The poor oil zillionaires

To the Editor,
Oh my, all of a sudden people aren’t driving, aren’t flying, aren’t buying plastic or polyester, aren’t making widgets.
People who stay home, especially in warmer weather, just don’t need much oil.
The oil companies and the demand for their products have had almost unlimited power for most of my 74-year lifetime. Their output has grown like a virus, to the point that they can’t stop bleeding the earth because their profits might stop growing.
It’s time for some civic responsibility on the part of the robber barons. Where is their financial contribution to the recovery? Where is their willingness to leave the oil in the ground and furlough the workers? To donate oil to the national strategic reserve? To donate gas and diesel fuel to farmers spring planting?
As we all go through this time of enforced austerity, I hope we are all noticing how little we need, to be fed and comfortable; and how much we don’t need, if getting it endangers us; how good it is to spend time at home, with family, taking a break from servitude, interacting verbally instead of physically, being still, instead of in constant transitions.
Some of us already had lives that avoided unnecessary shopping, took place mainly at home, and had a secure, if minimal, income. For me, life hasn’t changed much, except I seem to have a little more money left at the end of the month. If everyone just lived as simply as I do, we could save the planet. And we could all shed some crocodile tears for the earth destroyers. Poor babies might have to do without their gold toilets and hunting preserves and castles.
Alima Fairchild
Rushford, Minn.