The Deepwater Horizon/British Petroleum oil rig explosion and fire in the Gulf of Mexico April 20 initiated a chain of human and environmental disasters that continue to expand and worsen exponentially.

Some 11 men were killed in the initial explosion and fire. Now, more than a week later, 42,000 gallons of crude oil gush daily into the Gulf of Mexico from the mile-deep well as British Petroleum engineers seek desperately to find a way to staunch the flow before it wreaks wholesale environmental and economic havoc on vast areas of the Gulf Coast.

April 28 satellite images show the rapidly expanding oil slick spread over an area 100 miles long and 45 miles wide. The slick is only 20 miles east of the mouth of the Mississippi River--an area teeming with wildlife and commercial fishing grounds. Barring a miracle, the oil will begin to come ashore by Friday, April 30.

In truth, greed-ridden, arrogant, and selfish Western industrialists--all blind to essential realities--have a proverbial tiger by the tail with the Deepwater/BP disaster in the making.

They have pooh-poohed and marginalized environmentalists (tree huggers to them) and environmentalism for a generation or more.

They have retained the political clout to do as they damn well pleased and destroy as many trees and wild creatures as they wished in order to maximize profits.

They have tittered at those of us who cried out against their excesses. We were mere voices in the wilderness and of no importance because we could not buy off congressmen and influence regulatory agencies at every level.

We were often "losers" in the human realm. They were "winners" because they and adherents to their rapacious philosophy toward the Earth and her resources had lots of money to throw around.

But the Deepwater/BP oil spill disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico now is setting the fat cats and smart asses of the petrochemical and ancillary industries aback--momentarily, at least.

Fisheries, beaches, tourist traps and their greedy permanent residents, and millions of innocent wild creatures of the Gulf of Mexico are about to undergo devastating setbacks as crude oil begins to wash onto beaches and into marshes along the Gulf Coast.

And there is apparently nothing the evil men responsible for this disaster can do to cover their asses and avoid admission of guilt. That last point is a salient one--an encouraging one.

British Petroleum, ExxonMobil, and all the other major petrochemical corporations--the ones that boast of unheard of profits each year as we, the unimportant poor, try to decide how we can afford to buy gasoline to drive to the grocery store--need to come off their high horses. In truth, they need to all be nationalized, but that will not happen--not yet, anyway.

Perhaps all the suffering about to be visited on nesting birds, harmless whales and dolphins, as well as the human populations of the Gulf Coast, will not have been wholly in vain if this present oil spill wakens Americans from their lethargy about the nature of hydrocarbon energy sources and production.

America needs to get away from fossil fuel-based energy now--as quickly as possible.

More oil fields do not need to be explored and new coal plants do not need to be built. Fossil fuels are destroying our planetary home and all species attempting to live on it. Fossil fuels must go.

And to those that would assert our energy needs are too great for us to move away from fossil fuels anytime soon, I say we had better learn to live within our means in a hurry. While representing approximately 5 percent of the world's population, Americans think themselves entitled to use 25 percent of the world's energy. They aren't.

Two immoral and unjustified wars on the other side of the globe must be consuming a lot of petroleum.

And the American lifestyle that sees each member of a prosperous family driving his or her own gas guzzler as much as he or she pleases daily is consuming more energy than is justifiable.

Also, centrally air-conditioned homes that see enormous amounts of electricity consumed to keep soft Americans in a "perfect" indoor environment, 24-7, are not necessary for survival.

This writer grew up in Middle Georgia in a home without so much as a window fan, much less an air conditioner. We survived and suffered no lasting harm from a few uncomfortable afternoons and nights.

Present day Americans are wooses that are accustomed to being "so special"--to deserving more than any other ethnic or national group on the planet. We are not that special or outstanding and we do not deserve more than our share of anything, including energy.

I say move away from petroleum within a decade. Develop solar energy and wind energy and begin to curtail petroleum refining and coal burning right now. Tomorrow.

Take these bold steps as a tribute--a way to make limited moral amends--to the millions of birds and animals that will now die coated with crude oil before June's longest day arrives.