With the recent spill of oil in the Gulf, we are faced with one of the largest man made disasters in years. Our thirst and greed for more and more oil has once again caused extreme damage to the environment and who knows how bad it will get. Marine life dead, ecosystems destroyed, industries dessimated. All of this for a substance that when used is destroying our environment and has profound effects on politics, safety and culture around the globe.

Is this the catalyst that we need for change? Could this be the straw that breaks the camel's back and leads us to new perspective on how to address our energy needs?

It could but we would have to be serious about expanding the ban on offshore drilling to make it permanent and really ramp up the investment in other energy sources including nuclear...

Not according to the oil companies which are now downplaying this spill as if its not that big of a deal... Ha.

We can only hope that people will see the writing on the wall, but I just don't see it. I think too many people don't understand the correlation. I don't think that people understand peak oil. I don't think that people understand that high risk oil drilling is a product of peak oil and the fact that the easy oil is ALL gone. It is only going to get more dangerous and cause bigger disasters. This isn't like the Exxon Valdez where a drunkard ran a ship ashore. This was a product of a high risk endeavor and no viable safety option for worst case scenarios. As time moves forward, I don't think that anyone will be able to imagine what the worst case would be, so how would they plan for the contingencies.

I don't think this will usher in the change we need. People are still able to get reasonably priced gasoline. Look at Europe, where BP is headquartered, and the prices they pay and continue to pay for gasoline. Until we reach that point, I don't think that people will start to change. Even then most will probably adapt to the cost and move forward.

I also think there is a lack of understanding of fossil fuels in general and how dirty they are. There isn't a clean fossil fuel. Sorry T. Boone, natural gas is still a dirty fuel and a finite resource to boot.

Until there is a reason for people to change, they won't. This is a reason for concern but most won't correlate the two and decide to make a change, favoring a "lets blame BP" mantra to understanding that we as the consumers are driving these markets.

I hope that it opens the eyes of people but most of the media has been too slow to start talking about what the actual cause is of this spill. I don't want to say that BP is not to blame for the incident itself. I honestly feel that BP did this and it is almost criminal how this happened. The root cause, though, is the thirst of Americans and other developed countries for oil. Independence from fossil fuels is the only way we are going to avoid more incidents that will be even more serious than this one.