The end of the line arrived with a silvery jolt.
For a few days the grim faces of five oilmen rolled across the hungry currents of the news cycle.
The networks grabbed footage from a stream which originated in the dining room of an elegant hacienda in northern Mexico.
Five repentant oilmen told the nation why they decided to shut down their companies’ fracking operations. They recited lists of fracking’s dangers, urged other oil and gas companies to follow their lead, and called for a federal ban on fracking.
Each one of the oilmen offered up an apology and asked for forgiveness.
“We have murdered the land,” said one. Another looked into the camera and intoned, “All the poison fracking leaves behind are something you would expect the government to protect you from, but they don’t. We went to great lengths to make sure everybody was paid off. But just because we’re not cutting checks anymore doesn’t mean the payoffs have stopped.”
The oilmen spoke earnestly, as directed by their hosts with the cartel. As instructed, each of the five made ample use of words and phrases such as poison, unregulated, irresponsible, long term environmental damage, payoff and forever chemicals.
The five oilmen explained how their firms were immediately shifting their focus from production to research. Unfortunately, most of their employees would be laid off, although some would remain and focus on developing carbon capture technology.
The stream came to abrupt end. It could have been the end of the line but nobody knew or even how to find out.
