This is how millions of small dead fish look, courtesy of British Petroleum.

Thanks BP, we didn't like all those little parts of the food chain anyway.

That is not concrete — that is tiny silver fish, all dead.  Today governor Bobby Jindal toured the beaches of Louisiana and Grand Isle and he saw many sad sights.  He saw thick oily water washing up on the beaches, and he saw terns and pelicans virtually coated with oil, immobile, staring at the TV cameras with accusing looks.  He saw dead vegetation and marshes.  It was an incredibly depressing sight — absolutely hopeless looking. Everything was dead and dying.  Jindal was angry.

Then, amazingly,  he told the TV news people that he believes the temporary moratorium against offshore drilling should be lifted, because we should not have to make a choice between energy and our environment.  Unbelievable!  He’s right on the last point, (insane on the first) because if we would declare ourselves done with oil, we could move on to devoting ourselves to renewable energy.  Then all these little dead fish wouldn’t happen again.

Fossil fuels should stay where they are.  It’s when we try to bring them to the surface and burn them that all the trouble starts.  What bothers people the most is the knowledge that we don’t need them. And what are we doing to the only home we have?  Today the Sierra Club sent out the following:

Sierra Club to Obama: Move America Beyond Oil in 20 Years
After Viewing Gulf Devastation, Executive Director Michael Brune Calls for End to Oil Dependence

Venice, Louisiana – Today, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune toured coastal Louisiana to view the impacts of the BP Disaster. Following the boat tour, Brune called on President Obama to launch a plan to move America completely beyond its dependence on oil in the next twenty years.

The Sierra Club will be launching a new campaign urging the President to take action. The Sierra Club will be holding rallies and events around the country, will be running ads and reaching out to its 1.3 million members and supporters, as well as Americans who want to do something about the disaster but don’t know how to help.

Statement of Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune:

If Americans were on the boat with me today and saw what I saw, they would be beating down the doors of their representatives, calling for action. We watched a pelican struggling to fly under the weight of globs of oil. We saw a pod of dolphins straining to swim through the oil slick.

The most infuriating thing was that there was no one else out where we were. There were no BP crews rescuing birds. There was no BP ship laying booms or soaking up oil.  BP has created a disaster so huge that response efforts can never match the needs here.

We should stop using the term “clean up” because there is really no way to clean up this mess. It is heartbreaking. It’s [...]