Digging Holes Into Your Mother Earth

In the spirit of destruction of the world, have you considered a career in it? It's evidently the coming thing if you're setting out to make money and lots of it ... and who knows, you may live to use some of it too.

This item in my newspaper this morning really disturbed me, like asking some one have they considered selling things to people who don't want them, don't need them, and can't afford them, and doing it really, really well.

This is a good time to look for a job in the oil industry.

The price per barrel hasn't hit the century mark this year, as many observers had predicted, but it's hovering in the high $80s.

As oil prices boom, the people who know the secrets to pumping oil out of the ground are becoming more valuable. And Texas universities are churning out more petroleum engineers than any other state as well as hundreds of geologists.

"We've easily doubled the number of applicants since the price of oil went up," said Dr. Tim Taylor, a senior lecturer in the petroleum and geosystems engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin. "We're trying to control the number enrolled at around 400, but it's hard to do because we're getting so many applicants."

The last oil bust thinned the ranks of oil workers so severely that the industry faces a labor shortage that could make it difficult to meet U.S. energy needs.
(snip)
But Ms. Welker, the social coordinator for the Undergraduate Geological Society at the University of Texas, says most of her peers don't base career choices on commodity markets. They truly love rocks. "No one says, ugh, I'm doing this for the money," she said.

"Not like business students. You see a lot of unhappy business students."

Okay, I admit it, I got a really good giggle out of that. And I am a rock collector, my favorite gift this season is a geode that was cut open to reveal a crystal formation in the shape of a perfect star. One half is going to the grandson who loves rocks, fossils, arrowheads and such, one half is MINE.

I also have ammonites, (snail fossils), petrified wood and rose crystals which are rose colored, rose shaped, and form naturally in Oklahoma. Rocks are wonderful things, and studying them is a good education.

However, the thought of diligently studying for a career in the oil fields perpetuating a fossil fuel economy makes me cringe. It's like the "w" portfolio, that invested in all of the cretin in chief's favorite industries, Halliburton, Carlyle Group, oil companies of all sorts - and did very well the past 7+ years.

Money is nice, but not a good enough reason to violate the earth. And I sincerely hope none of my descendants will pursue it at that cost. Guess that's my Xmas wish.