It’s politics as usual for the “drill baby drill’ crowd, with the “get government off our tea bags” bunch.

They now are screaming to the federal government to ” plug the hole” Obama’s Katrina, they smirk.

I say it’s this nation’s own environmental holocaust.

We are to blame, as a nation, as a people. We are very fast to finger point elsewhere.

This is a national, man-made disaster that has turned out to be the worst one I have seen in my lifetime. This is worse than Exxon Valdez, worse than Three Mile Island, even worse than the levy breaking.

Our Gulf Coast is destroyed for years to come, lives and livelihoods in tatters, fish and foul in danger of depletion.

The stench of oil and dispersant is reaching out to the east coast, to Cuba, even to Europe. Our addiction to oil and our insistence in the continuance of an energy source who’s day is over, has brought us to this place.

We could talk of corporate greed, lax government oversight, Cheney and his energy policy, what of it? They talk of the reality of jobs, of revenue from oil leases flowing into state and federal government coffers. All of that won’t be enough to cover the cost of this tragedy. The urgent need to move away from fossil fuels into clean renewables is now, yet the feet still drag.

Where is the EPA, I hear them say. What can the EPA do? Hand BP a citation and give them a fine? Send in the military. What can they do, bomb the leak, shoot it?

Environmentalist have been warning of the potential for this sort of disaster for years.

They were called nuts, and worse, dangerous radicals, by the far right oil deep pocket people. Oil continues to flow. The corporation called BP had no plan. Our government has no equipment to stop it. Our Gulf Coast has become a giant science experiment. Meanwhile this giant volcanic plume of spewing oil and methane destroys everything.

It destroys water, sea life, marshlands, beaches, people’s livelihoods. Most of all it is destroying the credibility of corporations and the federal government in handling any environmental disaster, from now till doomsday.

The future should be ours, can be ours, if we demand a change over to clean, renewable energy. Seize the day, the warning signs for us to change could not be louder, or clearer, as we watch this scene unfold before our eyes on the telly.

What a way to die for our beautiful dolphin and whales, suffocating, in a sea of foul oil. I saw a sign at the church that read”Jesus is coming back, are you ready?”, Are we ready? What have we done to his world?

Patricia Littlejohn

Kitts Hill