Ode to Oil
Our Top 5 Fossil Fuel Uses for Climate Activists...
Joel Bowman, appraising the situation from Buenos Aires, Argentina...
Welcome to another Sunday Session, dear reader, that time of week when we gather at the virtual watering hole to reckon over the troubles of our topsy-turvy world, one glass of Tacana 2020 Malbec at a time...
By the way, if you missed our conversation with Bill Bonner earlier in the week, in which he gave a bit of the backstory behind his high-altitude vineyard, whence cometh the aforementioned drop, you can listen in below. The wine, if there’s any left, is available here.
But let us begin this week’s issue with a comment from a dear reader. In response to one of Bill’s weekday missives, Let Them Buy Solar, reader JT wrote...
“Unfortunately I think we are way too far down the rabbit hole. Too many issues facing us collectively with absolutely no leadership to stop the madness. The last 15-20 years, most parents were asleep at the wheel. Now all we have are WOKE Tattooed Morons with Pink hair and shit for brains.”
Clear. Concise. Colorful. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Which brings us to this week’s token, pink-haired moron. You’ve probably seen the video already, but just in case, it’s worth setting the scene...
We, Unwoke
Yes, that’s Vincent van Gogh’s famous 1888 masterpiece “Sunflowers,” on display at the National Gallery in London. Yes, that was a can of tomato soup. And yes, the confused narcissists use regular he/him, she/her pronouns, understand basic science/economics, have healthy relationships with their fathers apparently had nothing better to do on Friday, while regular, “unwoke” citizens were at work, than defile something of beauty.
What exactly van Gogh has to do with climate change was not made clear. Maybe the vandals heard “oil painting” and got confused. Or perhaps they mixed up the 19th century expressionist with the 20th century pop artist, Andy Warhol, and his famous Campbell's Soup Cans (on display and still unvandalized at the MoMA in New York City). Or maybe they just felt like the world was two jackasses short and decided to raise their uncalloused hands for the job? Tough to say...
In any case, why waste a perfectly good can of soup? Don’t these privileged tools know there’s a food crisis going on (caused, in no small part, by the rapidly rising cost of synthetic, petroleum-based fertilizers)? As the pro-human environmentalist, Michael Shellenberger (whose excellent Substack is a must read) put it:
“With millions at risk of dying around the world from energy & food shortages, this isn’t climate altruism, it’s anti-human nihilism.” ~ Michael Shellenberger
As it happens, quite a lot of things we take for granted in our modern age of abundance derive from the much derided fossil fuels industry, a fact that inspired us to pen this pithy paean to petroleum, below. Please enjoy, and be sure to share with friends... especially if they are militant members of the Pink Hair Brigade (you know the ones)...
Ode to Oil
By Joel Bowman
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
~ John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn
By now, everybody knows the inconvenient truth about fossil fuels: they make the modern world, such as it is, possible. And it’s not just the obvious stuff, like fueling Tesla’s fleet of Ford roadside assistance vehicles, keeping the lights on at Davos during the World Economic Forum and powering climate activist Lewis Hamilton’s Formula One race car to victory. It’s so, so much more.
Of course, there are less high-minded applications, too. Things that don’t make the newspaper headlines, don’t quite have the cachet of the morally enlightened, but that nevertheless go into the boring, mundane mechanics of workaday life here on planet earth. And yet, touting something as conspicuously “pro-human” as synthetic fertilizer, say, which largely accounts for our ability to feed 7.8 billion hungry mouths...
... or penicillin, which uses phenol and cumene to help stabilize one of mankind’s most important and revolutionary medicines...
... or AIDS and cancer drugs, which use petrochemical resins during their critical purification process...
... or effective mosquito repellant, a frontline defense against malaria, dengue and Zika, West Nile and Chikungunya viruses (you know, the kind of diseases that only affect poor brown and black people in continents far, far away...)
... or reusable IVs and syringes, or prosthetic limbs, or life jackets, almost all of which are made out of plastics derived from petrochemicals...
... or even common miracles like antiseptic, insecticides, antihistamines, cortisone, aspirin, etc., etc., etc., ...
... is unlikely to convince climate activists of fossil fuel’s utility to their fellow human beings, to light the flame of compassion behind their drone-like, thousand-yard stare.
After all, anti-human nihilists are unavailable to appeals of empathy, humanity... even sanity. These dreary naval-gazers see life itself as little more than a terminal, sexually-transmitted disease... who look upon a newborn baby and immediately hear the pitter-patter of tiny carbon footprints... and who never met a form of intelligent life they didn’t want to offset with their own selfish, craven acts of disruption and stupidity.
Given that the above applications (and thousands more) are unlikely to convince climate alarmists, who see the rest of us as the carbon they wish to eliminate, of fossil fuels’ utility, allow us to highlight some more “relatable” benefits derived from the well-oiled machine against which they rage.
Herewith, our Top 5 List of Fossil Fuel Uses for Climate Activists...
Protest glue: Over the past few months, vandals have glued themselves to a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper at London’s Royal Academy of Arts; Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera at the Galleria Degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy; Pablo Picasso’s Massacre en Corée at the National Gallery in Melbourne, Australia and another of van Gogh’s pieces, Peach Trees in Blossom, at London's Courtauld Gallery, among others... (And yet, you continue to drive to work. Pssh!)
Turns out, gluing oneself to priceless pieces of art is not just a nifty way for unsupervised teen climate warriors to remember where they put themselves. It’s actually part of the stunt! (Don’t ask us.) It’s also where fossil fuel comes in... as the key ingredient that puts the “super” in superglue. So whether Just Stop Oil protesters are alleviating their childhood separation anxiety by gluing themselves to museum pieces or to public roads, where they can be seen Just Stopping Ambulances from getting to hospitals, you know they’ve got a hand (literally) in the petrochemical industry.iPhones: As any indecent activist will tell you, if the caper’s not caught on video and promptly posted on social media, it might as well not have happened at all. And what better way to catch the protestor’s inaction (once glued) than to record a quick clip of their mindless expression as they obediently recite their anti-art, anti-beauty, anti-human slogans. For a generation that has their phones glued to their hands already, this must-have item in any Project Mayhem starter kit is a cinch.
And it’s also where fossil fuels are here to help. At practically every stage of production, from mining the necessary metals like lithium and cobalt (used in iGadget batteries), to powering the factories and assembly plants in China, to electrifying corporate HQ and research and data centers around the US, to packaging, warehousing and transporting their finished goods to hipster hangouts around the world, fossil fuels play a critical role in Apple’s supply chain.
Almond milk lattes: All that huffing and puffing got you beat? There’s no better pick-me-up after a hard day’s tantrum-throwing than an ice-cold almond milk latte. It’s dairy free (so you don’t have to support those super annoying local dairy farmers) and is instead based on natural, organic almonds.
And here again, the fossil fuels industry is there to lend a hand. You see, ~80% of the world’s almonds are grown in far away California. That might seem ridiculous, given that almonds are a massively water intensive crop and California is afflicted by serious drought (“Wait, what were we protesting again?”). And it is – California’s almond crops drink up about 17% of the state’s agricultural water usage and 13% of total developed water usage. But that’s nevertheless where most almonds begin their journey, when they’re trucked (gasoline/diesel) to port, loaded (diesel) on cargo vessels and shipped (HFO - Heavy Fuel Oil) to over 100 countries around the world, including far off hipster cafés in Shoreditch (London), Kreuzberg (Berlin) and the effortlessly cool Nørrebro (Copenhagen).
Thirsty almonds may travel tens of thousands of miles around the globe to end up in your climate comrades’ coffee drinks (as do the coffee beans, btw), but at least it’s better than a cow farting in the next field, #AmIRight?Generators to recharge Teslas: Whether cruising to or from a protest in Dad’s Tesla, or heading out in your very own Leaf to pick up your team’s protest shirts from the laundromat collective, it’s just a fact of life that sometimes you run out of juice. It could be because the lines to the charging stations stretch for miles, or because your governor – who recently announced that his state would ban the sale of internal combustion engines in the near future – asked you not to charge your vehicle. Whatevs. Fact is, you’re broken down and need to get to WholeFoods/Coachella/the tattoo parlor, pronto.
That’s when keeping a portable generator on hand can help (no wonder there’s so much trunk space in the latest Tesla Model S!) Most of these generators run on gasoline, diesel, propane or natural gas, all of which throw off less CO2 per unit of energy produced than the ancient virgin forest that desperate humans are felling across Europe ahead of the coming winter. Here’s a picture of these little wonders in action...
(Photo courtesy of reader Bill T., who sent us this one from Northern California a while back)
Private jets: While it’s true that “think globally, act locally” has long been a mantra for sustainable, grassroots environmentalism throughout the 20th century, that was more of an older generation kind of thing, back when they distrusted things like “Big Business” and something called “The Establishment.” Today’s climate activists embrace the upper echelons of our modern, Hunger Games reality, knowing full well that only by rubbing shoulders with glittering celebrities and posturing politicians can we ever get those know-nothing Joe Schmoes in Ruralandia to do what’s good for them.
That’s where events like the World Economic Forum in Davos and the various COP26... 27... 28... shindigs come in handy. Only by regularly flying hundreds and thousands of corporate leaders, A-list celebrities and members of the elite ruling class around the planet in private jets, can real change be made.
Here again, fossil fuels can help. How else could we hope to get 118 private jets to COP26 in Glasgow (burning over 1,400 tons of CO2 in the process). Bill Gates... Jeff Bezos... Boris Johnson (who flew home in time for dinner)... Prince/King Charlie... all the big names were there to discuss how best to track, monitor and ultimately eliminate your carbon footprint. Special mention to frequent flying climate crusader Justin Trudeau, whose private jet keeps a hilarious diary.)Bonus Item – Synthetic hair dye: Finally, if there’s one item in the Junior Climate Activist Starter Kit that we’re especially thankful for, it’s hair dye (sometimes called “coal-tar” dye). Available in an array of hideous colors, and manufactured today using complex petrochemicals, it’s the surefire way by which we unenlightened masses can recognize our moral betters.
Wherefore, by their pink petro-heads ye shall know them...
And now for some more Fatal Conceits...
Earlier in the week we spoke with the man whose name is on the masthead, Mr. Bill Bonner. Over the course of a half hour or so, Bill generously shared his thoughts on everything from the Nobel Committee’s sense of humor in awarding Ben Bernanke their highest prize...
“They're either very dumb or very cynical. And I'm not sure which it is because Ben Bernanke, if you remember that time, he was wrong about everything.”
...to why today’s crisis is not quite like what the US went through in the ‘70s...
“Well, the fundamental difference is about 30 trillion dollars of debt.”
... to what’s known as the “Greatest Financial Experiment in History” takes a turn for the worse.
“So what's going to happen is somebody's going to get in big trouble and suddenly there's going to be that meltdown crisis on Wall Street...”
You can listen in on our whole conversation (or read the transcript, if you’re so inclined) right here.
Be sure to like, share and comment on our work, as you wish. We don’t always answer right away, but we do read all your notes.
Bill will be back with his regular daily missives tomorrow. For now, we’re off to raise a Mother’s Day glass with dear wifey and daughter at our local wine bar. Whatever you’re up to this weekend, have a good one.
Until next time...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
I was recently on a whale cruise which was great but it reminded me that the discovery of fossil fuel saved the whales from extinction.
Just like the invention of the motor car save our cities from being engulfed in horse manure and dead horses.
These really are environ MENTAL activists.
I despair and unfortunately they are correct. There is no planet B we can go to in order to escape their hissy fits and tantrums.
An excellent article / post Joel. Thanks for all your good work.