What we should really do about the Gulf oil spill

I couldn’t help noticing your recent on-line Daily Journal Quick Poll concerning the BP oil spill. None of the choices you offered will do much good (although your suggestion that "We should all stop driving” would certainly help). Here is what is needed: President Obama needs to declare the British Petroleum oil spill to be a national emergency of the highest magnitude, perhaps even greater than 9/11 was with respect the damage it will ultimately inflict on the Earth. That is our only hope for stopping the continuing damage and hopefully, in the future, trying to undo a small portion of the devastation to our Earth’s oceans that will result from this nightmare.

It follows that he must also declare a nationwide moratorium on all offshore oil drilling until the industry can give ironclad assurances, confirmed by robust government regulators, that there is no risk of further oil spills. The protection of our ecosystems must trump everyone’s need for oil, even if we are forced to walk.

Jim Musselman

San Francisco