Oringinal Link: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/sep/05/oil-companies-british-petroleum-should-pay-oil-spills-pollution-greenhouse-gas

This is an interesting article that highlights the impact oil spills have had on the environment and how famous spill like BP gulf of Mexico incident have improved legislations and rules on oil rigs but greenhouse gas emission has continued to remain in the shadows.

It would be ethical for large production companies to take it up themselves to try and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit. However, this will impact the amount of profit. It appears that there needs to be a disaster similar to the BP oil spill to generate pressure for these production companies to impose rules and restrictions.

Prior to the BP oil spill there were only a small conservation group that was rallying against the oil rigs and measurements of extracting oil from offshore rigs that were occurring. After the spill there was much more public involvement with the issue and BP responded in spending millions to try and repair the issue but furthermore implement new regulations that will stop this from happening in the future. It’s ironic that there needs to be a big disaster for things to change.

Large companies should prepare for these disasters before they even occur and place procedures that prevent them. Currently many large production companies are producing greenhouse gases at an unsustainable manner but they are unnoticed as unlike an oil-spill there is no immediate visual impact of emissions. By adding more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere it is adding to the effect of climate change. Sadly, it will be too late to spend millions to try and revert climate change once it has already occurred so business need to take action now. They need to put profits aside and ethically decide what needs to be done.