Change

As the oil spill falls deeper and deeper to the back of the headlines, I wonder what I can do to make a change to reduce dependence on oil products. I am already driving less, trying to combine trips in to town one day a week. I look at plastic containers with ire, can I use fewer? Reuse some? What else can I do?

I feel that most people will look the other way regarding this oil spill. It's easy for us in the Pacific Northwest because that spill is far away. The Exxon Valdez in Alaska was much closer. The long term result of that spill- 5 years after the spill, almost no fish were found in Prince William Sound. The ones that were there were ill, bleeding, swimming sideways, malformed. 6,700 clean up workers filed grievances regarding illness from the clean up and nothing was done for them. 18 years later there were finally enough fish for fishermen to begin a full season of fishing again. Even today, 21 years later, if you dig down a few inches on the beaches of the sound, you find oil.

People at every level of civilization, from world leaders to you and I, talk about ending our dependence on petroleum products, and then we get in our SUVs and drive a few miles to purchase bottled water. It doesn't make sense. I feel that the best thing to do here is stop drilling, stop importing oil, just say 'Hey, in 10 years there will not be any more oil, make a change to deal with it.' How fast would we all buy electric cars and find other ways to store and use products? I just don't feel people are upset enough about what is going on, and right now, there is no end in sight. I hope the people in the Gulf are able to recover from this, but from what history has told, it will be decades.
-Jenni