Let's have some perspective

Not quite a year ago the Gulf Coast was shut down for months due to an oil disaster - a disaster that continues wreaking havoc in the Gulf and along the coast, with massive costs to fisheries, wildlife, and people's health.

Right this minute Saudi troops are 'controlling the unrest' in Bahrain, and de facto civil war rages in Libya, with unrest simmering all over the oil-producing Middle East.

Last year was the deadliest for coal mine disasters in the US, and around the world mining accidents and disasters were virtually commonplace (especially in China where there were over 2000 reported deaths, but major accidents occurred in Russia and New Zealand, as well as the Chilean 'miracle').

Explosions and other accidents at oil refineries kill dozens and injure more, not to mention release pollutants and damage property and the environment. In just the US, in 2010 alone, some dozen people were killed or severely injured and well over a million and a half gallons of oil was spilled from pipeline ruptures alone - and this is only oil pipelines.

Natural gas explosions, including pipelines, kill people across the US in dribs and drabs on a stunningly regular basis, and occasionally level an entire neighborhood. And around 170 more people die from carbon monoxide accidents and non-combusting leaks every year.

There's no good way to measure how many people die from air pollution due to fossil fuels. Wood burning stoves alone are said to cause more than a million deaths a year due to pollution. And chimney fires are the number one cause of fire-related deaths in the US, and they're in the thousands - the deaths; the fires are nearly half a million every year.

Let's face it: no form of energy is safe. It's just that most of us don't know any coal miners...