Proposed Mastaba: 500 foot tall stack of empty oil barrels.
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Constructed of 410,000 stainless steel 55-gallon drums. |
As the Oil Age skids to a halt, we should consider what to leave behind as testament to our era "in the driver's seat".
What defines us?
What will be our legacy?
How best do we sum up humanity's wild ride fueled by cheap, liquid energy?
Alcohol fuels our social lives just as Oil has fueled the last decades of technological progress, economic growth, resource warfare, and spiritual regression.
Nothing seems more fitting than a gigantic stack of empties. The party's over.
Just as a beer-a-mid memorializes a big weekend of drinkin', a gigantic pyramid constructed of oil drums would let future generations know exactly what went down when the monkeys got into Mama Earth's liquor cabinet.
But pyramids have already been done, and are so Egyptian. A "mastaba" (arabic for bench) would be unique and much easier to build since it's really just a gigantic stack of tipped-over oil barrels.Back in the late 70s' the artist Christo unveiled plans for this gigantic Mastaba to be built in the United Arab Emirates.
Christo calls the proposed Mastaba "a work of art whose only purpose is to be itself", so I'm sure he won't mind if the rest of us attach our own meanings.
I see a tasteful tombstone for one of the most foolish and short-sighted cultures in history.
Once the oil is gone, what else are we going to do with all those empty barrels?
I guess we could recycle them to save future generations a few bucks, but who really cares about the future at all anymore?
Also, by current standards 410k barrels of oil isn't very much.
When global oil production peaked in 2006, humanity pissed through 85.6 MILLION barrels of oil PER DAY. A mere one day's supply would fill ~210 of Christo's Mastabas.
Over the last 10 years humanity has burned through enough oil to fill ~720,000 Mastabas this gigantic. Just how big, you ask?
• Bigger than the largest pyramid in Giza, Egypt.
• 150 meters (492 feet) high.
• 225 meters (738 feet) deep.
• 300 meters (984 feet) wide.
Try to wrap your head around the total volume of that structure.
Surely it's enough space to rival the total volume of the largest stadiums on the planet.
Imagine the biggest stadium you've ever been to.
Now imagine 200 of those stadiums side by side.
Now imagine those 200 stadiums are all filled to the brim with oil.
That's what it takes to keep the global economy rolling along for just One. More. Day.
Most of that oil is burned wastefully in non-essential applications. All that carbon floats off into the atmosphere as carcinogens and greenhouse gases.
The Oil Age is not sustainable.
The Oil Age is in it's death throes.
If we kill it willfully and mark it's grave well, perhaps some of our foolishness will pass away with it.
More Info on Christo's Mastaba... let's get the fucker built.