Day 4: Spent most of today holed up in my guest room “den” at Jonny BearCub’s home tackling a backlog of videos piling up and in need of editing and posting, but not before first being treated to a hearty breakfast and more great company (including George Redstone and John & Linda Grandchamp). Shortly after breakfast, a call came in from KRTV Channel 3 (CBS News affiliate for Great Falls, MT) wanting to do a piece on the ride. Ended the day with an amazing home cooked dinner of potatoes and squash from the garden and local venison (garlic lime, sesame ginger, and buckaroo style).
As Tom Weis exploits these misreported 12 leaks in the furtherance of his own eco-career on his little bike, he needs to ponder all of the ways that petroleum has bettered his life as he pedals down the road:
– his machine-milled metal bicycle frame and rims, made in a factory powered chiefly by coal which was unearthed by diesel-powered mining equipment
– his lightweight clothing, which likely has plastic buttons, zippers and stitching made from the distillates derived from the oil refining process
– the well-constructed road under his rubber tires, in which the binder of the concrete and asphalt therein contains 1 to 10 % Bitumen — the same substance used to make Keystone oil flow with ease and has been used by mankind in roofs, dams, ink, rubber, gardening, etc for at least 8,000 years
– the eco-blogs that he and others will peck letter-by-letter on their little plastic keyboards, into computers made out of plastic, that then transmit their eco-propaganda over a chiefly petroleum-powered electrical grid for others to read on their plastic computers as they sip on their mocha latte
– and the list goes on and on
Tom Weis should at least give thanks to the oil workers, engineers, geologists, investors, government officials and millions of others who were at least kind enough to share their petroleum-based innovations with him … lest the remaining 99.9 percent of Americans label Tom Weis a self-serving hypocrite.