I just love this picture. Little Fairy penguins are dressed in hand knitted sweaters to wait while their body's start to produce the oil necessary to keep them warm. This only happens after a large oil spill and they are cleaned, truly, within an inch of their life. Since the rescuers have to use an oil stripping detergent to get the oil off them they loose the natural ability to keep themselves warm. Some concerned citizen got a bunch of other knitters together and they knitted over 20,000 of these little sweaters for the waddlers to keep warm with until they were ready to be released into the wild again. In the mean time, there is this contingent of wild penguins wandering around South African zoo campus dressed in their hand-made finery. Though they do inspire the general "aww" from passers by, and the desire to just pick them up and cuddle them, we need to stop and think as to why they are in this situation to begin with....The stupidity of MAN. Man meaning both men and women here. Why are we still so addicted to fossil fuel that we are willing to not only put these precious creatures at risk of dying from an oil leakage, but all the other noble and innocent creatures in the ocean? The animals that don't find their way to the shore for help and recovery? They normally just sink to the bottom and join the never-ending circle of life. But poisoned links in the chain only leads to poisoned links in the chain until the food chain breaks down and we have none of these creatures left. The woman who started this didn't do this for one incident, it was needed because this is an almost annual event for these little guys, and slowly they are going to be cuted right into extinction.

I know I'm a hypocrite in that I drive a car. I'm very fond of my car too. I'm just for abolishing transporting the oil across heavily populated channels of water. Which, in essence, means no water at all. Drill on the land that has oil as long as it's not in a nature preserve, and slowly wean people off the whole oil addiction. This isn't going to be easy for the Hummer and Denali set out there. True, the Governator has a bio-diesel Hummer, but how many have the additional income after the initial purchase to afford that kind of conversion to their already $75k SUV. (I guess I assume buying a $75k SUV would tap out people...I know it would me, but if they have that kind of discretionary income, maybe they can). I'm rather opinionated on this subject as well, no one needs a car that big for everyday use. There are some needs for it, but for running to the grocery store or taking the kids to the park, no. Absolutely no need. Especially when these little guys are the ones that are suffering for our addiction.