The plan?

It hasn't been as long as it would appear since I made a blog entry--I made one midweek last week, but I removed it after it had only been up a half-day. You see--I was all excited about something called the Pickens Plan that a friend sent me an invitation to join. Just the Sunday before, while watching 60 Minutes (Rick's favorite TV show, which I could live without most of the time), rising oil prices came up, and I just flipped out at the absurdity of society's willingness to participate as if it's just fate.

It's such a ridiculous scenario to be so hamstrung by the oil industry when there are so many great energy alternatives to pursue--alternatives that would restore the environment and bring greater balance to the planet AND cost so little. So...I was passionately expressing my opinion about it, while at the same time, not really knowing a clearcut way that I could participate in making the change. So, when I received the invitation to join the Pickens Plan, I jumped at the opportunity because it seemed like an answer to a prayer. Actually, when I very first got the invitation, I wasn't drawn to it--mostly, I thought, because I didn't understand what it was. But then I began to explore the site and I was sold. So I signed up, made a blog entry about it, and then emailed some friends I thought would be interested.

It is a  a coalition of people who want to see energy alternatives replace our dependence on oil--NOW, not in some nebulous future--spearheaded by who I now know is infamous oilman, T. Boone Pickens. On the homepage of PickensPlan.com he says:

 
 "America is in a hole and it's getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war. I've been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil. On January 20, 2009, a new President gets sworn in. If we're organized, we can convince Congress to make major changes towards cleaner, cheaper and domestic energy resources. To get this done, I need your help...."

 

What's not to love about that? A visionary oil man? "A little odd," I thought, but anyone can see the light! That's when I jumped in with both feet and published my blog entry and sent my emails.

Then Rick informed me who T. Boone Pickens is. He's the guy behind the Swiftboat attacks that went a long way toward sinking John Kerry's presidential bid, giving us another 4 years of George W. and the gang. He is not known for his honesty and integrity, and is quite the greedy schemer (he's currently working on trying to sell the city of Dallas the gazillions of gallons of water he bought up water rights to in west Texas--read about that here). I wasn't ready to bail just on that--didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so I did a little exploring of the Pickens Plan community to get a better feel for things.

You know--I don't really care if he stands to make a bunch of money as long as this project has more integrity than he seems to. Unfortunately, what I found in the forums was a hotbed of political divisiveness, ugly name-calling, Obama-trashing, and lots of toxic energy, so I decided to bail out. That's when I pulled the blog entry. It just felt wrong to be allied with that energy (pardon the pun!) and to promote it using this venue.

Then, the same friend that pointed me toward the water rights article sent me information that points to Pickens being a key player in a series of hush-hush high-level meetings with Cheney, Ken Lay of Enron infamy, et al, that coincides with the commencement of the extremely steep, rapid rise of oil/gas prices. Very curious. What might this push for alternative energy have to do with this?

I'm still conflicted over it all. Somehow now I can't seem to trust that this person, who seems to have done so much damage to our country in the name of greed and thirst for power, has a plan that can really make a difference for our country and the planet without some built-in, secret traps. But his plan looks a lot better than any other anyone has put forth in a major way and it is galvanizing tens of thousands of people like me who would like to know what to do to make difference. Can someone with his track record give birth to something that will really help, with no hidden, detrimental agendas?