A time for truth — weathering crisis together
Thursday evening, I was a guest on the nationally syndicated Jim Bohannon radio show.
For me it was an honor.
Back in the days when I spent a lot of time in the field, I listened to Jim’s show late at night while traveling. He kept me awake.
On Thursday we discussed gasoline prices, energy, plastics and the coronavirus. We also talked about Shale Crescent USA. There were great questions from callers. Toward the end of the show Jim asked me the question, “If you had the President’s ear what would you tell him?”
The question caught me off guard.
What I said was, “I would tell the President to always tell the truth no matter what, especially on the coronavirus. Americans can deal with truth. Second, to do his best to bring people together as a team to care about people first and fight the virus no matter what their political party is.”
Truth is powerful.
When I was in college and asked a young lady out for a Saturday night date, “No” was a good answer because it was truthful. I knew I needed to ask someone else if I wanted a date.
“Yes” was a better answer, if it was truthful.
More than once when I went to pick up my date her roommate said she had already left with a football player or her ex-boyfriend. I found out I was the backup plan if someone better didn’t come along.
The coronavirus is serious business even if we never catch it. Stocks have tumbled, impacting our retirement and our net worth. Jobs are being lost as things shut down. The NBA, Disney Parks and even church services have been shut down out of caution. NCAA sports events and high school basketball tournaments have been canceled or postponed. Schools and universities have been closed and are doing classes on line. We hope all of this is being done based on facts and truth.
One comment I have heard multiple times is, “The major media has cried wolf and lied to us so many times. How can we trust them this time?”
That is on my mind also. The Trump-Russia scandal cost taxpayers millions of dollars. I never heard anyone ask the question, “Why, would Russia ever want Trump to be president?”
Trump’s energy policy has cost Russia billions of dollars. Bernie’s and Hillary’s stated energy policies to restrict fossil fuel production in the USA would put the USA back into the pre-shale boom energy days, making Russia and OPEC billions of dollars and giving them power over what we pay at the gasoline pump. I thought Russia would be supporting Bernie with his socialist agenda. Surely the major media was smart enough to figure that out.
As an engineer, I have caught the major media in numerous lies and half truths about energy, renewables and hydraulic fracturing. Are they telling the truth now, or is this another way to get viewers?
On one news program in 2018, the governor of California implied that a 3,000 megawatt nuclear power plant could be replaced by 57 acres (5 megawatts) of windmills now on the site.
When California started having brownouts, they blamed the weather. The reporter never questioned the governor on his numbers and just accepted them as fact. People were contacting me from all over the country. The reporter either chose not to do his homework or was happy to get misinformation about renewables out to the public. I can’t trust anything that network and their news organization puts out.
People make daily decisions impacting their families based on what they hear, see and read. We all have an obligation to tell the truth to the best of our knowledge. Truth is the best way I know to give a consistent message.
This year I have been averaging at least two shows a week. I could never keep track of what I say on each show if it wasn’t the truth. The truth doesn’t change. We don’t need to get our stories straight if we tell the truth. Being a person of truth and integrity allows us to sleep with a clear conscience at night.
Some leaders sugar coat truth if it is bad or tell a little lie or half-truth if they think their people will be upset by the truth. As a manager, I always preferred truth to a lie. I can make good decisions if a know what really happened. Otherwise I might waste time and money solving a problem that doesn’t exist.
I remember when my brother passed from cancer a few years ago. He never talked about death. When we were at calling hours, I was shocked to hear his oldest son say, “I had no idea my dad was terminal. I would have spent more time with him.” Others knew but “didn’t want to upset the son.” He needed to hear the truth even though it would have hurt at the time.
What does this mean for us?
Each of us needs to be a person of integrity and truth. In these times of uncertainty, we need to demand truth, not hype from the media. We vote by who we listen to. We need hope but we also need the facts. Our elected leaders need to know we prefer facts and truth. They also need to know we expect them to work together for our common good. We have seen three years of expensive investigations and obstruction instead of cooperation. We need cooperation at all levels of government. We did it during World War II and to put a man on the moon. We need it now.
All things are possible.
Kozera, gkozera@shalecrescentusa.com, is the director of marketing and sales for Shale Crescent USA. He is a professional engineer with a master’s in environmental engineering who has over 40 years’ experience in the energy industry. He is the author of four books and numerous published articles.
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