A crude-oil underground pipeline ruptured today near Santa Barbara County beaches in California. Some eighty-thousand liters of oil flowed into the Pacific Ocean before the pipeline was shut. In the meanwhile, the malodorous tar has covered many a beach. People are bewailing the horror, as well as the plight of sea lions and cormorants that inhabit the coastline. My interest aroused, I searched for pictures of the affected beaches on the World Wide Web. The tar was on all of them, but so was a huge amount of litter that had been strewn along the beaches long before the rupture. Apparently, the litter is so common that no-one even mentions it at this stage. It cannot but affect the marine life in the area, as well. The sticky tar only completes a horrendous picture of growing pollution along the coast of California, one of the most coveted places on earth. Welcome to the planet of the apes!