Oil in Texas
In 1901 a large amount of oil was discovered in the Texas Coastal Plains changing Texas forever. Until then, Texans worked mostly agricultural jobs, but with the discovery of oil, Texas quickly grew into a state with many large urban cities.
There are many pros and many cons to oil production, and it’s a subject that many feel very strongly about. Some of the pros of drilling and refining oil are that it provides high paying jobs for Texas workers and $16,000,000,000.00 a year in tax money that helps pay for Texas schools, universities, roads, police and ambulance workers. The Oil industry also creates products that we use everyday such as plastics, computers, medicine and life-saving devices. Offshore drilling creates marine habitats in the Gulf of Mexico where sea life can live and thrive.
There are also many negative effects of oil production such as pollution. We could see the pollution in the air as we drove by the oil refineries on our drive back from Galveston. While water and soil pollution are a concern, air pollution is the most concerning of them all. The pollution in the air due to oil refineries may cause aggravated symptoms of certain respiratory conditions such as childhood asthma, can cause cancer, and may also cause developmental and reproduction problems for people.
I feel that it’s crazy because there are a lot of pros and cons to oil production. At first, I thought it was a simple question of pollution, but now I understand that it is a complicated issue.