SQUIDFRY 03.16.23: Customer No Service

CUSTOMER NO SERVICE… Squid was comfy and cozy in Squid’s lair while the first atmospheric river raged above the ocean’s surface March 9-10, but empathizes with the humans who were not faring as well. Squid sincerely hopes the people of Pajaro can return home soon, as well as residents along the county’s rivers who were told to evacuate or who couldn’t drink their water due to contamination. Squid also feels for the 37,000 people of Monterey, Carmel, Pacific Grove and beyond, who were without power for four days and more after the first storm pummeled the area.

As if sitting in the dark and cold wasn’t bad enough, residents suffered further indignities thanks to PG&E messaging. No power meant no internet, and yet customers consistently received text messages and robocalls from the company directing them to the PG&E website for information. Adding further insult to injury, the cell phones of thousands of Verizon customers were rendered useless for all but emergency calls by an equipment failure March 9, meaning they were completely out of the loop for notifications until service was restored on March 11.

It sounds to Squid like some maddening level of hell, but sadly it’s the real deal – care of a giant corporation where in 2021 CEO Patricia Poppe made $51.2 million in total compensation.

SMOKE SCREEN… Squid knows we need the rain and all, but it’s starting to feel like nature is being rude. Sure, the sun poked through on a handful of days in the past few months, but Squid remains deprived of Vitamin D – is three days in a row asking too much? – and Squid’s gelatinous skin has attained a corpse-like pallor.

But alas, climate change has created a paradigm of extremes – drought and deluge, fire and flood. Which reminded Squid of an announcement Aera Energy LLC – which operates several oil wells near San Ardo – sent out in December to imagine a “life without oil.” Aera’s email was accompanied by a “fact-based” YouTube video that shows a family putting on a backyard barbecue, but one by one, most of the things required disappear, because they include plastic.

Aside from the fact the first plastics were not made with petroleum – in a world without oil we could still have all those things – Aera’s press release leaned into the company’s local ties: “As a California-based company, Aera is committed to doing its part to help the state achieve carbon net neutrality.”

Fast forward to Feb. 28, when Squid got a press release from Aera announcing the company had been sold to two asset management companies in Canada and Germany. But not to worry – they also, in a statement, stress their commitment to California’s “smooth transition” to net neutrality. Like any other fossil fuel company, regardless of state or country, their commitment is simple: Keep pumping.