Have you noticed all the TV ads now being run by the oil/gas/energy industry? They're strictly public image pieces, and they fall into two broad categories: "Please don't tax us" and "Please let us frack".
In the first, we get a series of staged man-in-the-street mini-interviews in which Joe and Joan Baggadonuts give their opinions on a "new energy tax" to the unseen interviewer. What energy tax would that be? They never say. There isn't one imminent that I'm aware of, but the ad clearly implies that there is. And naturally, Joe and Joan think it would be "a really bad idea", and that "now is not the time for a new energy tax." (And when would it be time? Never? Oh, I see.)
In the second, industry PAC's and Exxon Mobil joyfully inform us of the bountiful natural gas that's been hiding in the rock right under our feet all this time, and tell us how they can extract great gobs of it -- cheaply, easily, safely -- via hydraulic fracturing, a.k.a. hydro-fracking. They'll just drill shitloads of holes down into the earth, inject water chemically-treated to be explosive, then make it explode, fracturing the rock and releasing trapped natural gas. They capture the gas, pump out the toxic water and put it . . . somewhere, and it's just all good and perfectly safe! Except that henceforth your tap water is both undrinkable and flammable. Relax. You'll get used to it.
I don't know much, my friends, but if we're so desperate for petro products that shit like this seems sensible, maybe we oughta go with Plan B.
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