Kids are born ready to learn. Ready to play doesn't come too far behind. They typically learn from being read books and playing with things. This much hasn't changed as the 21st century advances. They learn about (and play with) colors and shapes and farm animals and cars and planes.
Eventually they learn about letters and words and start playing with those, learning how to learn for themselves.
Then the video games kick in.
But before that point you can teach them about anything you'd care for them to know, with pretty much their undivided attention. And if one of the things you'd like them to know about is the virtues of hydrocarbon fuels, Barbara "B.B." Denson has someone (something?) she'd like you to meet: Gary The Go-Cart.
Gary is the title character in a series of children's books Denson has written with the intent of making sure they learn from an early age that "carbon dioxide is a natural and very good thing." The first book in the series, "Wind Blows", compared the reliability and environmental efficacy of oil and gas energy with wind energy.
Carbon in the closet
Like many anthropomorphized characters, Gary has a little buddy, in this case Sage the bird (sparrow?). They go about their rounds in a carefree manner, making sure to take time to smell the roses. But "then one evening on the news, the Greenies made their case; talking about carbon and how it was foul and base."
The Greenies went one step further, calling carbon a pollutant that makes the planet hot. "Keep it in the closet," they said, "or our planet soon will rot!" Carbon getting put in the closet is a metaphor for real-life capture and sequestration efforts.
It wasn't long before opportunistic politicians got on board, calling for a carbon tax to penalize any who weren't willing to get with the sequestration program and forcing them to "buy new gizmos" to better capture the carbon.
In a bit of stretch, perhaps used to make a point, the politicians even made Gary buy a new gizmo despite being nothing more than a little go-cart that delivered donuts to the mill. This put Gary in the universally uncomfortable position of having to "hold it" (the carbon) until he got home and could store it in the closet.
Sage doesn't like seeing his friend in distress and begins questioning the motivations of those making the rules and collecting the taxes. He then doubles down, pointing out that "all the critters in the zoo" let carbon out, people too, and that sequestering it "makes it hard for plants to breathe."
Gary took a look around and didn't see much of a difference. Only when he talked to the apples, and the cucumbers, and the daisies did it become clear that they needed more carbon to grow to their full potential.
Sage and Gary knew what to do. They broke away from the dictums of their regulatory overlords and started releasing as much carbon as they could. "The plants were all much healthier, the plants were full of grins. With carbon in the atmosphere everybody wins."
An author's note
Denson allows in a note from the author that Gary emits only CO2, "the type of carbon we are being told to sequester," and that real vehicles emit a variety of other gases including carbon monoxide, "which is indeed a pollutant."
The kids might not catch that distinction, but Denson wants to make sure they're at least aware that there are two sides to the environmental story.
Who knows what Gary and Sage will do next? Or why their adventures have double entendre as titles? As John F. Kennedy is quoted as saying in the book's 'For The Adults in the Room' section: "The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion."
Christopher E. Smith | Editor in Chief
Christopher brings 27 years of experience in a variety of oil and gas industry analysis and reporting roles to his work as Editor-in-Chief, specializing for the last 15 of them in midstream and transportation sectors.