on certain ethical implications of fossil fuels...

Oil is a topic greatly weighed in discussions of the politics, economics, and ecologics in these, our times. Especially now, with growing concerns of politically driven supply shortages and environmental implications, we must look clearly at the reality of how we will continue to acquire energy, and what consequences will result from the means we elect to use. I wish to bring one more strand into this discussion, one which has been thus far ignored. I intend to address some inherent moral issues regarding the use of fossil fuels, apart from the resultant effects of said use.

Geologically speaking, coal occurs in seams which lie in various areas of the world at a relatively consistent depth below the surface. And these coal seams run roughly parallel to the the layers of sedimentary rock which again roughly parallel the basic contours of the surface of the earth. Oil, as a liquid, generally occurs in pockets or pools at some depth beneath the surface. These are the fossil fuels that we use to drive the feverish pace of our post-modern lives. And we acquire them by digging shafts and drilling holes to pull them up from beneath the ground.

What is coal? What is oil? Essentially, fossil fuels are the result of carbon, pressure, and time. And this carbon was provided by the decayed remains of living organisms, this pressure by the weight of the strata above, and this time by that mysterious river whose source we can only imagine.

So I ask, how might a great layer of the decayed remains of living organisms be layed down at a relatively consistent depth beneath strata of sedimentary rock at some time, rather remote from the present? The Noahic flood, of course. In this flood, according to the Scriptures, all living things perished save those on the ark. And when this great mass of living creatures perished, their remains would have settled, buried in the sediment at the receding of the waters. This gives account for a significant amount of carbon in a consistent layer beneath sediment for a great period of time. And the result is the layer of coal and the pools of oil beneath the surface of the earth. Consider also the fact that the world's great reserves lie geographically near what we might understand to have been the center of antedeluvian civilization.

And this is the source of some tremendous moral implications for the use of fossil fuels. How can we justify unceremoniously pumping the remains of our antedeluvian ancestors into our vehicles?

Nearly every civilization in the world considers the bodies of their dead to be sacred, things to be respectfully and soberly interred or treated in some ceremonious way. They are not to be violated, and certainly never to be trafficked. And especially those civilizations which are most involved in the fossil fuel industry would find the desecration or commercial trafficking of corpses to be simply unconscienable. Can you imagine such a thing in the United States? Or in the Arab countries where, by and large, bodies may not even be exhumed in even the most respectful of ways. And yet for decades we have pumped millions of gallons of the remains of real human beings from the ground, refined them, and crassly burned them at a rate of between ten and thirty miles to the gallon. Remoteness of time and lineage is not an issue: we are burning human beings to heat our houses, to run our cars, and to make shingles for the steeples of our churches. Ours is a world powered by the desecration of corpses.

It could be argued that we cannot know for certain whether a given amount of fossil fuel came from the bodies of human beings or from the carcasses of animals. Perhaps I am merely buying the remains of an animal at the local Sunoco. Perhaps it is not someone's grandmother who is fueling my trip to the grocery store. But is it really all that much better if you are pumping a puppy dog into your gas tank? Or a dolphin? Or a dead kitten?

One thing is certain: We must consider the moral implications of fossil fuels, and we must rebuild our energy policy after considering the depth of the realities inherent in our actions to date.