“Sydney! You look like you got a rock for Valentine’s Day.”
“My wife still loves me, Reg. I think. She’s in Queensland at the moment, taking a summer holiday. No, my publicity and environmental departments keep peppering me with information on environmental activist activities that they think will hurt our business.”
“Such as?”
“Two recent ones are the protests against coal exports from British Columbia to Asia via the Salish Sea, and the protests against the Keystone Pipeline taking Canadian tarsand products through the US. Taken together, they’re enough to …”
“Sydney. How tiresome! Your people, and you for listening to them. Any of my employees tried to darken my life with that nonsense, they’d be seeking employment elsewhere. I recommend that you do the same. You know as well as I do what global per-capita energy-use trends are.”
“Going up.”
“And what the global human population trend is.”
“Up. Spectacularly.”
“Either of those start going down, we pay attention. Until then? Forget it. Those people – my God, movie actors are so clueless – who are preaching ‘close this mine’ and ‘shut that pipeline down’ without paying any attention to the consequences of their actions? One blip in the energy supply – a spike in the price of gasoline, or, God help us, a brownout of the Super Bowl, and they’ll all disappear. Drowned out by everyone else who’s screaming to get their gas and electricity back. Unless of course, they’re doing the screaming themselves. Like those [ptui!] ‘global warming’ scientists who preach about climate change and then drive home, each by themselves, to their posh homes in the suburbs. Phooey! And any business that makes the mistake of listening to these idiots will be so Chapter 7. You know this, Sydney.”
“Yes, Reg, I do.”
“Good boy. Now you get those publicity and environmental staffers of yours to work casting doubt and shame on the rabble rousers and Lexus environmentalists, and reminding everyone else that if we don’t get to run our businesses according to their own true wishes, they might have to do without. Then come back here with a shine on your face that’s more appropriate to the occasion.”
“Thanks, Reg, I needed that. Speaking of the occasion, I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you’d be off somewhere summery, ah, romping with your Valentine.”
“I haven’t selected one yet.”
“Ah.”