Carbon Copies
by Rowan Rallison
A poem that places a billion-dollar industry inside a single human life, and gives thanks to little lights.
About this work
“Carbon Copies” is a study on the humanity of the Canadian energy sector. It is intentionally small, and it is inherently personal, which allows it to place a billion-dollar industry into a single human life. It addresses the often overlooked connection between everyday mundanities, an artist and their paper, for example, or a student and their aspirations, and the energy our world is built on. It gives thanks to little lights, and to the oil extraction industry for the careers it provides, and above all to the flowers, trees, and weeds from which we have energy in the first place.
The Canadian energy sector undeniably reflects Canada’s landscape, and as such, it cannot be separated from the people and communities who dwell on its soil. We are the future of energy, for we understand that it is not an evil, nor a good, but an inevitability. As is commonly understood in both political and scientific fields, energy cannot be separated from its provider and its output: carbon.
Above all, this poem strives to say, in an artist’s words, not a scientist’s, that carbon will always exist within us. Our world is made of it, and Canada’s energy sector has spent decades doing its best with it. It cannot be a solution to ignore it, for there will always be carbon copies, which is to say, other countries; carbon copies, such as solar power, wind power, and other forms of renewable energy. Our national energy industry, however, is a part of us. We made it ourselves, after all.
This work is a tribute to the boy who dreamed of making our fuel safer, and to the girl who’d heard of the hummingbird in British Columbia.
