The crew aboard the motor vessel Poppa John train to deploy fire-resistant oil-containment boom off the coast of Venice, La., May 3, 2010. The crew is being trained to deploy the boom and pass it along to shrimp boats whose captains have been trained to tow it during an in situ burn. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley.

All that 10W40 floating atop the Gulf of Mexico is still there.

And you’re still sitting in a Starbucks, sipping on your moca latte indifferencechino.  So why not help?

The National Geographic folks have collected up a list of different ways people can help, and, if they really want to, get their hands dirty down on the Gulf Coast — which is bracing for the slowest moving disaster to hit its shores since Union ships rounded Florida and set up a blockade. (Also, check out some of NG’s pictures of the spill here.)

Shrimp boats tow fire-resistant oil-containment boom as their crews conduct in situ burn training off the coast of Venice, La., May 3, 2010. The training is designed to help the local fisherman prepare to assist with possible future in situ burn operations. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley.

Ways to help:

So if you’ve got a boat and you’re down on the Gulf, you can actually call BP and volunteer to help. (They’ll pay you.) Call them at: 1-866-448-5816

BP has also set up a website called DeepWaterHorizonResponse.com as a way to send out its news directly to people — instead of through the media. You’d think with the billions of dollars the oil company has made, they would have built a better site, but hey, at least its trying.

You can also follow them on Twitter @Oil_Spill_2010) and Facebook page, though the only page we found about the Deepwater Horizon response was here and it didn’t look like a very friendly BP page. And that kind of makes sense, do you really want to become a fan of Big Oil? Nowadays, that’s just crude.

Containment boom is staged at the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, Thursday, April 29, 2010. As of Friday, April 30, 2010, over 217,000 feet of containment boom is used to help minimize the impact on environmentally sensitive areas.

Of course, you could become a fan of the Audubon Society, and they’re looking for people who can help. If you can’t go, you can always give them money. We do think it’s a bit tacky that the Audubon Society (which was created to help birds, not drive fast on the highway) is using this disaster as a way to push people to contact their congressman to pump federal funding dollars to clean up beaches that may or may not get hit with sludge. But hey, that’s politics.

MSNBC is also providing a slew of links for people who want to help. Check it out here.

The group OilSpillVolunteers.com also has a website to check things out and they say they already have enough volunteers, so don’t even bother heading south for the spring. Though, they will take your money.

Related posts:

1. Obama takes HTG advice and kicks off vacation in the Gulf
2. Gulf tourism will cost $23 billion to fix
3. Gulf coast vacations: Should you stay or should you go
4. Care about the environment? Shave your head or shut up
5. $1 a day car rental

Tags: audubon society, big oil, BP, Gulf Coast, oil spill