Opulent homes, immaculate lawns. Another language, at least on the street signs. It’s 3:00 p.m. when I find myself in front of the home of Richard Bonenfant, president and CEO of ShaleCorp Energy Inc. — that’s if the corporate information on the business register is up to date. The other board members’ personal addresses are also written in the register, available to the public, free of charge, at any time. This time I’ll get to see the havoc wreaked by my work. In any case, extra security measures are always temporary.

I’ll be back, Dick.

Energy. En-er-gy! Whatever would we do without it? Why, we’d perish in the most abject suffering, that’s what. The world would be plunged into chaos. We’d devour ourselves like swine deprived of their dose of antibiotics. People are so afraid, so cold. They’d rather suffocate than change. And can we really blame them?

I could have chosen animal rights as my cause, but then cruelty has always been an integral part of human nature. There are just too many people to choose from. And then where to draw the line? Would I kill everyone who eats at McDonald’s? What about KFC? Ranchers? Slaughterhouse employees? The executives of the agri-food conglomerates? Their majority shareholders? The syndicates who invest in the multinationals? The politicians and governments who don’t take action? The people who vote them in?

There’s no such thing as absolute integrity. Even vegans are ill-positioned to cast the first stone. Tea and coffee, no matter how fairly traded or organic it claims to be, comes to us from faraway places with a massive carbon footprint. Growing soy and almonds sucks up all the groundwater. Demand for ancient grains and exotic legumes destabilizes markets and steals the livelihoods of African subsistence farmers. And let’s be honest: no one likes a do-gooder!

Don’t get me started on the entertainment industry. Tigers whipped until they perform on command, dancing monkeys in porcelain masks, horses spurred on until they dislocate their legs, starved whales, and asthmatic epileptic dogs with lumbar strain, bladder cancer, and conjunctivitis. Doves asphyxiated in the bottoms of black top hats. Bullfighting. Frozen fish forgotten at the bottoms of ponds. Puppy mills. Caged birds.

To blow up an aquarium and all its occupants would take a bomb. Too much hassle. Truth be told, I’m a little bit lazy. ShaleCorp is an obvious symbol whose CEO just happens to live a few kilometres from my home.

Alone.