Oily Boys

The last few times I have seen Greg Brown he has done his song Oily Boys.

I love Greg Brown

Although the last time I saw him at Kent Stage he seemed just a little too close to the edge.

I hope he doesn't fall off.

The song is a great tribute to what is going on and at least he sees it.

Sometimes it feels like very few do.

When all the spinsters are ramping up with the mass media to make a push on unlimited drilling for more petrol, with the promise that it will relieve our burden at the pump, it makes one wonder, does anybody see what Greg sees.

This is about money and cash flow for a few select corporations and individuals.

It is not about perpetuating our quality of life.

When I see the ads of prime time TV, either a rage or a moment of sanity sets in and I think surely to God, the general public isn't swallowing this.

I mean with oil producing companies hitting record high profits something doesn't seem right with giving them the green light to increase off shore drilling, great lakes drilling, tar sand extractions and on and on.

What for to make more money?

Is this going to fix the problem and perpetuate our lifestyle? I don't think so.

When you get up and go outside on a warm August day, is it so far fetched to think we should be looking up to the warming sun and realizing that is where we should be turning there to get our energy needs.

Even simple organizims like plants do it. They turn to the sun.

It makes the wind blow and the water flow, not to mention just warming the air.

Seems so simple to me.
I guess that is why I am a pedestrian.

But then again, all of the hydro carbon engineers I have ever known have said the same thing.

Petrol chemicals effect our lives in so many ways that it is ridiculous for us to burn this remarkable resource up as transportation fuel.

I often think while I am gassing up the car what 15 gallons of liquid looks like, and how that is strapped under the Rav 4 in the gas tank.

And how every car that is going down the interstate is shelleping along with a large quantity of gasoline sloshing underneath them.

The volume is staggering.

And we think that drilling more will release this demanding pressure for more gas?

We need to change.

When Jimmy Carter called for Americans to reduce our consuption of gas, we did. And the results was the end of the last energy crisis.

We super insulated our houses and were aware.
We broke OPEC by wearing sweaters and driving more fuel effiecent cars.

Gas prices came down and then we let go of what we had achieved.

We choose to forget or simply didn't learn anything at all from the experiece.

Now here we are in the same situation with a couple small additional complications called the growing energy demands of India and China.

There is no opportunity for the US to so dramatically and easily effect the global consumption of oil and gas like there was 30 years ago.

Now there is a need for much more radical action.

We have to change.

Petrol chemicals are critical to our manufacturing, food production and nearly every other element of our lives.

Is it wise to choose to burn it up and reduce the end product to tail pipe emissions?

That of course is a whole other story.

If you have ever wondered about a simple analogy for the negative results of tailpipe emmissions and how this relates to the enviroment, consider sitting in a car and starting it up in a closed garage.

This is a remarkably easy way to kill yourself.

I suppose this is a much too simple analogy to think about with regard for what we are doing to the biosphere.

I just recently read that 90% of all the energy consumed in the average US vehicle is used in the moving of the vehicle itself.

In other words, the person getting 10 miles to a gallon is using over 9/10ths of a gallon just to move their Hummer a few miles. While 1/10 is burned moving the occupants of the car.

All the while filling up the "garge" with wonderful tailpipe exhaust.

Remarkable isn't it.

Until we embrace change I suppose we are all just Oily Boys

How I have been spending my time

http://lmelc.wikispaces.com/ELC+Updates

This is the Environmental Learning Center that is currently under construction and needs to be completed before school starts this year.
An estimated 15,000 3rd 4th and 5th graders will attend science and math classes here this year.

Let's go drill some holes

I have, like most of us in this country have seen countless ads pitching our need for energy dependency.

Hey these are appearing on prime-time TV
Check this out!!

More to follow

http://www.oilcrisis.com/duncan/road2olduvai.pdf