looking death in the eye

I went to the oil industry exhibition this week. There were thousands of fat middle-aged men, looking unhappy. I sat drinking a cup of coffee provided by Oxy Petroleum, surrounded by expensive machinery for making holes in the Earth. The flow of people was like the flow of thousands of ants, players in a mad drama. Most are alienated cogs in the system, wanting to believe that the overpaid men on the boards of Total, BP, Exxon, Chevron and Shell know what they are doing. The rising temperatures, freak weather events and droughts are not real to these folks. What is real is their shiny machinery, the complex computer software, and the conviction that the oil will never run out.

mother sky