Maybe me!
I graduated from petroleum engineering school in 1982. For some Medium/Mastodon readers, just making that statement is enough to cast me into the fiery depths of eternal climate change hell, never to be heard again by sensible people. May my soul burn and may my soul’s ashes burn, for all they care. In fact, I have had a handful of people on Medium and Mastodon unfollow me for admitting to being a petroleum engineer alone. But for those of you still reading, stay with my story a little longer.
My 48-course petroleum engineer syllabus had me taking two courses in thermodynamics, the study of heat. Heat is important when trying to separate the oil/water mixture from the underground reservoirs into separate oil and water streams at the surface.
Thermodynamics reinforced my high school science that energy is not created or destroyed, but changes from one form to another. The oil, gas, and coal are stored energy from the sun from millions of years ago. When we started burning these fossil fuels two centuries ago, we were heating up the Earth. We should have expected temperatures to rise because of that action.
My education had me working in chemistry labs. When heating up a beaker of water, the water on the bottom of the beaker became warmer than the water at the top. And, if I looked very closely, I could see the less dense, warmer water rising and the more dense, colder water falling. The warm and cold water preferred to swirl around each other than to pass the heat difference from warmer to colder. This process is called “convection.” So to expand that convection observation on a macro level, the burning of fossil fuels increases the temperature, so we should expect more convection cells in the oceans and atmosphere. Tornados, hurricanes, and ocean currents are convection cells. So warmer temperatures should make these convection cells more active. Climate will change — and not for the better. I figured this out in 1982.
I also had to take two economics courses as part of my petroleum engineering training. The law of supply and demand was well instilled in me. If we — the people — wanted to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and not make stronger convection cells, we should focus on reducing the demand. We can reduce demand by raising the price. So I concluded that we put a hefty tax on the price of fossil fuels. This tax would discourage use — and put money in government coffers. Other taxes could be reduced to offset these taxes. “Let the polluters pay more tax,” said I.
So in 1982, I was already an advocate for addressing climate change — even though I was in a profession, serving consumer demand, that was causing much of that climate change. Being a realist, I knew that the world could not turn itself around quickly. But the higher taxes could start the process and lead to less fossil fuel consumption. I was envisioning a 50-year transition. During this transition, petroleum engineers will have important occupations to serve society. But at the end of this transition, petroleum engineers might be occupational relics like stagecoach drivers are today. I was not worried losing my job or career in 1982.
But we really did not have that 50-year transition, did we?
Taking Political Action in 1986
In 1986, I was only a citizen with a strong opinion. Citizens with strong opinions generally do not have much influence. I wanted more influence. So I joined a Canadian political party. I didn’t just join: I became an active volunteer, hoping that I could get more influence in the party — to get my fuel tax (and a few other things) implemented. I attended many political meetings in the next six years. In my political circles, I was the only petroleum engineer.
Admittedly, I had some ambitions of being an elected politician. But after watching politicians closely for a year, I decided this occupation was not for me. I didn’t like the long hours of always being around people. I needed my downtime. But I could stay in the back rooms, where I would still have more influence than most citizens, even the activists.
As my political time passed, I was realizing life in a political party was dysfunctional. I was questioning my purpose to bring a better world by volunteering time into party politics and its petty power struggles, to which I also participated in.
Then my faction ended up on the losing side of an internal party election in 1992. We were put to the sidelines. I lost much of my influence.
Then I had a fork in the road. I had to choose one path or the other.
The Fork in the Road
Just before that internal party election, I somehow invented an alternative democracy. This democracy would address all the dysfunction I was seeing. This “eureka” was in contrast to my six years in political life.
Had we won that election, my influence in the party would have increased significantly. Drunk with my new power, I would likely have forgotten my eureka. Maybe the universe engineered my political loss to allow me think more about that loss.
After a couple of weeks of reflection, I decided to never again participate in party politics. I had been wasting my time trying to make a better world.
For the next five years, I really didn’t take my eureka anywhere. After all, I was not a person with any creds to be advocating for any new democracy. This project was a much more daunting task than a hefty fuel tax.
But in 1997, I decided to put pen to paper. The first edition of Tiered Democratic Governance was self-published in 2000. It went nowhere, which is exactly the same position as my fourth — and much better — edition written in 2017.
If my goal was to help implement a higher fossil fuel tax to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, using the last 27 years of my life has been a total failure.
The path I did not take
I could have continued with party politics. Losing that election was a small setback. While I made a few enemies, I had garnered experience and contacts for a comeback. I was still respected by many members in the party. I could have later worked to a higher position in the back rooms. Or maybe some day, I might have found the incentive to put my name on a ballot. I could have worked the system to get that hefty fossil fuel tax.
We never know if I would have been successful had I continued in this traditional political path for making societal changes. But we know for sure that my efforts in the last 27 years did not bring in that fossil fuel tax.
So if you are looking for someone to blame our failure to address climate change, you can add me to your list of bad people of the world. Here are your reasons to cast your blame:
1. I am a petroleum engineer and part of the “evil” industry.
2. I chose a path of activism that is not conducive to making any kind of necessary changes for society.
3. It was foolish to suggest building another democracy. We just cannot build a better system than the system we have right now.
Blame me, a petroleum engineer who entered and quit politics — if it makes you feel good about yourself.
Published on Medium 2024
I am a Political Leader. So says the AI.
