By now we’ve all seen the disgusting and disturbing photos — oil-covered birds in the Gulf of Mexico unable to fly or do much else thanks to a leaking BP oil well belching thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf everyday.

The latest news Monday as the Times-Advocate was going to press was that a containment cap on the ruptured well in the Gulf was “partially successful” and capturing about half the oil shooting out of the pipe, but a U.S. admiral was quoted as saying the coastline will continue to be under siege from oil for the next several months. It’s estimated it won’t be until the fall before a cement plug is put into the well, finally stopping the leaking and putting an end to the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

By then, who knows what the environment impact will be on the oceans, streams, rivers and wildlife? The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has eclipsed the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989 that spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil into the ocean off the coast of Alaska. When all is said and done, the BP disaster could leak as much as 10 times that amount.

Simulations show the oil slick could travel up the U.S. eastern seaboard to North Carolina and then drift off into the Atlantic Ocean.

In the meantime, while BP scrambles to plug the leak and repair its tattered image and reputation, let us not forget that the explosion April 11 that caused the leak killed 11 people. This is a human, environmental and ecological tragedy whose full effect won’t be known for some time.

But will we learn anything? And what lessons will we take from the BP disaster? It isn’t realistic to call for an end to offshore drilling — that’s not going to happen. It’s here and it’s not going away until the last drop of oil is sucked out of the Earth. But something went desperately wrong April 11 and regulations and standards need to be overhauled, toughened up and enforced.

It’s easy for us in Canada to be nonchalant about the Gulf oil spill — it’s far away and we aren’t going to be seeing waves of crude wash up on the beaches of Grand Bend. But we’re all part of the same planet and we should all be concerned when something like the Gulf disaster happens.

And aren’t we sick and tired of seeing pictures of pelicans drenched in oil? And shouldn’t we be doing something to make sure it never happens again?