My Colleagues

At work, a colleague was looking at an Internet site, and commented that there are trillions of barrels of oil under the Rocky Mountains. Another colleague immediately said, "Yeah but the environmentalists won't let us get it." My first workmate then said, "Think of the energy independence. And the jobs that could be created."

I don't talk politics at work, don't think it's appropriate, so I didn't say anything. If I had said something, it would have been something like this. "Whose information is that about the amount of oil? Could it be the American Petroleum Institute?  Do you think they might be a biased source?

"Also, did you know that what they're calling oil is actually oil shale? And extracting oil from shale requires enormous amounts of water? Water that's scarcer and scarcer here in the west.

"Finally, did you know that the oil shale extraction proposals will require construction of roads, oil extraction apparatus, and probably pipelines through a lot of our very scenic countryside, displacing animals and possibly affecting the tourist business?"

But there's little convincing people. It would be another dialog of the deaf.

I'd be curious to know, however, what my colleagues think the motivation of "the environmentalists" might be. If we just have an honest difference of opinion, that's okay. What bothers me greatly is the imputation many of the pro-development people have that we who want to preserve our beautiful environment are somehow trying to sabotage the country. As if we want the country to be weaker, more dependent on overseas sources of oil, even as if we want America to fail.

Far from it in truth. What I want, what I believe my environmentalist friends want, is a more vigorous stronger nation, and the way to that is to move as rapidly as possible into the post petroleum world of renewables as our source of power.

Just think. No more mountaintop coal mining, no more offshore oil drilling, or any oil drilling for that matter, no pipelines criss-crossing the land, spilling oil into our rivers and onto our land. No more fatalities in mines and on platforms.