"From the family car to the dream kitchen, fossil fuel companies sold a vision of prosperity that depended on their own products. Grist dug up a century of evidence that shows how they did it."
"What does going on a date have to do with fossil fuels? Everything, according to the petroleum industry.
One advertisement from the pipeline company Energy Transfer follows two people getting ready for a date, the man primping with hair gel, the woman applying lipstick, before meeting at a bar. “That connection was brought to you by petroleum products,” the narrator says. “But what if we lived in a world without oil and natural gas?”
The story rewinds to the beginning, except this time, the woman looks bewildered as her phone with the dating app evaporates in her hands. She gets lipstick all over her cheek when the car she’s riding in hits the pavement without its tires. As his hair gel disappears, the man looks into the mirror, baffled. When they sit down across from each other, makeup, hair dye, and glasses fade away. In the game playing on a TV in the bar, a football disintegrates a second before the kicker swings his leg at empty air.
The commercial, which has racked up 7.4 million views since it appeared four years ago, taps into the fact that fossil fuels have become embedded in American life (what’s more American than football?). Oil and gas not only influence how people get around town, but also where they live, how they dress, and how they cook food in their kitchens. This all feels so ordinary that most people don’t notice how pervasive petroleum is, powering our lives while hiding in plain sight. Though it might seem inevitable that we live this way, a Grist investigation found that this idea of what’s “normal” was shaped by decades of advertising, public relations propaganda, and broader efforts to sway American culture, from radio programs to Hollywood films."
