Nigeria and Oil

The Atlantic features a photo essay titled Nigeria: The Cost of Oil.  My favorite photo, but by far not the most graphic:

Nigerian oil companies burn off the second largest volume of natural gases in the world, with the practice of gas flaring. In 2008, Nigerian flares burned off an estimated 15.1 billion cubic meters of natural gases, or roughly 70% of the overall gas recovered that year. The flares are so prevalent, the Niger Delta appears brightly lit (lower left) in this detail from a NASA image of the Earth at night. Flare activity at night from 1994 through 2007 is also visible as a movie compiled by NOAA. (Image from a 2003 NASA map by Robert Simmon, based on data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Line Scanner, processed by the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center) #