A Murky and Mucky Digression

My hope is that it will be the biggest wake-up call we ever had. My hope is that rather than simply blaming oil companies and politicians, we will look closely at ourselves and acknowledge that our habits and hungers create the market and drive the demand, and our votes elect the people who perpetuate the system. The kind of change required is going to hurt, but in general we have yet to choose political leaders with the courage to say so and act accordingly.

We need to support candidates at all levels of government who seriously advocate for change and then continue to support them when they follow through. Unfortunately, our system selects out for cowards; folks tend to want to stay in office once elected, and you don't stay in office by spearheading actions that will make your constituents uncomfortable.

Even the most environmentally conscious among us cannot afford to be pious; maybe we’ve made small changes here and there, maybe we recycle and use less and wring our hands a lot, but as long as we’re fueling up our cars and flying across the skies and living life as it is lived in our culture, we are the problem. As we transition to fossil fuel alternatives, we will need to endure higher prices, changes in travel patterns and housing choices, and an array of sacrifice, inconvenience, and adjustment that we cannot yet fathom and may well resist, but if we don’t we’re screwed -- if we’re not screwed already. I suppose I can feel self-righteous by comparing my carbon footprint to that of someone living in a faster lane, but I am the problem too. I admit it.

Last night I went to a poetry reading (yes, I drove there, about 23 miles each way) and heard the wonderful Perie Longo read the following poem; she said she had written it several years ago but it seems so relevant now:

PEANUT BUTTER by Perie Longo

Thankfully we buy a natural brand rather than one
that's poisoning the public as reported in today's news,
our kind the one with a thick layer of oil on top
you have to stir into the stiff brown glop beneath
so it will spread with ease onto bread
without ripping it to shreds. First you insert
the tall-handled wooden spoon mounted with a carved moose
your friend brought as a gift from Russia, and begin blending
as the oil drips down the side of the jar
onto the counter settling into the grout between the tiles
and you remember how your mother used to slather
her naturally swarthy French skin with olive oil
for a delicious tan but when you did the same thing
your fairer complexion burnt to a crisp
and then your mind drifts to the La Brea tar pits in LA
bubbling up fossils under a full moon
so you move to more drastic measures as you must
in matters attempting to penetrate the surface of things
and you dump the whole mess into a large bowl
mashing and kneading until the texture
is something like wet cement
but when you try to fight it back into the jar
you notice how the agitation and your own vigor
have caused it to expand something like the miracle
of loaves and fishes but you're hardly Biblical, swearing
with a thick tongue trying to lick the slop
off your fingers and face, while it seems to be rising
like the price of oil itself and the more you try to beat it down
the higher it goes, the wider it spreads and you wonder
if that isn't the way of oil, not to stop until it slicks over
every bird and boat and beach, country and continent
until we burn and slide helplessly together
in the muck of our making, just to satisfy a Permian hunger.

*****

So here are, flailing around in that muck of our making, dismayed, alarmed, and overwhelmed as the catastrophe spreads, and it looks like we're in for an enduring mess, but maybe we will have finally learned what matters. I have to believe we will. We have to find some sticky and tenacious hope in all of this.

Next up, I promise: a (necessary) look at some of the small good things that quietly continue...