BP Oil Disaster

I'm pretty sure that most of you kidz have heard about the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. From wikipedia: On April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded after a blowout and sank two days later, killing eleven people and causing a massive oil spill threatening the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida.

The actual well is almost a mile under water and spewing oil into the Caribbean at the rate of 12,000 - 100,000 barrels (500,000 - 4,200,000 US gallons) a day. This is the worst oil disaster to ever happen in the US. Although BP has been trying to stop the flow of oil since the blowout, they have had no success.

To get an idea of the size of that disaster, there is a site called IfItWasMyHome, that maps the spill onto different parts of the world in a mashup with Google Maps. I've mapped it onto Calgary, Toronto, and San Jose so that you can see just how big the spill really is.

The original spill can be found here. If this isn't a good reason to get us off of oil and onto more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives, I don't know what is.