Normally, we like to end the week on an upbeat note, but this Friday, we’re fixated on slightly somber stuff — in particular, the BP oil spill/leak in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s just beginning to wash ashore in Louisiana, and it could soak beaches from Texas to Florida before all’s said and done.

As a site that revels in rides of all sorts — from hybrid fuel-sippers to gas-guzzling supercars — we know that there’s a dark side to every car. Combustion engines rely on a vibrant petroleum industry, and that industry is the cause of the hurricane-shaped blob drifting toward the Louisiana coastline one month before storm season begins. Battery-electric vehicles are flawed, too: they need power plants, and the majority of those facilities in the U.S. are stoked by coal. (Please, let’s not even bring up the bogus, oxymoronic notion of “clean coal”.)

Now, we understand that cars and trucks aren’t the only things fueling the world’s thirst for oil, but they’re a big part of it. Hell, if the number of vehicles on the roads weren’t increasing exponentially, would oil companies like BP be clamoring to “drill, baby, drill” on every possible coast?

We also understand that what happened in the Gulf was an accident — one that could’ve happened anywhere, even there were only one oil well in the entire world. It certainly wasn’t intentional, and BP certainly isn’t rejoicing in the fact that it’s going to cost millions, if not billions to clean up. Nor is the company’s management likely excited by the many comparisons being made between this incident and that of the Exxon Valdez. That disaster took place over two decades ago, and Exxon is still trying to recover from it. (BP has lost about $25 billion in market value since the initial explosion.)

That’s not to absolve BP from blame. Drivers may use huge amounts of gas, but they’re not the cause of this crisis; BP is, and the company needs to be held accountable. However, the accident, the loss of life (11 workers died when the oil rig exploded), and the subsequent environmental damage are, at the very least, an illustration that some of our habits are very, very unhealthy.

Those of us in New Orleans can already feel the effects of the disaster hanging in the air. Like when a hurricane zeroes in, all we can do now is hunker down and hope it’s not as bad as they say.