Wallace J. Nichols, Sarah Kornfeld and Andy Myers
It might begin like this: "Hello, my name is [your name here]. I am a petroleum addict. I've tried Valvoline, Vaseline, kerosene, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, and natural gas. I've even tried plastics."
The first step to recovery, after all, is admitting you have a problem. It's hard, but that's the way it goes.
Before any real recovery, of course, one must hit bottom -- the real kind of bottom, too, not the "worst hangover of my life, I'm never doing that again" bottom that always precedes a relapse.
In this case, true bottom is readily apparent in a Gulf of Mexico infused with toxic petroleum, in endangered sea turtles seared alive by controlled-burn cleanups, in the collapse of sea-based industries like oystering and tourism, in baby albatross bellies laden with indigestible, toxic plastic, and, of course, the telltale sign: our chief-addicts-in-charge babbling on CNN in complete denial, saying,"We're fine. We can handle it. It's really not as bad as it looks. We can stop anytime."
Except, we can't.
But, what if our government took the first step and heeded the intervention playing out before our eyes in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere? Several Presidents have admitted our addiction to oil, but none so far has had the 4:00am-man-in-the-mirror moment and said, "Enough."
Before we go on, let's define "addiction" so that we can understand our own complicity in setting the ocean ablaze and in robbing our children of their future.
ad·DIC·tion, noun: compulsive physiological need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly: persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be physically, psychologically, or socially harmful.
Sound like anyone you know? We're compulsive users for sure. And, yes, the substance is physically and socially harmful. If you look carefully, you will see the symptoms of tolerance and withdrawal, too: the ability to consume massive quantities, and the irrational, often-imagined pain reaction to quitting. When you are addicted, your body requires the chemical.
The dealers might be right, you know: the problem is us. We are addicts. This mega-industry is merely answering a societal need, just responding to an insatiable, albeit self-destructive demand. "If we don't do it, someone else will" they argue.
But, what if, for the sake of argument, we are not "addicts" at all, but rather hopelessly co-dependent on a gargantuan industrial complex and the mass production of petrochemicals? In that case, getting off the stuff wouldn't be as hard as we fear. What if beating the addiction was simply a matter of making different choices; choices that have been available to us all along, but actively and intentionally obscured by the dealers who don't want us to see them?
Clinically addicted or not, let's give it a shot. Let's kick the petroleum habit.
Here's our Twelve-Step Program fresh from International Petrolholics Anonymous:
Step 1. We admitted WE chose to feel powerless over oil and plastics--that our lives had become toxic and dependent.
Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves--lucidity and responsibility--and some voice deep inside whispering "oil is wrong" could restore us to sanity.
Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our individual communities, as we understood them.
Step 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our homes and lifestyles where oil and its products, such as plastics, were present.
Step 5. Admitted to ourselves, and to other human beings, the exact nature of our engagement with petroleum.
Step 6. Exorcised the need for a perceived "easier life" in favor of conscious living.
Step 7. Humbly admitted our shortcomings, our internal combustion engines and our bottled water.
Step 8. Made a list of all persons, animals, oceans, ozone, children, ourselves, plants we have harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9. Made direct amends to the entire living planet wherever possible.
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly changed it.
Step 11. Sought--through the sale of our stocks in companies engaged in petroleum mining and production, reduction in the size and/or change in means of propulsion of our cars, refusal of single-use plastics, not feeling goofy for saying "no" to a straw, feeling good about using our own bags, not drinking water from plastic bottles--to improve our conscious contact with our one-and-only planet as we understood Her.
Step 12. Having had a spiritual/practical/pragmatic/reasonable awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to people, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
We can engage the patterns of addiction and do what millions of addicts have done: come to grips, band together, use a proven structure to free ourselves, hold ourselves and others responsible for toxic behaviors, and be relentless in our desire to change.
So, let's do it. Let's start Petrolholics Anonymous. Meetings can begin just about anywhere: in a cafe, a basement, or a patio starting tomorrow. It will work. Will you be there? If so, can you bring some guacamole and chips?
Follow Wallace J Nichols on Twitter: www.twitter.com/wallacejnichols
Corporate America became an oil-pusher with the American Dream, a house in the Suburbs with a gas-guzzler or two in the garage.
This dream is based on false premises. The energy paradigm is wrong because it is unsustainable. The urban planning is also wrong.
Oil companies are pushers, the government is the enabler, we are the addicts and the patsies.
Collective denial is slowly being replaced by an awareness of the inevitable consequences of our addiction. Instead of our livers, it is the Gulf and the oceans and the atmosphere that are being destroyed.
Mankind is smart but lacks the necessary wisdom to break the habit. You can be too smart for the program.
If we are addicted, the Oil Pushers are not illicitly selling us oil, they are legally dispensing it in an unholy alliance with the automakers. This is a long history that goes back to the killing of metropolitan trolly systems and the building of the highway system in the US - and beyond. Like any good Pusher, the oil company makes sure our dependency is fed without regard to our health and welfare. So we have not only been made addicts, but we are continuously victimized while in our debilitated state to the extent that our livelihoods are imperiled. That is the most immoral of Pushers.
Still, I have to complain: we are not to blame for our addiction. We care not what form of energy propels our cars. We have no other way to get to our jobs and to our grocery stores. So we are trapped, but should not be blamed. This is not denial. We do know there is another way; just not one we can switch to wholesale today. We can only take little steps like buying BMWs and other foreign cars getting better mphs than our domestic CAFE standards failing vehicles.
We need to detox followed by more or less complete abstinence.
Cutting down is still being co-dependent. We must also live a principled life. This means not invading other countries to control access to their oil.
Without aliving a clean, principled and spiritual life, we will be unable to beat our addiction to oil.
Oil is killing us but, spiritually, we are killing ourselves, too, by going to war for oil and by polluting the Gulf and changing the climate.
I enjoy the intelligence of your ideas , agreeing with you completely.
Industrial hemp for car parts, oil, and building materials
American farmers need a new rotation crop, a new commodity is needed in the farming industry. Starting at the level of our soil. Then use the hemp for many items: food, clothing, cars, biofuels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRysD6TuhHU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il7yw0JFs5c
Can get high off of hemp
Algae for fuel
Give us two-thirds of all the farmland used last year for corn and soy fuel production, and we'll eliminate all crude oil imports,"
http://www.stellarwindbioenergy.com/?q=node/9
Here is another possibility if you don't like hemp or algae for fuel.
Overall, the LS9 process consumes about 65 percent less energy than today's ethanol production, the company says.
http://www.technologyreview.com/biztech/18827/?a=f
Plastics made from hemp. Healthier toys for our children.
http://www.hempplastic.com/newSite/index.htm
I would love to see a car produced here in the states that is made from hemp grown in the USA, hemp oil to lubricate the parts, solar panels( plastic parts hemp) for the battery, and algae gas. All made in America. JOBS
It needs to be grown legally in our country now.
Big wind and Big sun have downsides we are not willing to address (more addiction), Think birds and other life forms. I think fuel cells offer better solutions for today. But let's do hemp, too, and get away from burning our food in our cars. Heck, let's get rid of our cars altogether. And go back to trolleys. And while we are at it, go back to our inventive problem solving ways.
For example, we have seen great ideas for at least containing the oil spill like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP8iN4ZX1JU&feature=channel There are others, as well, but we evidently we don't have a president who feels powerful enough to act, or has not been prodded enough to take action. If you haven't written or email the White House to say stop the leak now, do so rather than posting here, please!
Elizabeth Kolbert: Field Notes from a Catastrophe
The dire dimensions of the gushing oil may prove much worse than has so far been grasped.
Can a thin film of oil on the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans accelerate Global Warming toward a Tipping Point that may endanger much life in the entire Northern Hemisphere?
A scientist has suggested the answer is yes!
Can the oil gusher be capped? Some qualified observers believe the answer may be no!
There is little evidence the White House or anyone else is developing contingency plans adequate to meet what may call for a massive emergency response.
See today's updated: What to Do? at http://www.aesopinstitute.org
The truly bold actions needed may create a huge number of jobs - and drive down unemployment in a manner resembling what happened in World War II.
Little known, and less believed, breakthroughs in energy could take us off of gasoline, oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power far faster than might be imagined. See for example the work of BlackLight Power that claims a barrel of water can replace 200 barrels of oil - I agree.
We need voices like those of FDR and Churchill to move the nation toward an adequate response to what may prove to be as great a crisis as humanity has ever faced.