Just off of mainland and in the Gulf of Mexico, my family has a home on Lido Key in Sarasota, Florida. We've never taken for granted how fortunate we are to have a beautiful beach as our backyard, but it isn't always a vacation. Though infrequent, residents of our coast have experienced hurricane evacuations, red tide, and even shark attacks. And now, we have an oil spill.

It really brings new meaning to the ubiquitous phrase, "Not in my back yard." My mom e-mailed me when the leak started. "Just think about the ramifications if the oil can't be contained and makes its way down our Gulf Coast," she said. "It's just time before we see what washes up on our shore. I'm so sad for the loss of life - both human and animal. The Gulf will never be the same."

But the sad truth is that oil spills happen often. San Francisco nonprofit Matter of Trust says on average, 2,600 oil spills occur worldwide a year, totaling 726 million gallons of oil. They were all in somebody's back yard.

Whether it's in one person's back yard or another, most can agree that oil spills are tragic.  No one wants to see animals dead, fishing industries ruined, and ocean waters toxic. To effectively prevent these occurrences, we need to change our dependence on oil.

In his blog on March 31, Executive Director Michael Noble got to the heart of the issue. President Obama had just announced plans to expand options for offshore oil drilling. Michael explained that the country doesn't have much oil to drill, relatively speaking. If we want to affect the industry, we can only do it on the demand side, not the supply side. (The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates new drilling would cut projected gas prices of $4 a gallon by less than 2 cents per gallon in 2030.)

What we really need is increased fuel efficiency in cars; better transit and urban planning; electric vehicles and charging stations; and renewable energy transmission.