“The oil and natural gas molecules produced in Colorado are among the cleanest in the world.”
The Colorado Oil & Gas Association shared this amazing fact, along with many other amazing facts, in a 2022 fact sheet entitled “The Colorado Molecule.”
I have a vague sense of what a molecule is… left over from a high school chemistry class that I managed to pass by the skin of my teeth. Most of the molecules we dealt with in high school came out of brown glass bottles labeled with letters like “NaNO3” and “HCl” and “Fe2O3“.
A key part of the course involved learning what these letters meant, and it turned out, they were all molecules.
Mr. Peterson (our chemistry teacher) also had some wood models he used to illustrate some of the simpler molecules.
I think this one was ‘ammonia’. “NH3”
Mr. Peterson kept these models reasonably clean.
I don’t recall any “oil” or “gas” molecules on display, however, nor do I recall any actual “oil” or “gas” molecules being used in experiments. Probably because they tend to catch fire or explode.
Mr. Peterson never specifically warned us about “dirty” molecules. But we did have to wear rubber gloves.
Turns out, molecules have unique characteristics, just like people.
In my quest to learn more about “clean” oil and gas molecules, I began with the belief that oil and gas molecules — no matter where they come from — are among the filthiest molecules on Planet Earth. (See the photo at the top of this page.) Stating that yours happen to be the “cleanest” of the filthy molecules currently destroying our air, water, and climate, is not exactly a claim to fame.
But the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA) obviously feels strongly enough about this idea to publish a report, in hopes that ordinary citizens like you and me will end up with positive feelings about their molecules.
Reports are not cheap nowadays, especially if you are trying to convince us of something we have almost zero chance of believing. Apparently, COGA has money to burn. Whether their money is also “the cleanest” is beyond the scope of this column.
As we all know, it’s become a lot easier to get people to believe crazy things these days, thanks to AI and social media. (And also, thanks to online humor columns.)
I like to grant people the benefit of the doubt, which means — in this case — accepting COGA’s claim that the oil and gas molecules in Colorado are indeed “among the cleanest in the world.” As a result, I was immediately hit with a strong feeling of cognitive dissonance — trying to believe two ideas at the same time, that are incompatible with one another.
Whenever I’m faced with cognitive dissonance, I grab a beer out of the fridge and turn on the TV. I find that the cognitive dissonance disappears after the third or fourth beer.
But when I’m trying to help Daily Post readers with possibly-incompatible information, I have no idea if they have any alcohol handy. This makes the undertaking more challenging, and requires what I often refer to as “creative insanity”.
When COGA talks about “the cleanest”oil and gas molecules in the world, people might tend to think about the residues of burnt petroleum products. Soot. Ozone. Carbon dioxide. Nitric oxide. Methane. Sulfur dioxide. Carbon monoxide. Secondary organic aerosols.
Like I said. Filthy.
But terms like “clean” and “dirty” and “filthy” have a secondary meaning, in the realm of humor.
A “dirty joke”, for example, contains one or more references to bodily functions. while a “clean joke” is one you can safely tell to your seven-year-old nephew without getting yourself lectured by his mother.
A “filthy joke”, meanwhile, is even worse than a “dirty joke” but probably funnier.
Giving COGA the benefit of the doubt, I’ve decided they are actually talking about the types of “clean” jokes told by Colorado oil and gas molecules.
Not the funniest jokes, perhaps… but the “cleanest”.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.