by Mitch Cook | June 4th, 2010
As I watch the news footage coming from the Gulf region this week, I am reminded of a time when I was eleven years old. I was watching an episode of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. That particular episode was talking about the devastating effects of pollution.
The footage showed smoke filled cityscapes, heavy traffic, litter in wells and waterways, and worst of all, oil spills. The devastation of those pictures, animals trapped in toxic goo, paralyzed and stuck in the muck brought me to tears and sobs. I didn’t know what came over me. I ran upstairs to find comfort and solace from my folks. They were sure freaked out when they couldn’t get a straight answer or a single word out of me in explanation. I just stood there weeping like a baby.
I couldn’t get the images out of my head. Try as I might, the fear and panic I saw on those birds faces was so real, so relevant, and so impossible, that I thought I could die from sorrow. Eventually the waves passed over me and I calmed down. My confused parents felt better and worked diligently to ease my apparent suffering. It didn’t help really, since the scope of the trauma was more than they realized. It wasn’t their fault, of course. It just hit me right on the soft spot.
I have been avoiding similar images today. I can’t bring myself to look. I am not in denial or anything; it just hurts so much to see such devastation. And for what? Why does this happen and continue to happen?
I am far older now than my parents were on that horrible evening so I have a better understanding of what I saw. So, I am more informed as to the needs of the people of the globe and the complicated economics of the modern world. But when we live in such a modern world and are capable of so much, why do we still walk that dangerous edge, so near to a blackness and recklessness, because of our lack of urgency. The fact is oil is still just cheap enough that we don’t feel that urgency.
Even with disaster, wars, even foreign cartels dictating the terms of the price of oil, we don’t stop. If it were any other industry we would have passed it by decades ago. But we turn our eyes away because our wallets are comfortable. I can’t help but think about those days before oil was discovered as something other than a nuisance. The world needed a cheap source of fuel to progress into the next technological and economic evolution. So, men went hunting for it. Looking for a source of oil that was cheaper than water and just as easy to get. They did it out of necessity. When they found it America and the world made that great leap forward.
Everybody knows that this stuff is a burden and a danger. Everybody does. It’s like smoking. We all know it is bad for our health but some do it anyway because they can. But even smokers have gotten the idea that maybe there is something better and find ways to quit. There are no negative consequences to quitting smoking. But quitting oil is scary.
The entire global economy is based on the flow of oil. You just can’t shut that spigot off. I understand that. Everyone understands that, except for the radicals who think we can just bike everywhere to save the planet. This is an economy thing. Energy runs the economy at every turn and angle. There has to be a replacement for oil or a number of things to replace oil. At the very least new technologies to mitigate the use of oil and therefore reduce the dangerous side effects of using it. That shouldn’t be too hard for a people of such ingenuity and ability. We brag about how smart we are all the time.
There is only one reason why we are still in this sticky quagmire; greed. I am in danger of sounding like a left wing crazy when I flash that word, but how else can you explain the absolutely appalling lack of movement away from old school oil. Only a handful of people control oil and the price, flow, and production. Those people have made trillions on it. There is no way those folks are going down without a substantial fight. And that seems to be where we are today. The fight is on our doorstep and it is going to go all 12 rounds.
Entire financial markets are in a shambles and are nearing collapse. Bailouts and buyouts are the terms of the decade. We need new economic engines to keep pace with our populace and emerging markets. The old models, oil based models, are failing. We need those men who went looking for the fuel that drove us into the last great evolutionary leap. We need the urgency.
I am not asking for Government to save us, since that isn’t the job of our Government. We need driven, private industry innovators, inventors, and faith in each other to make the next great leap. We need fighters to ward off the powerful oil men who fear for their livelihood. There is no reason for those same people to not take the lead and build a bridge from oil to new technologies. Oil doesn’t have to go away entirely and it can’t really.
The eleven year olds of today must be even more confused than I was given the fact that they are far more able to grasp the big picture and can form the words and find the answers that I couldn’t. They are on to us and are more likely to demand a greater urgency once they get a look at the devastation they can not avoid in the Gulf.
-MRC
