Will They Burn Us When We're Gone?

The oil in Arabia is dribbling dry. As ever, the alternatives fail to excite us. Fracking taints water and jolts the Richter scale. In the ash chutes of coal mines, death comes early in the form of black lung. Fission made a crass menagerie of Chernobyl, where irradiated animals scurry on odd-numbered legs; and in Japan history has repeated itself. Windmills cause insomnia and hypertension, say hysterics in tinfoil hats. Much worse, they depend on whatever way the breeze blows. And solar panels are fair-weather workers, calling in sick on rainy days. So we cling to our crude, despite the petering wells, and soon the lights will dim and the heaters sputter and the radios crackle with white noise, leaving us to chain the doors and crowd around fires in trash cans as we count the weeks until Ragnarök.

The people of Oregon have found another way. In the state whose slogan is “We Love Dreamers,” America’s imagineers have discovered a source of energy that’s all upshot. On April 23, 2014, the State of Oregon admitted to burning fetuses for fuel.