The people behind the conference hope the disaster has reminded people of the importance of the marine ecosystem.

It is day 70 of the Gulf oil crisis. Millions of words and thousands of hours of video have been devoted to the explosion at BP's Deepwater Horizon rig and the gushing of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

And yet the organizers of a conference in Washington Monday think that there's actually a shortage of information about the disaster. The two technology entrepreneurs behind the conference, TEDx OilSpill, are hoping the event will start to fix that problem.

“There’s sort of this void right now with information coming out of the Gulf,” says Nate Mook. “Something catastrophic has happened. Most people don’t understand the underlying issues that led to this happening. They’re really not aware of the all of the complexities behind their getting into their car and driving … it’s brought to the forefront a lot of things that have been on the sidelines for a long time – with our oceans, with how important the marine eco-system is, with where we are getting our energy, what are we putting at risk, and … new technologies being developed.”

To answer those questions an array of speakers, from ocean explorer Sylvia Earle to energy expert Amory Lovins to “Leroy Stick,” the anonymous creator of the fake BP Twitter (@BPGlobalPR) account with more than179,000 followers, will speak onstage at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington from 9 am to about 7 pm. The event will be streamed at: http://tedxoilspill.com/live/. And people will gather to watch the stream or discuss the issues in 125 meetups around the nation and world.

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