Changes in our Lives

  As we shuffle through this mortal coil, we make many changes in our lives.  The things that at one time meant the most to us will fall by the wayside, temporarily or in some cases, permanently. New challenges and experiences will step in to grab our interest, and these may become the new driving force for us, or they

may end up being one more step on the journey through life.  

 

  Recently I have taken up writing, and have to date written two novels. As a beginning writer, I now realize that the first draft is rough, really rough. I see a long time in the editing phase as I re-learn all of the grammar that I have forgotten since I was a student in those long ago days. To that end, I joined a writing group, and we meet every other week to be a combination critique, cheering section, and motivational group. They are cheaper than a therapist for trying to reclaim any shred of self respect after two weeks of tearing apart every word that I have put on paper. 

  As part of our group, we often set goals and do writing exercises. The last meeting set a goal of creating an online presence through a blog, or if we already had a blog, to get back to writing. The catch was that a random idea generator would pick our topic. The topic that came through this descent into computer alchemy is "Will Butter Rule the World."  That's it, no more suggestions, no guidelines. The only caveat was that we should aim for five-hundred words, I missed that last one as we were on vacation, so I went over.  We met again last night and lo and behold, not one of us had published on our blogs. So guess what our goal was for this week? You probably guessed it, to actually hit 'send'. 

  Well here goes, my quick jotting for my writers group.

The Rise of Butter

The end of the petro-economy or ‘The Great Greening’ as it later came to be known, did not arise from the efforts of the environmentalists as everyone anticipated. Rather it came about from the greed of the petrochemical executives themselves. Everyone in the early 21^st Century assumed that the race to stop global warming would be won by the citizens through a concerted effort toward altruism and the good of their fellow man. The truth is that the greed of the executives hid the fact that peak oil had long passed and the industry was on borrowed time. Trying to squeeze every cent of profits, they kept the decline a secret as the first wells went dry. Playing a shell game with shipments, they kept the populace in the dark about the end of oil until too many dry wells brought shipments to a halt. The ships that delivered the oil had dry tanks and the flow to the consumer ceased.

Industries that relied on oil closed, and one of the hardest hit was the agricultural industry. Reliance on cheap fertilizers derived from oil and monoculture planting led to crop failures in the first year. Hybrid seed that could not reproduce from the parent plant, grew wild and people watched in vain as their efforts to feed their families produced nothing of value for their stomachs.

The fledgling alternate energy industry, long stunted by the petrochemical companies, struggled to ramp up production, but ran into the same energy wall that the rest of society had, it takes energy to produce products, and the machinery that had been used to date ran on fossil fuels. A great effort ensued to retrofit these machines and at last they were put into production. The final straw of the petro-collapse was discovered when there were a shortage of lubricants to maintain any machine in working order. Work progressed on finding a replacement for high grade machine lubricants.

Most trees suitable for producing oil fruit had been cut for firewood on that first cold winter after the collapse of oil, eliminating several potential sources. Parallel research into the uses of lard or vegetable oils ran into the same problems, their products could not be grown without large amounts of fertilizers or antibiotics. The solution came from the dairy industry, and the use of butter. Researchers were able to refine butter and cheese into a high quality lubricant that would keep machines running for the foreseeable future. Countries that had banned the use of antibiotics in their dairy found themselves the leaders of the new economy as their herds flourished while their competitors hybrids succumbed to disease.

The dairy industry, already a strong lobby in the petro-dollar days, took advantage of the situation and rushed to cement their advantages in the marketplace by having advantageous laws enacted banning the use of antibiotic feeds in agriculture. This made the dairy industry the sole reliable source of fats and oils for industry and home use.

The United State, once a leader in the dairy and oil industries, found that their over-reliance on oil products and pharmaceutical farming, left them unable to maintain a domestic supply and their industries fell into decline. Canada, Britain and Germany having found themselves in a favourable position, replaced the dollar with the Pound(butter) as the favoured international currency. Butter is now revered as the saviour of the human race and is held as the new gold standard.