Tale of a Fill-Up

So I pull up to the gas pump, even though I’ve got a solid quarter-tank left, because I was raised to believe that you never know when you’ll see another gas station, so you might as well fill up now.

Words to live by, no?

Anyway, I then whip out my brand new Discover Card, having decided that it’s worth putting up with customer service that’s as responsive as a coma victim because they want to pay me five cents on the dollar every time I buy gas.

Hey, free money is free money, and the only thing I got for free when buying gas before was a headache from all the fumes.

So I slide the card into the little slot, and then the message flashes, “remove card quickly.” This gives me pause, because “quickly” is a relative term, and I wonder if Irving Corporation knows how many of their customers are geriatrics whose quickness has abandoned them.

I remove the card in what I think is a quick manner, but then I get the “error - try again” message. Not quick enough, apparently. I try again. Still no dice. Maybe too quick. So I try a nice, slow, sensual removal of the card, as if I were using tweezers to pull a splinter from a supermodel’s genitals. Then it cancels my transaction completely.

Okay, my fault for getting fresh. I wait a few minutes, then try again. Because you never know when you’ll have your next chance to get gas.

This time I shove the card in there, and I practically break the sound barrier, pulling it out with blinding speed. Yes, I smashed my knuckles into the car window in the process, but the machine finally accepted my card.

“Remove nozzle.” A necessary step, one I would hope most drivers would not need to be reminded of.

“Select grade.” This part, fortunately, is easy, as there are only three kinds.

Pasta comes in about a thousand different varieties, from Angel Hair to Ziti, and every absurd shape in between, including sea shells and wagon wheels. My underwear drawer contains boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs, bikini briefs, trunks, and (sure, why not) the occasional thong, all with different designs and patterns.

Heck, Discover Card even offered me several dozen different options for my card design (I eventually chose Monet’s “Water Lilies” to honor my five-year-old daughter’s inexplicable interest in that French impressionist).

But when it comes to gasoline, your choices are Regular Unleaded, Unleaded Plus, or Supreme Unleaded. Period.

(At what point are we going to drop the “unleaded,” anyway? Gas with lead in it has been illegal for about 30 years. This is no longer a selling point.)

I select “Regular,” because a friend of mine who worked in the auto industry once told me that there is no reason to buy anything else, unless you drive a high-performance sports car or a military aircraft.

As I’m filling, I notice that this particular station is selling “CLEAN Regular Unleaded,” “CLEAN Unleaded Plus,” and “CLEAN Supreme Unleaded.” Thank goodness I stopped here; otherwise, I might have been filling my 13-year-old truck with 185,000 miles on it with the filthy gasoline from the station down the road!

The idea that any product derived from petroleum could be labeled “clean” was quite curious to me. Next they’ll be selling “clean” bait, “clean” loam, and “clean” gangsta rap.

I resolved to boycott any gas station advertising its fuel as “clean,” presuming any other station will accept my credit card without me tearing a ligament in my elbow.

The Real Problem

“The last time the oceans endured such a drastic change in chemistry was 65 million years ago, about the same time the dinosaurs went extinct.” -- Dr. Ken Caldeira, Stanford University

The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster has already produced a surface slick larger than Delaware, along with vast plumes of oil of untold size lurking beneath the surface. The spill, when and if BP manages to stop it by drilling relief wells (God, I hope that works), will probably total about 1 percent of the total volume of the Gulf of Mexico, based on current estimates.

We’re talking about a arge problem here, and I started researching for this column with the idea that the media were not covering it to the extent that it deserves. If BP does not manage to stop this leak (and they haven’t proven terribly adept at anything except making asses of themselves so far), there is no telling what irreversible damage could occur.

This could conceivably bubble into a 9/11-scale disaster, but we are not seeing 9/11-type coverage of it in the media, and the government is not showing a 9/11-type response. What gives?

Looking for facts, I stumbled into the above quote from Dr. Caldeira, a leading global ecologist. At first, it seemed to affirm my fears.

But, it turns out, he was not referring to the oil spill.

He was actually referring to ocean acidity. As oceans become more acidic, sea life finds it harder and harder to survive.

Why does this matter? Oceans absorb about 30 percent of all human-produced carbon, making them the largest carbon sink in the world. Microscopic plants called plankton are largely responsible for absorbing carbon and turning it into oxygen, much like land-based vegetation does.

Plankton, along with coral, mollusks, and everything that feeds on them, are vulnerable to increased acidity. The Pacific is already In fact, ocean water may become acidic enough over the next 50 years to corrode sea shells.

What is causing the increased acidity?

You guessed it -- too much carbon.

Too much burning coal and petroleum, in other words.

We’re fortunate to have plankton to clean up that mess for us, but it looks like we’re overloading their capacity. The result: worldwide plankton growth has steadily declined for the past 20 years.

The Gulf of Mexico situation, estimated at 500,000 to 800,000 barrels spewed into the ocean so far, is a colossal disaster. But Americans consume 25 to 50 times that much oil every single day.

Dr. Caldeira appeared on Good Morning America April 22, two days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, before anybody knew about oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. He said, “We’re risking something that will change the way oceans are for the rest of human civilization.”

That seems optimistic. Without healthy oceans, there could be no human civilization.

At some point, the majority of us are going to realize that we depend on the Earth in a lot of ways we haven’t even discovered yet. We survive thanks to a delicate balance of unique circumstances.

Then again, those windmills are kind of an eyesore.