I feel like every time I read the news, there is another terrifying revelation about the magnitude of the oil spill in the Gulf.  Tonight was no different.  “Efforts to Repel Gulf Spill Are Described As Chaotic,” reads the headline of the New York Times article, and it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed and despondent.  I fight back that pit-of-your-stomach ache that I get every time I hear more bad news about the Gulf, and I try to focus.

I have to concentrate on what I can do.  This spill should make us all reevaluate our energy use. Are we engaging in what Saleem H. Ali referred to as responsible consumption?  Rather than let each new piece of news about the spill get me down, I let it fire me up, pushing me to decrease my own carbon footprint, and encourage others to do the same.

I’m not in the Gulf Coast. I can’t get on a boat and help lay out booms. I certainly don’t have engineering expertise to design a quick fix to the oil that continues to flow unabated … but that doesn’t mean that my reaction to the spill does not serve a purpose.

The reason BP was out there drilling 5,000 feet below sea level in the first place, is because oil is in such high demand. So let's start by decreasing our energy consumption. Retrofiting 75,000 homes would save as much energy as was wasted in the BP oil spill ... that seems like a good place to start.