Citizens (?) Rally for Global Warming

Houston, Texas, unremarkably enough, was the site of a citizen rally yesterday celebrating big oil and protesting Washington’s energy policies.  (NYTimes, 8/19/B1)  Hundreds of folks showed up at the lunch-time event, along with a high school band, a video of country singer Trace Adkins, and a local-celebrity rodeo announcer as MC. 

The rally was organized by a group calling themselves Energy Citizens, a group which unsurprisingly enough is underwritten by the American Petroleum Institute, the main trade group of the oil industry.  Who else, I ask you, would have provided the bounty of hot dogs, hamburgers, and yellow T-shirts saying stuff like “Create American Jobs Don’t Export Them.”  Who else would have bused Energy Citizens to the rally, from their posts at oil companies, in order to protect the environment?  (“If we all drove in cars, it wouldn’t look good,” said James Hackett, chief executive of Anadarko Petroleum, who attended the rally.)

The atmosphere was described by the Times writer as “buoyant.”  A lunchtime party provided by the boss, off-site, could certainly be buoyant.  But do these happy workers have a clue as to what is at stake?  I expect they understand that they are being manipulated by the corporations, but do they know what is at stake?  Billions for the oil companies.  And for the rest of us, the planet.

Greenhouse gas legislation barely passed the House in June, and the Senate is expected to bring out its own version in September.  But will such legislation ever pass, even though the majority of Americans understand that it is crucial to move, and now, and this issue?

Last week Greenpeace discovered an oil industry in-house memo sent out by the API to its members (including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips), the oil industry is planning to increase pressure on Congress by sponsoring these public rallies.  “It’s a political hit campaign,” said Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace.

Apparently the oil industry folks feel that their industry has been unfairly treated–”pushed around” and “punished,” said David Leland, a map maker for NFR Energy. 

Our scientists have been telling us for over 10 years now that if we don’t make changes soon, we will soon move beyond the point where regeneration of the planet is possible.  And “soon” has recently changed by consensus to “now” by the most knowledgable scientists and climatologists in the world.

So let me just ask you oil industry folks–what is your life about, anyway?  Do you care about your children and grandchildren?  Do you care that millions might die from floods and droughts?  Do you know what kind of fire you’re playing with, for your petty schemes to make a buck?  When you come to your last moments on this earth, how do you want to be remembered–as someone who worked to block greenhouse gas legislation and trashed the earth?  Because let me just tell you something: you will be accountable to those who follow.  They will know you for how you lived, what you valued, and how you used your power in the public sphere. 

What do you want to be remembered for?  It’s a singular question that each of us needs to ask every day when we wake up–and then in so far as we are able, we need to live accordingly.