This oil disaster may alter life on Earth.

[Union Yes]

To what extent?

Mankind isn't capable of containing environmental hazards like oil gushers. Toxic leaks and containment. Nuclear meltdowns.

We are playing with fire. Like a kid with a 5 gallon can of gasoline and a book of matches.

[madokie]

1. Yes it very well could

I'm willing to pay more per gallon to be buying something to run in our cars that doesn't come from under our oceans. Hemp would be a good place to begin with that too. so many uses, so many good products can be built from the hemp plant. We have to start rethinking our dependence on oil

[Union Yes]

4. From this day forward, there should never be a 'cheap' drop of gasoline or diesel ever sold again.

It's time to drive down consumption of these carbon releasing fossil fuels.

Oil is becoming a planet killer.

Hemp is indeed part of the solution. Could be a huge player in freeing our dependence on oil. Public transit would go a long way.

:fistbump:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. I rolled a young boy on the ground who had his clothes catch fire after

a friend spilled a coffee can of gasoline at a fire in the woods... I carried a short distance out of the woods to the neighborhood... today, he is a burn treatment specialist/therapist. I was round 9 or 10 when this occurred. We cannot carry the earth out of the woods nor roll it on the ground. We are pretty damn stupid when it comes down to it.

[madokie]

7. Imagine for a moment

that you're an intelligent life form out there on one of the many planets other than the ones in our solar system and you've found our earth and are studying it. Finding that the earthlings are trying to kill the planet they call home as fast as humans can and from every concievable angle for some reason. Thats what it would look like

[FBI_Un_Sub]

3. Burn corn EtOH or algae

Besides - if we burn corn EtOH, it won't be available to go into HFCS to cause obesity and diabetes.

[RadicalTexan]

5. I concur.

Yet I turned the TV on later to see the latest discussion on Headline News:

Miley Cyrus releases sexy new video: too sexy too soon?

[jberryhill]

8. Yeah, that Miley Cyrus video is something, I hear

Maybe I'll get around to seeing it before the planet dies.

[spanone]

6. when will we ever learn....

[jimlup]

9. Scientists call this the anthropocene epoch

http://geology.about.com/od/geotime_dating/a/anthropocene.htm

[corpseratemedia]

10. maybe this disaster will be the tipping point where exponential economic growth

with it's foundations in everything made and run with petroleum, has come up against the exponential growth it fueled in population







...well, nothing's stopped unchecked growth before, who am i kidding, bp will ruin the gulf but they'll put even more pressure now on politicians etc. to drill up north where people can't feel or see the effects of disasters.

[Ozymanithrax]

11. Nature will handle this. It will die back...then it will come back...

in a few thousand years or more.

If we humans are as smart as we think we are, we will not die in a red tide of our own creation. If we are as dumb as we usually are, we are doomed to be interesting fossils in the earth.

[jberryhill]

12. Yeah...until we are discovered by future life who finds a way

...to use deposits of our remains for fuel, and kills itself.

How much would that suck.

[tridim]

13. Hopefully it will be the final catalyst for real change.

The burning of carbon is obviously killing us. Our ancestors didn't know this, but we do.

The time to solve the problem is now, no excuses.

[gravity]

14. Nothing will change

In five years, when the worst effects of the spill are over. There will be another push for offshore drilling

[Rex]

15. We are living through the Holocene extinction right now.

Mass numbers of species are dying out right now, I believe a hundred thousand a year (don't know the exact number). We've decided to help, sometimes indirectly.

[Kalun D]

16. Help or Main Cause?

We aren't helping this extinction, we are the main cause of it.

http://www.well.com/~davidu/sixthextinction.html

[Lionel Mandrake]

18. The real disaster is not an oil spill.

Excessive human population is the planetary disease. All other environmental problems are mere symptoms.

[Union Yes]

19. Yep-that's the root cause. No doubt. nt

[Union Yes]

17. I wonder how many species will become extinct due to this oil disaster? Too sad to think about it.