“Natural Energy” Initiative Fires Up

Fresno politicos joined hands, linked arms and stood tall with private interests on the first of the month and announced a bold new direction for the county’s one million–plus urban and rural residents: free, sustainable, locally produced energy.

At a press conference held in front of the smoldering remains of yet another dump fire at the Fresno Area Recycling and Transfer Station, they moved upwind and announced the ignition of an unprecedented regional effort to be coordinated by a new joint powers authority, the Bureau of Unlimited Renewable Natural Sources (BURNS).

“We can generate our own power, make it affordable for everyone and have it last forever,” said BURNS Chair Sonny Skyes. “We have wood. We have manure. We have plastic. Most important of all, we have votes.”

Officeholders and their controllers across the political spectrum have endorsed the effort and are forming a political action committee to push out a joint message, Politicians and Oligarchs Organized for Our Own Prosperity (POOOOP). POOOOP head Fresno City Council Member Ivana B. Mare pledged to flush away bureaucratic blockages with campaign slush fund infusions. “We want to cut the red tape and roll out the red carpet for private investors. Unfettered carbon capitalism will save us,” she gushed like a future oil lobbyist.

BURNS will receive $100 million in start-up funds through the state’s guiding climate investment program, Diverse Energy Leaders Advocating for Youth (DELAY). “DELAY is really the backbone of our focus on achieving net-zero emissions by an eventual year. It runs through all our programs,” said California Air Board member Lotta Time, a business equity advocate. “And this is a whole new generation of DELAY strategies: larger grants, no-interest loans, unproven technologies and, as usual, unlimited carbon credits to sell to fellow polluters.” 

POOOOP PAC’s goal of responding to the climate collapse with unlimited industrial growth is an approach pioneered by dairy owners known as Bowel Movement Capitalism. “Big Manure has really led the way on this front,” said BMC innovator, billionaire hedge fund money herder Cole Cash. In concert with public pension managers, Cash has created a “climate collapse guaranteed profits” fund: Carbon Offset Wealth (COWs) and offers investment opportunities known as Cash COWS. Small investors are offered smaller Cash GRABS (Green Renewables Always Buy Sustainability).

“The more we burn, the more we make, and the more we make the sooner we craft a profit-based answer to our environmental crisis,” explained Cash. “There is money to be made off disaster and maybe even a future.”

BURNS has targeted South Fresno, Calwa and Malaga for its activities and plans to create “pop-up” environmental collapse economic enterprise zones known as South of Clovis Anywhere Renewable Energy Yards (SCAREY). “We’ll put SCAREY facilities of any size next to anything or anyone any time,” said Council Member Mare. “POOOOP politicians will push them through.”

Described by one former Fresno mayor as the city’s dirty little engine that could, the SCAREY area encompasses Edison, Roosevelt, Sunnyside and Washington Union high schools. Emissions from wood grinding and burning, dairy digesters, dump fires of batteries and electronics, high-speed rail construction, and diesel truck–choked warehouses regularly blanket schools and homes in a toxic cloud.

The first SCAREY BURNS project to be built is a biomass and wood pellet plant operated by Sierra Log and Almond Stump Hydrogen Inc. (SLASH). “SLASH will be powering dozens of nearby homes while adding mitigated truck traffic and particulate pollution,” said City Council Member Cal “Enviro” Screems. “This project demonstrates that we can locate industry next to residential neighborhoods with no harm to business owners or additional costs to those industries. It’s a win-win!”

The third leg of the BURNS stool of a plan is combustion of methane from dairy herd manure, the gasses of which can earn owners more than milk. Through the Milk Our Manure (MOM) program, methane digesters will be added to every dairy in the county with priority DELAY grants. “With that kind of backing, we can increase herd size, manure and milk production, and create a stream of endless carbon credits to sell,” said local dairyman and county supervisor Doug Hole.

Not to be left out, the fossil fuel industry effortlessly joined the effort with the introduction of its latest scheme: Captured Carbon Underground Leaky Technology (CCULT). “Our CCULT members just want unlimited oil and methane production throughout the transition to Armageddon…unlimited, unlimited,” chanted faceless CCULTists who stood at the press conference in hooded black robes.

And to ensure the coalition’s approach is irreproachable, POOOOP has passed gas money to an advisory “citizens’ stakeholder committee” with representation from community, business, labor and faith leaders committed to the South Fresno BURNS vision. “We might live on the other end of town, but we know this is the best thing for these people,” said coalition member Dee Tatched, head of the carbon tax advocacy group Deceptive Economic Benefit Taxation (DEBT). “Our youth need carbon DEBT and regulatory DELAY,” she insisted. 

BURNS’ Skyes couldn’t agree more. “The synergy and cumulative impacts of the coalition’s efforts will be difficult to measure, but if by promising free energy to the many we can guarantee uninterrupted profits for the few, that—plus our bloated salaries—that’s reward enough,” emitted Skyes. “The BURNS POOOOP and SLASH with MOMs and SCAREY CCULTs’ DELAY and DEBT strategy of public pension funds invested in Cash COWS and Cash GRABS is the future of capitalism, or its end,” he explicated. “But we could all disappear tomorrow and these systems would keep on producing. It’s natural energy after all.”