Following up on my last post, things have gotten even more nightmarish in the Gulf of Mexico. BP is now trying to contain the oil belching out into the Gulf of Mexico at the (approximate) rate of 42,000 gallons per day by burning it off.
What a horrible disaster – as if we needed more evidence of the need to shift to renewable energy sources. Reminds me of Werner Herzog’s infernal film Lessons in Darkness, which focuses on the burning oil wells in Iraq after the Gulf War.
In some more hopeful news, I read in the New York Times that the federal government has, after a nine year review, finally given the green light to the U.S. first extensive wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod. Now we just need to shift people’s mentalities towards less consumption…
Speaking of which, one of the best, most concise discussions of the illness of consumer culture is Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff. This brief and witty video is something that all U.S. residents should see, since we are the ones who, above all others on the planet, suffer from this malaise.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8&feature=fvw]