Nigeria, the world capital of oil pollution

To Climate Progress : “ Wednesday, Shell claimed responsibility for two oil spills dating to 2008 (which) are estimated to exceed the 11 million gallons spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster. ”  (over 40 million liters)

” As a 2010 article by  the Guardian’s environment editor explained: With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. “

” Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations

If you want to sleep tonight, please don’t read these lines as they will horrify you. Here are further details :

It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that secret.

However, two major independent investigations over the past four years suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far.

One report, compiled by WWF UK, the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5m tons of oil – 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska – has been spilled in the delta over the past half century.

Last year Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels of oil was spilled and accused the oil companies of a human rights outrage.

This is absolutely horrifying.

The impact of all this pollution will most likely last decades, thus harming the environment and its inhabitants for years…

Oil is sometimes referred to as black gold, but who in their right mind would waste so much ? Oil is so cheap we can afford that so much of it to simply spill…

This is truly outrageous and enraging ! I hope the people responsible for this whole mess will be brought to justice…

2 thoughts on “Nigeria, the world capital of oil pollution”

  1. “If you want to sleep tonight, please don’t read these lines as they will horrify you. Here are further details”

    I often heard about oil in Nigeria before (which was behind a conflict between Cameroun and Nigeria over the Bakassi Peninsula), but I only realized what the situation looks like on the ground thanks to Alan Taylor’s work. He gathered several pictures about oil in Nigeria :
    http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/06/nigeria-the-cost-of-oil/100082/

    MUST SEE !

  2. oh thank you, now I am sure not to get any sleep tonite…

    The pictures remind me of either JRR Tolkien’s Mordor or Apocalypse Now…

    Thanks you for bringing these pictures to the front scene 🙂

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: