Energy is something that life relies on. Energy is very versatile with its usage. The way we see energy today is through things such as heat and electricity. There are many ways that these types of energy are fueled. One of those big fuels is known as oil. Oil over time has been used as the primary energy fuel worldwide. This energy source is known to be convenient and efficient. Not only does it provide tons of energy but it is also very cheap to buy which is why large amounts of it are bought by different countries. Due to this energy being cheap more of it will be bought making more energy use available. If we have more fuel for energy then we’ll find other uses for that energy. Oil was first used as lighter fluid and now it is being used to heat up homes and it is used to power up buildings via electricity. These are not the only things that oil fuels and perhaps as time progresses oil will fuel more types of energy. This may be very efficient but not all things that make life easier are good. Oil is a fossil fuel which means when it is burned it emits pollutants like methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Also, another thing is that since oil is a fossil fuel it is a non-renewable resource. This means that oil can not renew itself faster than it is consumed. Although oil is efficient and convenient it will not last forever. Oil is important because it has been heavily relied on since it was discovered but it pollutes the atmosphere and it is not safe to work with.

Oil was first discovered in America through an oil rig. Back when it was discovered there weren’t many things for energy to be used on. There weren’t any lights or radiators for energy to be applied to it. When oil was discovered it was only used for lighter fluid. This discovery, however, led to multiple inventions that revolved around this oil. Power plants ended up being built to harness the energy from oil. The main reason we have power plants is to refine this oil to use for energy. Now with the energy taking different forms it as able to be used for different things. Automobiles were later invented revolving around the oil to power it up and help it function. With this bred life into the billion cars, we see today. When oil was known to be an energy source people started looking for things for this newly found energy to power up. This is what started to make oil important. Cars are one of the best forms of transportation and are very convenient for people. Also, the fact that oil is easy to extract and distribute made it even more valuable. People such as business owners and engineers looked to use this energy more due to its efficiency. These are the people that designed products to rely on oil and overtime as the quantity of these products began to rise so did the demand for oil. A big example of this is an electric light bulb and cars. There are cars no matter where you go, not only that but the streets are flooded with them. After light bulbs were invented they were put everywhere including cars. There is not one building you walk into that doesn’t have any lights. These are just two of the many inventions that require oil for it to work. Of course, there are alternatives but these inventions were built around oil which is why oil would be the most efficient source of energy for these products. Due to this people have no choice but to keep using oil to live a very convenient life and you have no one to blame but the people who built things around that energy. 

Although oil makes our life easier it makes the Earth’s life harder. Oil causes three major types of pollution. These types of pollution are air, water, and land. This is basically everywhere but some types are being more negatively affected than others and that is because of the way the oil is being used. Air is being polluted whenever the oil is being burned. Oil is burned for many reasons, one major one being electricity. Electricity is one kind of power people can’t live without and what people use a lot of. “On average, 12 pounds of sulfur dioxide, and four pounds of nitrogen oxides are emitted per megawatt-hour of electricity generated from burning oil”(Ballotpedia). The amounts and content of the gas being emitted is no good for the atmosphere. These emissions contain a lot of impurities which can be fatal to anyone who inhales it. These aren’t even all the deadly gasses that burning oil emits. Burning oil also emits volatile organic compounds and hydrogen sulfide. Volatile organic compounds are composed of numerous toxic substances. This is seen as a cloud of smog and high-level exposure could potentially cause cancer. Hydrogen sulfide is released through diesel fuel. If you are exposed to any level of this you’ll be harmed but the higher the levels the more fatal it’ll be. Oil doesn’t just affect the air it affects the water too. It affects the water through oil spills. These spills harm much aquatic life near the spill whether it be their habitats or the animal itself. An example many people have seen is the dawn soap commercial that shows a baby penguin body filled up with oil due to oil spills. The commercial wasn’t made to just promote their product but it was to make viewers more aware of oil spills and what it does to animals. Oil spills affect a large amount of water and there are many species of living organisms in the water that will suffer. The last thing oil pollutes is the land. There are many ways oil can pollute the land. These ways are “ pipeline leaks, railroad accidents, poor oil storage, natural seeping into land or soil, poor working practices, drilling accidents, and more”(Ballotpedia). This type of pollution is bad for the land because it contaminates the soil. With oil in the soil water cannot be absorbed. This is terrible for many reasons one being agriculture, in that area will be in a lot of trouble because the soil wouldn’t be able to absorb the water. Sometimes the oil can get into groundwater which is bad because that can potentially reach rivers or an ocean. Oil drilling is bad for the environment and it isn’t even a safe source of energy.

Oil rigs are dangerous because oil spills are unpredictable and people can be harmed in the process. People have to drill into the Earth for oil then they have to extract the oil. None of these sound safe because it’s not anything that can happen to harm the workers. Drilling in the Earth for oil in no way sounds like it is safe. This sounds dangerous, workers get injured all the time because they have to transport a lot of heavy items they might not be used to. Not only this but the most dangerous part about working on an oil field is it can blow up at any time without warning which can either kill you or leave you with serious injuries. “The BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout caused one of the worst man-made environmental catastrophes in history. This disaster killed 11 rig workers, spilled over 200 million gallons of oil, fouled at least 1,300 miles of Gulf shoreline, endangered public health, and killed tens of thousands of birds, sea turtles, dolphins, and fish. This disaster revealed serious inadequacies in safety, regulation, and oversight in the offshore oil drilling industry”(Oceana). Not only do these explosions harm the workers or kill them but oil is also spilled into the water which can end up killing many animals and habitats. I don’t think these workers go into work and fear their whole worksite can explode at any given moment. Some workers actually think they are safe at work. A worker said, “Not only does it respond in times of crisis, but it also performs routine maintenance, cleaning, and disposal tasks”(Fox). The worker hasn’t seen any oil spills in all the years he’s been working on his site. This doesn’t mean the spills aren’t happening elsewhere. There are routine checks on all sites because if something happens they lose money. Although there are routine checks something can always happen which are unpredictable disasters. All routine checks do is make sure things are in order to a certain degree. They can’t really predict if things will go smoothly they would just hope for the best, which is dangerous.

Oil should stop being used because it pollutes the atmosphere and is not safe to work with. Oil gained its importance when it was discovered because people tried to find new ways to harness its energy. People made inventions specifically for that energy to power it up. This made oil become energy used everywhere which polluted the atmosphere severely. Back then oil wasn’t really regulated for the environment, it is now but it still releases toxic gas into the atmosphere. Oil opened up jobs but these jobs aren’t really the best because it isn’t all that safe to work at. Oil rigs can blow up at any moment if one thing is done wrong which is not somewhere people should work. Overall there should be a new source of energy to overtake oil, oil isn’t going to last long anyway so we might as well look for a better energy source now.