What would the BP oil spill look like over your home?

[WillowTree]

It kills seabirds, devastates livelihoods and is having a go at doing both to BP's share price. But how big, you may ask, is the Gulf of Mexico oil spill?

Website If it was my home takes an image of the oil spill and overlays it on a Google map. It will either detect where you are (newer browsers, such as Firefox, will know this) or you can add a postcode or town name in a search box when you click through to it. Try it where you live.

Above is the spill pictured as though it surrounded the Guardian offices, in central London.

As you can see, this would take it south to Brighton, west to Bristol and as far north as the upper reaches of the Wash, in Lincolnshire. East takes it right out into the North Sea.

Playing around, I've discovered that the spill is bigger than both Belgium and Wales. This is significant – in standard journalistic units of measurement, these two countries are used to express area when you run out of sensible multiples of football pitches (see also double decker buses for length and Nelson's column for height). The oil spill is in fact closer in size (and shape, weirdly) to the Czech Republic.






What would the BP oil spill look like over your home? | Environment | guardian.co.uk









The comment section following this article is most interesting. Most interesting indeed.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

You can try it over your own house.

 

[Gatekeeper]

I still don't believe that many people can even conceive the environmental and other collateral damage that will be the result of such an 'accident'. These risks were always known and I would hope, feared,by those in this business, with exceptions of course. There are those who could care less when it comes to profit.

I am sure if this was an undersea volcano, the magma alone would have already created a new island in the Gulf. The visual from the video of the escaping oil is almost unbelievable. I think the volume of oil is much greater than anyone will admit, the latest being 20 to 40,000 bbls/day. I would guess it's much more.

The damage done to the environment will be seen and debated for decades and long after I am gone. Another legacy for those who will follow us. I swear, the more I see the "Educated" highly intelligent folks making decisions, the more it seems 'reverse mental evolution' is being clearly demonstrated.