Big Oil's spill in the Gulf is:

An environmental catastrophe that will destroy -- or alter for decades -- the ecosystem in the region. The fishing and tourism industries in the regions will be hard hit, and the spill will take years to fade away.

Just another day destroying planet Earth. :(

If the pipe didn't break, we were going to use the oil. If our climate problems are in part the result of our use of resources like oil, what difference does it make what happens to it once we get it out of the ground? Whether we use it to conduct daily life, or crack the planet open and just let the oil pour out for the hell of it, what is the difference? One we call a disaster, the other we call growing our economy.

between using/burning the oil and releasing it unrefined straight into the environment

it will be the event that finally awakens America from the petro nightmare and gives us the courage to make the changes necessary to insure a clean energy future.
We need to make personal sacrifices in our consumption instead of sacrifices to our planet.

Limiting oil drilling and taxing gas to create funds to invest in a "clean energy future" seem to be a "no go" in the American political culture. We would rather squeeze every last day and gallon of "cheap oil" that we can, then when "peak oil"/"big oil conspiracy"/"climate change crisis" catch up to us (as they have begun to do in the recent past), we'll grumble about higher gas prices and go on "squeezing".

When gas goes up another $1, we'll never ask what would have happened if we had taxed ourselves $.50 or $1 a gallon back in 2010 to give us alternatives to the gas that went up $1 anyway. Just grumble and pay.

We're all in favor of "personal sacrifice" as long as we get to choose which "person" is doing the sacrificing. :)

Ration the shit. Target usage to make positive reductions increasing over a 5 year period. The same time it takes to bring an oil well into production. Faced with this the alternatives of mass transit, high speed rail, and fuel efficiency become attractive.
The Nation rallied behind rations and restrictions during WW11 and in my opinion came out all the better.
Ending our dependence on foreign suppliers, gaining energy independence, the development of new technologies, and
an opportunity to end our empirical stance in the world are just a few of the rewards we could bring about in a relatively short period.
A sense of purpose and the actual achievement of real world improvements have been lacking from the human experience for some time.

It must, you see, because the people who stole the most money generations ago have paid for it to be so.

before it spreads

to clean up. The Exxon Valdez disaster happened in the early 90's and hasn't that taken forever to clean up? This will take way longer that that. Forever? No. A damn long time? Yeah.

"Almost 20 years after the spill, a team of scientists at the University of North Carolina found that the effects are lasting far longer than expected. The team estimates some shoreline Arctic habitats may take up to 30 years to recover. Exxon Mobil denies any concerns over this, stating that they anticipated a remaining fraction that they assert will not cause any long-term ecological impacts, according to the conclusions of 350 peer-reviewed studies. However, a study from scientists from the NOAA concluded that this contamination can produce chronic low-level exposure, discourage subsistence where the contamination is heavy, and decrease the "wilderness character" of the area.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

30 years to fully recover! Just think about that and how long it will take the Gulf Coast to recover? And what if it comes up the East Coast? Many think it will. If it goes into the Gulf Stream it could go right up the East Coast.

see, it was a good thing (for capitalists).