Thank you oil, coal, gas

A friend of mine has now started offering blessings to his sources of non- renewable energy.

It’s a great way of coming to terms with our collective reality – Australia’s wealth relies on energy sources crudely sucked from the planet, and being grateful can at least ease the blind rage resulting from being continually let down by timid politicians and corporations unwilling to change.

Blessed are our cars that run on petrol (refined oil). Blessed are our gas cooking and heating from LPG. Blessed are our lights and electricity from coal. And of course blessed be the crude oil that provides the plastics that makes us more stuff, including the computer I’m writing on.

These beatitudes also extend to our food sources – blessed is the trucking industry (diesel) that moves our foodstuffs around this nation. Having thus blessed our energy sources and absolved any sense

of guilt, it is now imperative to seek alternatives to these outdated systems. First we must overcome the great failings of the manufactured political divide.

Right-wing ideology, we are told, scorns the questioning of its practices, and celebrates the triumphant free market economy. The left wing, it is said, tries to limit all the fun the free marketeers are having because the ice caps are melting and others are starving.

The failings of both ideologies are also dripping with religious overtones. The garden of Eden – or the planet – is ours to do what we like with, but we haven’t even learned all the names of the animals and plants yet. Is ‘go forth and multiply’ still the accepted axiom?

Hope is the best medicine, and that starts with gratitude. I am extremely thankful that Australia is so privileged and has the potential for evolution.

Blessed is our ability to change our minds for the better.