An interesting short, written by my sister at ground zero of a fossil fuel disaster waiting to happen: The Wake-up Call Tonight I got the strangest phone call. It took me two rings to realize what it was—not my cell phone which I keep on my nightstand next to my bed-- it was my land-line in the kitchen. Who the hell would call my land-line in the middle of the night? I half-ran, half-stumbled downstairs imagining an impending family calamity and fumbled the phone off the hook just before the answering machine picked up. “Hello? This is Jylle.” “Hello? Hello?” The connection was tinny and scratchy; the voice sounded like it was talking through a can at the end of a string. An unfamiliar voice, definitely not my family. “Who is this?” “Is this Crestwood? Exxon? Trans-Canada?” Oh, lordy, a drunk or stoned stranger in the middle of the night. Should I hang up? Talk him down? “You have the wrong number. What number are you trying to call?” “The twenty-first century.” “Who it this?” “The Nineteenth Century. Can you take a message?” “C’mon, there were no telephones in the nineteenth century. Who are you, really, and where are you calling from?” “I’m next door at the Twentieth Century. He let me borrow his phone. Here’s the message: tell everyone that the Nineteenth Century wants his energy paradigm back.” “What?” “Fossil fuels, internal combustion engines, pollution. Give it up. You’re the Twenty-first Century, you’ve got technology, move on and get your own energy paradigm.” “You’re calling me at…” I checked the clock on the microwave, “at 3a.m. to discuss energy policy?” “No, I’m telling you that it worked for me--well, if you ignore the black lung and the smog and the pollution. Steam engines, coal, trains and factories spewing smoke, it was great while it lasted. It got things moving, it’s the reason why you’ve got the technology you have now. But it’s two centuries old. Give it a rest, send it back to me and move on.” “Hey, you’re obviously a misinformed crank. In the twenty-first century we’ve got hydrofracking and tar sands, deep-sea drilling. All very high-tech. We’re already using modern technology for energy.” “That’s just old technology dressed up as new. Like putting a silk wings on a caterpillar and calling it a butterfly. I’M TRYING TO TELL YOU, it’s the same old energy paradigm I invented. I did the best I could with what I had. Burn, burn, burn. You don’t need to do that, you’ve got options I didn’t have.” “How do you know?” “How do I know what?” “How do you know what we’re doing now, in 2014?” “I was babysitting my granddaughter, the Twenty-first Century. She’s just a kid, but she’s got fetal petroleum syndrome—you know, she was born addicted to the stuff. But she’s a whiz with those whaddyacallem’s—computers.” “So…you’re saying that the twenty-first century is suffering from carryover from the twentieth century, and she—we—need to recognize our addiction and get into some kind of a global-temporal twelve-step program?” “I’m saying do it however you want. Cold turkey, the two-step, anyway you want. Whatever works. I’m telling you there’s no future for an addict. It’s just one long chase after a fix, no matter how much it costs. See, the thing about an addict is you always need more and whatever the price, you’ll sacrifice anything and everything to get it. It’s a short life full of misery.” “Are you saying we’re doomed if we stay addicted?” “I’m saying you’ve got choices I didn’t have. The Twenty-first Century, she’s still beautiful. Blue skies, clean water, amazing fish and birds and all. She’s smart, with so much potential. But this addiction thing has her stuck in arguments and wars and just generally bad decisions. She spends all her money on her addiction and doesn’t take care of herself, doesn’t feed herself, she’s dirty and angry all the time, what a waste.” “Soooo…you want me to tell everyone in the twenty-first century that fossil fuels belong to the past and we need to stop before our addiction kills us all?” “Yeah, that’s it.” “Um, do you have any suggestions about how to do that?” “I’M TRYING TO TELL YOU, you need to choose.” And he hung up. I’m writing this at 3:30 a.m. I don’t want to forget it, or go back to sleep and wake up tomorrow thinking it was all a dream. It really happened. The nineteenth century is really pissed off that we’re still using his technology, and I’m not sure how to get the message out to everyone. I had always thought that the protests against Crestwood here in Watkins Glen and the TransCanada pipeline in the midwest were battles, but now I see that they’re more like interventions. There’s anger among the activists, but it’s love that really motivates them. Most importantly, we do get to choose, and every mile of pipeline that’s laid, every acre of virgin earth that’s peeled back to capture tar sands, every dollar we spend in subsidies to fossil fuel industries is nothing more than an addict’s desperate attempt to feed its habit at any price.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 16:16:32 +0000
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