Is oil from the BP disaster in the Gulf headed your way? According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) the spill "might soon extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and open ocean as early as this summer." Watch this video to see how your local beach might be affected.

AP Photographer Charlie Riedel just filed the following images of seabirds caught in the oil slick on a beach on Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island. As BP engineers continue their efforts to cap the underwater flow of oil, landfall is becoming more frequent, and the effects more evident.

Once in a while, like now, we see the downsides to our dependency on [fossil fuels], in this case the ecological degradation of increasing areas of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems, and collateral damage to other species. These negative 'externalities' to oils procurement remain outside of our market system, and although they tug at our emotions, are not formally part of our institutional decision-making framework. This brief Campfire post is about how we value things that are priceless, in a system that forces us to put prices on most everything.