Environmental Crisis - Oil Spills

            There are many types of environmental issues in the world, but one that leads the way is the issue of oils spills. An oil spill is when major amounts of oil is dumped into the water of anything ranging from lakes to oceans. Oil spills are the result of people being careless, equipment breaking down, natural disasters or it can even be caused by a war going on. Many oil spills are the result of carelessness causing thousands of tonnes of oil being dropped down into the ocean or waters affecting marine life as well as wildlife. This environmental issue can affect any part of the world because of how oil travels along the waters.
             This environmental issue is affecting humans, wildlife, and marine life. Oil can be evaporated into the air causing oil to be inhaled causing nausea, vomiting, and headaches which is really bad for human health. Oil contains a chemical called petroleum hydrocarbons that causes irritation to the skin and airway, over long periods of time many of the chemicals from oils are linked to cancer. Oil spills also affect the environment. Since oil usually floats it kills sea birds the most in greater numbers. Oil spills can coat the feathers of birds causing them to lose body heat and lose the affect to maintain the heat in their body because of the oil soaking up in the birds feather. Another major but obvious species that oil spills affect are fishes. Fishes are affected with the ingestion of oil droplets causing problems like mutation and the increase of the mortality rate. Not only does this affect wildlife/marine life, it also affects plants. Photosynthesis is like a source of food for plants so when oil spills from ashore start getting onto plants it causes photosynthesis to be less affective because the oils block out the sunlight from the leaves of the plants making plants die much faster. .
             There are three ways to solve the oil spill issue. One way to solve the issue is by leaving the oil alone and letting it break down naturally if it has no means of harming coastal regions or marine industries.