natural heritage.

( All facts from the Green Party website and Stuff.co.nz )

Maygan Neale.