My last refuge of personal time disappeared this week.

Most mornings I get up early. Really early. 4:30 early, so I can drive down the mountain to my gym and work out before I commute to Denver. It’s the kind of schedule that makes grown men shudder, but I do it because I like to have that Me Time. If you have small children and a pressing, extroverted job, you know how important Me Time is (and you probably skip a few hours of sleep to get some too).

But now I can’t get even get my pants on in the locker room before someone wants to talk about hydraulic fracturing! People who I have known for years as sane pillars of the early-hours-workout-community begin to act insane.

Because I’m a geologist and environmental scientist I know it is NOT the fluids in hydraulic fracturing fluid that somehow supposedly traveled through 4,000 feet of impermeable Pierre Shale to contaminate their drinking water is causing them to act like this. I know there are layers of cement and steel isolate oil and gas drilling fluids protecting their drinking water.  But they don’t.

And for some reason it is fashionable at the moment to act ludicrous (and rude, I might add) when talking about anything related to oil and gas drilling, especially if you get to use (or more often misuse) the term “fracking”.

I simply don’t understand what is causing this collective nuttiness. After all, we are all co-conspirators in this great societal expansion fueled (pun intended) by a recovering, expanding economy based on, among few other things, affordable, plentiful, available fuel. Most of the fuels that WE ALL DEMAND every day, at nearly every moment are hydrocarbons. 

We each vote with our fingers and toes – turning on light switches and pushing gas pedals. 

So when did it become fashionable to act self-righteous and indignant about energy producing activities that we each require?

I propose a rebellion of sanity where we each take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for our fuel choices, and quit blaming the industries that supply the products we demand. Let’s educate ourselves, and if you don’t like what you learn, then vote with your fingers and toes. Demand less. But don’t blame the companies providing you with the energy you require.

And, if you are at my gym, let’s wait until we are dressed to finish this discussion.