Did you know that here in the United States, we consume oil at a rate of 20 billion barrels per day? Let me re-assure you, the billion is not a mistake, we use 20 billion barrels a day and once the oil is gone, it's gone.

When we extract it, we harm the Earth's delicate ecosystems and risk disasters like the one at hand.

When we burn it, we pollute our air, ocean, and land. It gives off CO2, and contributes to global warming.

We use excessive amounts of electricity, which requires the burning of fossil fuels, when solar, wind, and geothermal energy is just as realistic.

We rely on oil to mass-produce food, use it for fertilizer and pesticides, and then to deliver it across the country when localized, small-scale, organic agriculture is a sustainable alternative for a lot of it.

All these smaller steps and choices we make every day add up. We need to start thinking in terms of avoiding oil and becoming more sustainable.

Don't feel guilty about what you haven't done, start focusing on making better choices and begin feeling good about it right away.

By the way, the Gulf of Mexico resource we were trying to tap has predictably enough oil to rival the 260 billion barrels of oil reserves Saudi Arabia currently claims to have. That means we have devastated the Gulf and sent environmental ripples around the world for 13 days worth of oil at our current consumption rate.