Toby G’s Declaration of Energy Independence

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE – FROM FOSSIL FUELS

Independence Day, 2014

We the people, in order to form a more perfect world, do hereby declare that we will free ourselves from the tyranny of Fossil Fuels.

We know that nothing lasts forever.  If we do not use the fossil fuel energy we have available to us now to build a way of life based on renewable energy then we will be choosing life in a pre-industrial society. 

We recognize that fossil fuels separate the haves from the have-nots.  They are the cause of massive conflicts from the Vietnam era oil fields of the Mekong delta and the South China sea to wars in the deserts of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.  Their extraction has caused environmental devastation and social injustice from Appalachia to Australia.

Production and distribution of our food requires 10 calories of energy from fossil fuels for every calorie of food produced.  We therefore resolve to produce our food locally as it was done by our forefathers before it was controlled by multinational corporations who supply the  petroleum based herbicides and pesticides that have poisoned the food, soil, water, and air, resulting in untold numbers of cancers, birth defects and diseases.

Knowing that doubling an ingredient in any recipe can lead to a disaster in the kitchen or in a chemistry lab, we recognize that the delicate balance of the web of life can be drastically altered.  Using fossil fuels we have released 200 million years of stored carbon into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide from burning coal, natural gas and petroleum creating an imbalance on Mother Earth which has already led to desertification, environmental refugees, sea level rise, and threatens to make life miserable for billions of this planets inhabitants

To an Empire, a Declaration of Independence is a Declaration of intent to be free.  We demand freedom from dependence on an energy source controlled by the few at the expense and ruination of the many.

We hereby issue a Proclamation of Emancipation from the slavery of fossil fuel and state that from henceforward we shall not rest until our world is free from the tyranny imposed by the control of energy.

We will work towards this goal until,

In the Future,

we will sit on our front porches,

with our family, friends and neighbors,

singing and playing acoustic music,

until the stars come out and shine down upon us,undimmed by the fires of fossil fuels