Wait, What?: A Poem

Foreword

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a technology that proposes to capture carbon emissions at fossil-fueled power plants and industrial facilities. The carbon is transported and then either sequestered underground or put to use, such as through carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines.

Currently, over 5,000 miles of CO2 pipelines exist across the country. By 20250, 96,000 miles of new CO2 pipelines are expected to be built — enough to wrap around the earth four times — to transport just 15 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions.

One of these pipelines is BP’s proposed CO2 pipeline in Northwest Indiana. As part of the recently-announced Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen (MachH2) Hub under the Department of Energy and funded by the federal government, BP plans to capture, pipe, and store up to 23 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from its Whiting refinery and neighboring industries from the hydrogen-making process across Lake, Jasper, Newton, Benton, White, and Pulaski counties.

Educate your neighbors about the dangers of CCS and CO2 pipelines, and learn more about how you can take action at jtnwi.org/no-false-solutions.

Wait, what?

A billion dollars is

About to trickle down on the Midwest from D.C.?

So that carbon dioxide won’t pollute the skies more?

Wait, so now we can capture that stuff from the Periodic Table of Elements

That we all had to memorize in high school?

C is for carbon; O is for oxygen.

Perfectly safe, right?

Wait, who?

They! People who deal in oil, gas, and steel!

And ethanol, ammonia, cement, diesel, electricity…

They want the elements in their wallets, not in the skies.

Just spell sense with dollar signs, and it makes perfect $en$e, right?

Wait, how?

So, carbon emissions are captured from the towering places that create

Electricity, ethanol, gas and stuff, and then…

These emissions get distilled, compressed, and chilled!

Just like water, CO2 is changed from a gas to an almost liquid

So they can high-pressurize the flow into a pipeline,

And either sequester it - that means save it until you need it - or

Shoot-it-underground-under-old-oil-or-gas-fields,

Where the force of the whole process will

Pushhhhhhh more oil and gas up to the surface

So people can use it and…

Wait, what? Then we get more fossil fuel polluting the skies?

That’s NOT a solution – that’s more pollution!

Wait, where?

There won’t be any problems in our backyards, will there?

That’s where your part comes in –

CO2 might simply stay where it’s been put, hiding under the ground

Or lurking in a pipe in a grid,

And your part is to wait maybe 30 years or forever

And hope and pray the countrywide grid will always be safe from

Earthquakes, burst pipes, accidents, corrosion.

The pipelines might never explode

And poison everything around them, or…they might.

Wait, why?

Fake clean energy, what a sell!

Since the existing pipelines already buried all over the USA

Could never withstand the force of CO2,

The plans are to build enough pipelines to circle the earth 4 times,

But put them all right here in your backyard that we call America.

They’ll go only 5 or 6 feet under, or deeper under aquifers and salty places, for instance,

And yes, once again, your part is to hope and pray for no inevitable explosions to happen.

By the way, please don’t put Sataria, Mississippi, into your search bar.

The people in charge of the pipelines hope that we, the people

Don’t care about the farmlands, the eco-systems, or the Eminent Domain

That has been bought and sold.

Wearing the disguise of saving the planet

Billions of dollars are telling the USA,

Land of the Brave New Experiment,

That in order to save the planet, we have to destroy it first.

Wait, whaaat?

That’s definitely not a solution. That’s only more pollution…

Wait, who? You?

You don’t want to just hope and pray?

You’ve done the research, been to school?

You’re a climate activist advising the EPA on how best to rule?

Don’t miss a beat then, just like these rhymes,

You’ve just a few years left to turn back our climes.

Climate change is no fairy tale, but this magic spell exists -

To keep things just, we must transition:

Get educated, get green, set standards, sustain and

Don’t buy into their illusions. There really are solutions…

Forget about indifference. Our future demands magnificence!