"I never had an animus against their size and wealth, never objected to their corporate form. I was willing that they should combine and grow as big and rich as they could, but only by legitimate means. But they had never played fair, and that ruined their greatness for me." -- Ida Tarbell

My father introduced me to the writings of Ida Minerva Tarbell after I became involved with the politics of Big Oil. I was fascinated by this woman whose work captured the minds of a nation and a president and eventually led to the dissolution of Standard Oil Company in 1909. Oil historian, Daniel Yergin, called her 1904 book, The History of Standard Oil Company, "arguably… the single most influential book on business ever published in the United States" (Yergin 1991, 105).

It has been one hundred years since Ida Tarbell published her trust-busting book. Oddly, I feel as if the players in this great drama have been reassembled. The ExxonMobil merger in 1999 reunited the two largest chunks of the dissolved Standard Oil Company (Standard Oil of New Jersey [Exxon] and Standard Oil of New York [Mobil]). David Rockefeller, Jr., the great grandson of John D. Rockefeller who created Standard Oil Trust, uses the fortunes of his ancestor to bring public awareness to the plight of our great oceans to help safeguard our seas for future generations.

And now this book--raking through the muck of Exxon's indiscretions after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, I found the amoral, predatory behavior described by Ida Tarbell still applies to Exxon's behavior today. I can only write of it; whether the public and politicians judge this behavior to be as unacceptable today as it was so judged one hundred years earlier will be up to the collective mind and heart of our nation. What we decide to do about this behavior will be a reflection of the morals of our times. But I believe that if we chose to do nothing, then Ida Tarbell's writings of the Standard Oil Co mpany were prescient: "I am convinced that their brilliant example has contributed not only to a weakening of the country's moral standards but to its economic unsoundness" (Tarbell 1939, 230).

Bill Watterson (1992) summarized the challenge we face in his Calvin & Hobbes cartoon dialogue:

Calvin and Hobbes are careening in their red wagon through the woods.

Calvin: "It's true, Hobbes, ignorance is bliss! Once you know things, you start seeing problems everywhere. And once you see problems, you feel like you ought to try to fix them. And fixing problems always seems to require personal change. And change means doing things that aren't fun! I say phooey to that!"

They pick up speed, charging downhill. Calvin looks back at Hobbes and says, "But if you're willfully stupid, you don't know any better, so you can keep doing whatever you like! The secret to happiness is short-term, stupid self-interest!"

Hobbes, looking concerned, points out, "We're heading for that cliff!" Calvin puts his hands over his eyes and says, "I don't want to know about it." They fly over the cliff. "Waaaugghhh!"

After the crash landing, Hobbes says, "I'm not sure I can stand so much bliss." Calvin responds, "Careful! We don't want to learn anything from this."

I believe that the curtain is starting to fall on the Age of Oil. Slow learners though we may be, as Daniel Yergin pointed out, more and more people realize that we are all in harm's way. Our "Hydrocarbon Society" (as Yergin refers to it) has become sickly with chemical-induced illnesses from the "petrochemical problem" (low levels of aromatic hydrocarbons present in our everyday environment). Yergin's "Hydrocarbon Man," Woman, and Child pay for oil spills and pipeline explosions with loss of income, loss of quality of life, and loss of life itself, while the corporations profit obscenely. Our system fails to mete out justice to corporate polluters. Our coastal sealife slowly sickens and disappears from low levels of contaminants, oil among others, which dribble into our ocean. Our planet coughs and sputters from the fossil fuel-driven effects of global warming, spewing forth intense storms in strange places and swelling her seas with fresh water from melting polar icecaps.

With so much 'bliss,' how much longer can we afford our oil dependency and what author David Korten calls our "suicide economy?"

Shifting energy sources is not as hard as it seems from the perspective of standing at the base of the mountain of fossil fuel power and looking up to the summit of alternative energy. After all, we shifted energy sources once before: in the 1920s, oil was introduced as the "clean" alternative to dirty lung-clogging coal fires and streets littered with horse droppings. People made the shift with the help of the government and business. Now we know there are clean alternatives to oil. The mountain looks a little different this time, because the people must initiate this shift without the help of government and the big energy businesses. But once we start, they will have no choice but to join us.

Climbing a mountain begins with taking the first steps. I invite you to join the pilgrims who have already started to climb this mountain of corporate greed and fear. Step one: do not purchase any ExxonMobil gas or other products, including stock--and do not take this action out of anger or revenge, but because you wish to make other choices that match your values. Step two: write a letter to the President and your congressional delegation in support of opening the 1991 civil settlement to claim $100 million for education on long-term effects of oil. Write another letter in support of a congressional investigation of the human health effects of Exxon's cleanup on workers (contact information in Appendix B). Your letters will make a difference. Step three: walk, bike, car-pool, or pledge that your next car will be a hybrid or some alternative that is completely free of fossil fuels--and purchase it soon!

If the collective will of the people makes these conscious choices, I have no doubt that together--the people, nations, and corporate businesses--we will scale the mountain before us. It is time to turn the tragedy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill into a starting place for the emergence of a revitalized, empowered democracy.