Pet Peeve: The Energy Whore

That’s what I call her.  We don’t know who she is, but we have seen her for about 5 years on mild-mannered ads for oil and gas drilling, and the cleanliness of coal.  She is so reasonable, saying that we need solar and wind power, and nuclear and all sources of energy.  She tells us that oil companies aren’t rich, we are, because our 401k’s and pension funds are invested in oil companies.  She tells us that there is plenty of oil and gas in the ground and that the only problem is that the government that won’t let them drill where it is.  And they provide 9.2 million jobs!!!  (Someone ought to check that.)  She tells us that hydrofracking is really safe and will save us from having to buy any more foreign oil.

The ad here was run for several years before the BP spill in the Gulf.  It tells how safe and efficient oil drilling is now; why they can drill one hole and draw from multiple dinosaur cemeteries.  This ad was dropped for 9-12 months after the spill but now they have the nerve to run it again.  The way such ads work is that they are repeated very frequently and are so harmless sounding that we don’t pay any attention to them, but we buy the message.

If you believe any of this crap she tells us, I have a bunch of worn out bridges to sell you.  (It used to be that I would sell shiny, new bridges, but there aren’t very many of those now.)  Some of my friends believe in “peak oil.”  That is the theory that there will be no more increases in oil extracted from the earth; that we have hit the max and it is all downhill from here.  I don’t know, but we keep using more, and certain political groups deride wind and solar and all attempts to wean us off this sticky drug.  Note that significant businesses and countries like China are going full out to develop new sources of energy.  They know what’s coming.

Back to the title.  I hate to call any one a whore.   But this woman has sold her soul to the biggest devil in the world, the oil industry.   And she likes coal, too.  But the Johns that pay her are far worse.  They will do anything for money; they are the real whores; maybe even the Biblical whore of Babylon.  All of the ads are available on youtube.com, and many of the comments there are more angry than mine.