BP Oil Spill

What a mess.  The video, which you can actually watch streaming live on CNN (Live stream), just makes me so sad and sick. 

(National Geographic)

Sylvia Earle spoke to Congress about the disaster.

Here she speaks on PBS NewsHour

More pictures from The Washington Post

I've been thinking about what we can do as citizens - if this was a natural disaster that threatened one of our cities, we'd be sending money to the Red Cross.  But it isn't our home directly that is affected - but the home of millions of organisms both in the ocean and along the coast.  This has the potential to be absolutely devastating - it is going to ruin the biological diversity of this area and potentially of the ocean because the Gulf of Mexico is a breeding ground for many organisms - many of them endangered like the Kemps ridley sea turtle below.

I think it is always difficult to "rally the troops" when people are indirectly affected by disaster.  But I think that in this particular case, it is so obvious that the human impact on wildlife and plant life is so devastating that it is our responsibility, obligation, and duty to protect, conserve and restore this vital resource. 

There are so many considerations to think about - the loss of life because of explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, the environmental impact, the economic impact to those whose livelihood depends on the ocean and the consequences for BP.

I think what we need to do is have a serious discussion about the root causes of this disaster - I see this as our reliance on petroleum - from plastics to jet fuel to the gas we put in our car.  While I understand the economic need for globalization, manufacturing, and transport, I think that we do not think enough about what we actually produce - the stuff we make, the non-renewal resources we use up making this stuff, and pollution that accumulates and chokes the life out of our environment.

Enough of my soapbox, but please do something.  Write a letter to your Congressman, the President, or BP.  We need to let them know that we are all stakeholders in this - and they can't forget that.