Stop and think.

Editor,

The Cosco Busan container ship spilled a mere 53,000 gallons of bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay in 2009. It killed more than 2500 birds and fouled beaches in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Marin Headlands, California North Coast, and San Francisco Bay.

Smelling the spill up close and personal, as city dwellers rarely have an opportunity to do, drove home the reality of just what awful stuff oil happens to be.

When you stop and realize that the primary purpose of our economy, and what most of our frantic rushing around is meant to accomplish, is to make a handful of extremely rich individuals richer than even they can imagine; and when you stop and look at the almost total destruction of life on our planet that this foolishness has caused; and when you look at the suffering of billions of poor people and the destruction of thousands of human societies and the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals . . . doesn't this make you wonder whether we could start to correct this disaster by using less energy and finding sources for it other than fossil fuels?

re: "Coast Guard Will Try Burning Oil Spill as It Nears Land" (4/29/2010)