Oil-y, the consumer and civic society with petroleum products

One of 50 pumps across the former gravel pit, now Kent County park. 4/2020

The smell of ancient plant and animal life drawn up to the surface from a pool some depth underground is rich and dark, like the raw petroleum itself that accumulates in a tank farm some distance away. Probably an expert of smells could name a dozen or more olfactory elements that contribute to the complex inhalable cloud of prehistoric earth.

Many of the oil wells scattered discretely around the large county park (Millennium Park) west of the city of Grand Rapids are idle now with the world oil commodity price adversely affected by gamesmanship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Russian Federation. With a barrel of crude oil selling for $20 or less, the cost to pump, store, and transport it is more than the oil itself is worth now. But this particular well was still running on Thursday, April 16, 2020.

Since early March many of the states around the USA have issued orders for "stay home; stay safe" (self-quarantining) to minimize the travel of people and therefore the transmission of Covid-19. By forcing people all around the world to break their routines of movement and consumption and production, there is time to reflect on status quo Free Trade and Capitalism for the wealthy. But until renewable sources of electrical power take over from the fossil fuel used to make steam to spin the generator turbines, then pumping oil (above) will continue to take place.

Hopefully, the C-19 "stay at home" shock will cause more people to face the impending disaster of sustained extreme weather events, coastal destruction, and the man-made sources of ecosystem loss. Thank goodness for the persuasive reporting, region by region of USA about the expected effects of sustained extreme weather, in the 2014 PDF from Hank Paulson (former US Treasury Secretary) and Michael Bloomberg (former NYC mayor), https://riskybusiness.org/site/assets/uploads/2015/09/RiskyBusiness_Report_WEB_09_08_14.pdf